Kenny Williams raised his right hand and called for the ball as he positioned himself on the wing. By the time he received Nate Britt’s pass, North Carolina’s band was already standing in anticipation.
Williams drained the wide open 3-pointer — the first basket of his college career and his first shot attempt since Valentine’s Day — as part of an 11-0 run in the second half that helped the Tar Heels to an 88-71 win against Pittsburgh in the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament on Thursday.
The freshman guard had been in the game for just two minutes. On his first possession, he delivered the assist for sophomore Joel Berry II’s 3-pointer. Williams only played five minutes, but that 3-pointer sent the North Carolina-heavy crowd at Verizon Center into a frenzy.
It was just one shot, but it was a critical part of the strong performance the top-seeded Tar Heels got from their bench as they ran the Panthers into the ground.
Pittsburgh senior guard James Robinson never left the game. Junior forward Jamel Artis played 36 minutes and exited only after Williams’ pesky defense forced him to miss a jumper and turn the ball over. Michael Young, the eighth-seeded Panthers’ junior forward, played 34 minutes.
Meanwhile, Roy Williams worked a heavy rotation. Ten different players scored for the Tar Heels, who will play No. 4 seed Notre Dame in the semifinals on Friday. Senior guard Marcus Paige played 34 minutes, but other than that, no North Carolina player logged more than 29.
“Possibly we didn’t play enough guys, looking at me, as far as substituting,” Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon said. “That was a possibility. Fatigue, maybe. I don’t know. I thought we had more in us. Maybe, as I said earlier, we could have used more bodies to help us.”
Whether Pittsburgh went with a deeper rotation, it was more about what North Carolina’s bench contributed. Sophomore forward Theo Pinson had seven assists in 14 minutes. Isiah Hicks scored 10 points in 19 minutes and hit all three of his field-goal attempts, four of his five free throws and grabbed four rebounds. Junior guard Nate Britt chipped in nine points in 14 minutes.
“Kenny, defensively is really good, really slides his feet, so it was important,” Roy Williams said. “I wanted somebody in there, I wanted to get some guys some rest. I think our depth was huge. We’re not saying that Kenny is going to guard Jamel Artis like that the whole game, but he never got to the basket three straight possessions.”
The Panthers, who beat Syracuse on Wednesday night, began the game on an 8-0 run as North Carolina looked sluggish in its first game in five days. Pittsburgh held a 35-29 lead over North Carolina when the Tar Heels went on a 10-0 run to close the first half.
“I wish we would’ve had five more minutes to be able to keep that going,” Berry said. “They came out after halftime, tied it up, but we were able to get it back going.”
Pinson, who entered into the game earlier in the first half, checked back in with 2:27 remaining and delivered assists on three consecutive possessions. First he hit Berry, who finished with a game-high 20-points, for a jumper. Pinson connected with junior forward Kennedy Meeks, who tied the score at 35-35. After another Pittsburgh turnover, Pinson fed senior forward Brice Johnson for a dunk.
“Coach wants us to get after it to the point where we are tired and he needs to sub us out,” Berry said. “We can get a quick breather and Theo and Nate came off the bench and gave us a good lift. We need that because we can really beat teams if we wear them down.”
• Anthony Gulizia can be reached at agulizia@washingtontimes.com.
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