North Carolina falters down the stretch, again

North Carolina’s 2025 NCAA Tournament hopes are all but officially over.

Facing an opportunity to get a big quad 1 win on the road, North Carolina’s struggles continued on Tuesday night at Pitt. Despite leading 61-57 with 8:26 left in the game, the Tar Heels scored just four points the rest of the way in a 73-65 loss.

The Tar Heels committed several turnovers and couldn’t make any shots down the stretch, allowing Pitt to go on a run, which was the story of the game. North Carolina led by 8 and 10 at one point in this game, but allowed runs by Pitt to see the Panthers get back into it.

And as we have seen too much this year, they can’t close out games.

Despite a strong start for UNC, Pitt was able to battle back in the first half after the Tar Heels built up a 10-point lead. The Panthers closed out the first half on a 8-0 run to cut the lead down to 44-42 at the break.

But UNC responded with a strong start to the second half with a 5-0 run to extend the lead a little more. Much like they did in the first half, Pitt didn’t let it get out of hand and responded again.

The second half was a back-and-forth battle. Despite 14 turnovers and Elliott Cadeau in foul trouble, UNC found a way to get the lead again as we mentioned at that 8:26 mark.

However, they couldn’t close it out as they watched Zack Johnson help spark a Pitt run behind his four blocks and a big three-pinter late.

This loss drops UNC to 13-9 overall and 6-4 in conference play, putting their NCAA Tournament hopes down the drain as they were a bubble team going into this game.  They are also 2-4 against Pitt in the past four seasons.

Now, they head to Durham to face off against No. 2 Duke in a game that could get ugly early on.