In the first of a two piece series from the Pitt game, we addressed the different looks that North Carolina to get the ball inside in a 75-65 win this past Tuesday night.

The low post trio of Armando Bacot, Garrison Brooks, and Day'Ron Sharpe combined for 43 points. Some of the offensive fireworks happened against man-to-man defense. But Jeff Capel understood his team was outsized and tried to confuse Carolina with changing defensive looks.

However, Roy Williams did not become a Hall of Fame coach by being unprepared. Here is a closer look at some of the defensive wrinkles Pitt provided and how North Carolina answered.

Pitt shows a 3-2 zone with a quick initial trap on the point guard R.J. Davis. The other Panther out front is responsible for taking away any swing pass to the top. The safety valve against the trap is to put a player in the middle of the floor. Garrison Brooks flashes to the foul line and is wide open thanks to Armando Bacot's presence on the ball-side short corner which flattens out the back line.

The next rule of thumb is the middle looks opposite once he gets the ball. Brooks doesn't hesitate and skips the ball to Caleb Love. This creates a long close out by Justin Champagnie at Love's top shoulder. This opens up the baseline drive.

The next rule against the zone revolves around the interior passing game. Anytime the ball hits the baseline, the next look is for the high post diving to the front of the rim. Love draws the Pitt big, and gives it back to Brooks for the finish. This was picture perfect execution topped off with unselfish passing.

Jeff Capel understood that he couldn't defend the mammoth North Carolina frontline by just standing around in a vanilla zone. They had to disguise looks and use their quickness by trapping and rotating. We saw more of a 3-2 look in the first clip. Here they run a 2-3 zone with traps.

When the pass is made from the point to the wing, the forward takes the wing initially. He is then bumped off by the guard and then goes back and guards the corner. They do this on the first pass to the wing, but not the second time around. This allows a quick pass to the corner before the forward rotates. Pitt likes to trap the corner, but with the forward taking the first pass, he has to be very active to get back to corner in time to trap.

When Garrison Brooks catches the ball in the corner, he is trapped by the entire right side and middle of the back line. Armando Bacot gets underneath the help and is wide open in the middle of the lane, and too big for the guard who arrives at the last second.

This is the second play in a row with great execution and even better passing against the zone defense.

If I was going to do a coaching clinic on how to attack the zone, I would begin and end the presentation with these three videos, and here are the points I would make:

1). Attack the zone with an odd man front. In other words, the alignment against a one-man front, the 1-3-1 or the 1-2-2, is a two-guard front offensively. On the other hand, attack the 2-3 with a 1-3-1 offensive alignment. UNC does that. They have a post guard out front, a high post and two wings in the middle, and a post player long the baseline.

2). Move the ball side to side and reverse it. There are seven passes on this possession and no over dribbling.

3). The middle of the zone is the weakness of a 2-3. We have seen a high post entry in each of the three clips that has led to an immediate score. Here, Garrison Brooks gets the ball at the foul line after the ball reversal.

4). If the high post catches the ball, the next look is to the short corner. If the short corner catches the ball, the next look is to the high post. The cut will be to the front of the rim in both situations.

Now let's look at the other end of the floor where North Carolina's adjustments to Pitt's offensive wrinkles were fascinating.

Jeff Capel came out of the locker room with a different offensive look that made this game very interesting early in the second half.

Pitt ran a Horns ball-screen that was followed by a tandem ball-screen. "Horns" is when there is a post player on each elbow or just above it. The point guard would dribble to a wing and the bigs would follow and set back-to-back or "tandem" ball-screens. Pitt dissected Carolina the first few times they went with this set.

Here was the issue. The first screener immediately rolls to the basket while the second screener pops above the three-point line. Xavier Johnson is the Pitt point guard. When he comes off the ball-screen they hard hedge. Caleb Love goes over the screen while Garrison Brooks helps on Johnson until Love recovers. Johnson's goal is to occupy or "drag" Brooks as long as possible and get him as far away from his man, Justin Champagnie, as possible. When the misdirection throwback pass is made, Brooks is too far away to recover.

This leaves Armando Bacot, who took the roller with a one-on-two handicap. He has to sprint to closeout on the fleet footed wing and is no match on the floor. Leaky Black arrives to help at the rim, but Champagnie is an ultra-athletic wing who is one of the top offensive players in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

A moment later, Pitt comes back with the same type look to the right side of the floor, which leads to the same result. Xavier Johnson uses the ball-screen off the "Horns" set then comes back to a "tandem" ball-screen. There was a slight difference this time, the screener in Horns screens the other big, and he goes to set the first ball-screen the the "tandem" look. But Carolina defends it the same way.

Love goes over the top again, and Brooks hedges and is held with the drag dribble by Johnson. Love is left on an island again guarding two Panthers. But this time, Johnson finds the roller, Terrell Brown, for the uncontested dunk.

On the next play, Johnson rejected the tandem screen, dibbled baseline then kicked to the opposite wing for a 3-pointer. That was seven points in three trips. Pitt closed the gap to 42-38 at the first media timeout which occurred at the 15:43 mark. That was when Williams made a huge defensive adjustment that stopped the run and helped put the game away.

During the timeout, Williams changed the entire defensive strategy by switching everything in the tandem ball-screen. That is not something that he is totally comfortable with. With the size of his bigs, he would rather hedge and recover than switch. Remember, these are not your wiry small-ball bigs. They are old fashioned maulers who are not at their best matched up onto guards on the perimeter. But there were too many breakdowns against the duo of ball screeners.

This possession happened nine minutes after that timeout, but it was perhaps the best example of how they adjusted and the impact it had.

Pitt throws yet another different component into this alignment. Now the "Horns' screener rolls instead of re-screening. That means there is one ball-screen for the new point guard, Femi Odukale. Garrison Brooks and Armando Bacot switch the screen. It is noticeable here that Pitt runs the big-to-big ball-screen just like Florida State had success with. The same two set another ball-screen later in the possession, a high ball-screen. This time Bacot and Brooks switch back. Odukale gets by Brooks, but Bacot is there to block the shot.