Damarco Minor scored on a stickback of his own miss with seven-tenths of a second left to lift Pitt to a 64-63 win over Stanford in the first game of the 2026 ACC Tournament.
The loss for Stanford (20-12), the tournament’s #10 seed, erases the sliver of uncertainty about the Cardinal’s NCAA Tournament chances.
I didn’t have Stanford anywhere close, but anyway.
The ACC continues to eat its own.
Pitt (13-19), the #15 seed, which needed an overtime win over Syracuse on Saturday to punch its tourney ticket, won with hustle and grit – 20 offensive rebounds translating to a 25-7 advantage in second-chance points, and 15 makes at the rim.
The Panthers led 31-23 at halftime, and took a 57-50 lead with 6:55 to go after an 8-0 run.
The teams traded the lead three times in the final two minutes, with Stanford going up 63-62 on an and-one from Ebuka Okorie with 26 seconds left.
The final sequence was wild – Minor was short on a contested three with 14 seconds left; the rebound had both teams fighting for the ball into the backcourt, before the Panthers regained possession, and the ball ended up in the hands of Minor, who drove to the bucket, missed a short jumper, then put his own miss back with seven-tenths of a second remaining.
The make was just Minor’s second of the day – he finished with four points, on 2-of-10 shooting.
Minor was big on the other end of the court, holding Okorie, a first-team All-ACC selection, averaging 23.1 points per game on the season coming in, to 14 points, on 5-of-10 shooting.
Pitt advances to the second round, where the Panthers will face #7 seed NC State (19-12) at noon on Wednesday.
State won the teams’ only regular-season matchup, 81-72, on Jan. 24.
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Chris Graham
