Tony Bennett couldn’t figure out how to stop Pitt’s guards from splitting double-teams, and certainly never figured out Blake Hinson, who went off for 29 points in a 74-63 win over Virginia on Tuesday in JPJ.
The setback snapped a couple of streaks for UVA (19-6, 10-4 ACC) – the eight-game in-season winning streak dating back to Jan. 17, and the 23-game home winning streak that had dated all the way back to December 2022.
It also took away a chance for the Cavaliers to climb into a tie for first place in the ACC, an opportunity that presented itself with Syracuse’s 86-79 upset of #6 North Carolina tonight.
For Pitt (16-8, 7-6 ACC), it’s a sixth win in seven games, a stretch that incudes W’s at Duke and at NC State, so, nice stretch run right now for the Panthers.
I want to give Pitt coach Jeff Capel credit here. His game plan, which had his guards working the two-man game with his pick-and-pop bigs, most notably, Hinson, got his team open looks on the perimeter and midrange all night long.
Credit to his kids, also, for executing the game plan.
A 33.9 percent three-point shooting team coming in, Pitt connected on 14-of-32 (43.8 percent) from long-range in this one, and the Panthers were also 6-of-8 on midrange jumpers.
Coming in, Pitt had been shooting 39.5 percent from the midrange, on 12.2 attempts per game.
Bennett tried to counter by going more with his mobile bigs, Blake Buchanan and Jake Groves, to try to defend Hinson (27 points, 11-of-19 FG, 5-of-13 3FG) and Guillermo Diaz Graham (8 points, 3-of-5 FG, 2-of-3 3FG).
The approach, using Buchanan and Groves in drop coverage on the screens, largely didn’t work, to either take away the open threes or to stop the penetration into the paint for midrange looks and kickouts.
This was an issue all night long, which is why Pitt led most of the way, going up by as many as seven in the first half, and leading 35-31 at the break.
A 9-0 UVA run put Virginia on top three and a half minutes into the second half, and a Reece Beekman and-one had the ‘Hoos up 43-40 with 15:42 to go.
A Taine Murray layup at the 11:28 mark got Virginia within one, at 52-51, but Pitt took over from there.
Bennett, trying to get more defense on the floor for the stretch run, might have tinkered a bit too much for the good of the offensive floor, when all was said and done.
Virginia, after that Murray layup, missed nine of its last 12 shots from the floor in the final 10:43.
Funny thing there – Pitt, in that same stretch, shot just 6-of-19 from the floor.
Hinson, though, was the dagger man for the Panthers – the 6’8”, 230-pound senior hit back-to-back threes, the second extending the Pitt lead to 10, and then bullied his way to a driving layup in the closing minutes.
A Jaland Lowe jumper with 5:17 to go got the margin to double-digits, and it never got any closer thereafter.
Beekman had 19 points, six rebounds and five assists for Virginia, which shot 50 percent (25-of-50) for the game and had just five turnovers – good numbers, right?
The one that sticks out: UVA was just 4-of-14 from three.
Isaac McKneely had 15 points (5-of-9 FG, 2-of-6 3FG).
Groves, who had averaged 14.3 points per game over his previous four, scored a quiet seven points in this one, on 2-of-6 shooting, 1-of-4 from three.
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Chris Graham
