**************************************************************************************

Remember, for just $8.33 a month, YOU CAN BE A TAR HEELS INSIDER, TOO!!!

***************************************************************************************

PITTSBURGH – Among the next things North Carolina must master, or at least improve on, is putting its foot on an opponent’s throat and pressing down when those opportunities are presented.

Carolina was in that situation Friday afternoon at Pittsburgh, but the Tar Heels couldn’t close the deal, as a 55-46 lead with 11:55 remaining turned into a 76-74 loss. A 30-14 Panthers’ run was the deal-breaker for the Tar Heels.

So, frustration was obvious inside UNC’s locker room not long after the game ended. Senior forward Armando Bacot didn’t shy away from what happened, or expressing his discontent over how the game played out.

“The second half we just let it slip away,” he said. “Playing a team at (their) home, we can’t afford to make mistakes and take a deep breath, and that’s what happened, and they just beat us.”

Bacot used an expletive that begins with an “S” to describe his perspective of how the team performed down the stretch. And he wasn’t off the mark.

Pitt was 11-for-20 from the floor during the stretch, including 3-for-8 from 3-point range. UNC, on the flip side, was 3-for-13 from the field, including 0-for-6 from the perimeter.

The Panthers outrebounded Carolina 12-8, had just one turnover to UNC’s three, and two of the Heels’ misses came when Leaky Black and Bacot had shots blocked. There was plenty of ugliness to go around, but a theme from the Heels afterward was that it didn’t have to be that way.

A missed 3-point attempt by Black that rimmed out would have pushed the lead to 58-46, and perhaps that would have been enough for Carolina (9-5, 1-2 ACC) to apply foot to throat. Learning from not doing so was the meessage emanating from the locker room.

“I just think we took a deep breath and kind of let them back in the game,” junior guard RJ Davis said. “A couple of times it was 50-50 loose balls, or letting them get to the basket, silly fouls and stuff like that. I felt like on both enhat.ds, we could have executed a little better to close out the game.

“That’s a key theme: Don’t let up, keep your foot on the gas.”

In spite of appearances Friday and last week versus Michigan, when the Heels led by nine points with 5:45 remaining but had the margin cut to 73-71 three minutes later, graduate forward Pete Nance believes the Heels are actually close to learning how to shut the door on opponents.

Like Davis, he says it’s the little things that make the difference.

“I don’t think we’re far away at all,” he said. “It’s a few plays, you get a team down… you’re right there. It’s really one or two or three plays that gets them the momentum back in their favor. I think being able to clean that up and staying solid and not getting complacent that’s something we definitely can get better at and will get better at.”

Carolina’s pre-season talk of national title or bust won’t come close to a reality unless it begins cutting off opponents pulling away in those fork-in-the-road moments.

Great UNC teams of the past regularly did that. And that is exactly how this group wants to be remembered, and believe they can still become. But it won’t happen if the Tar Heels don’t learn to put the pedal to the metal.