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Off the cuff: That two-point loss at Pittsburgh should have been 10-point victory for the Tar Heels if they had just done some things slightly below average. And it would have been a 15-point win had Jamarius Burton not played out of his @ss.

There is no way Burton is that good but he certainly was that good against Carolina on this day.

So, you have one opponent playing the best game of his career and your leading scorer - Caleb Love - has one of his worst games of his career.

Love was just three of nine for seven points and he had just one assist.

Also, the Tar Heels were an excellent six of 13 from beyond the arc in the first half but then they went one of nine in the second half.

There was also a bad stretch in each half that did in the Tar Heels. In the first half, Carolina turned the ball over five times in six possessions as Pitt erased a nine-point UNC lead. In the second half, Carolina went nearly six minutes without a field goal as Pitt erased another nine-point lead.

Even though there were just two returning Pitt players who scored in last year's Pitt win at Chapel Hill, you would have thought the Tar Heels would have had revenge on their minds.

It will never get easier to beat Pitt in Pittsburgh as the students were out on Christmas break (probably called winter break) and other fans were at or gearing up for Pitt's 2 p.m. bowl game.

Pitt 76, Carolina 74
Tar Heels go cold late, fall at Pittsburgh

North Carolina, which led most of the game, went nearly six minutes without a field goal while Pitt, led by Jamarius Burton, hit six of its last eight to win 76-74 in Pittsburgh. (12/30)

Burton, who averaged 14 points a game, had a career-high 31 points to lead the comeback from nine points down midway through the second half. Burton, who hit 14 of 17 shots, scored half of the Panthers' field goals.

"We didn't have an answer for Burton," UNC coach Hubert Davis said. "Nobody on our team could cover him. Nobody."

Most of Pitt's points in the paint belonged to Burton. "When you give up 42 points in the paint, it's hard to stop anybody," he added. Conversely, Carolina had 26 points in the paint.

The Tar Heels, who shot 52 percent from the field on their way to a 40-34 halftime lead, went cold in the second half, hitting just one of nine from three and finished shooting just 43 percent for the game.

Things were looking up for Carolina in the first half after Leaky Black threw a cross-court pass to R.J. Davis for a fastbreak layup to put the Heels up 19-10 in the first half.

The Panthers pulled within three early in the second half but after an Armando Bacot dunk, Carolina again had a nine-point advantage at 55-46 with 11:53 left in the game.

Within five minutes Pitt had tied the game at 58-all and it was a struggle for the Heels, especially offensively, the rest of the way.

The Tar Heels led for more than 34 minutes of the game. "It's about executing on both ends of the court, not for part of the game but for the entire game," Coach Davis said.

Pitt, now 10-4 overall and 3-0 in the ACC, also got 16 points from Blake Hinson, who hit a huge contested, fade-away three with 1:24 to go to break a 67-67 tie.

Bacot led the Tar Heels with 22 points and 13 rebounds.

Carolina, now 9-5 overall and 1-2 in the conference, plays at home Wednesday against Wake Forest.

Box score

UNC's Armando Bacot scored 22 points but it wasn't enough. (UNC Sports Information photo.)

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