WASHINGTON — RJ Davis scored 25 points to help No. 4 North Carolina beat Pitt 72-65 in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament semifinals on Friday night.
The top-seeded Tar Heels (27-6) will face the winner of Virginia and North Carolina State on Saturday night.
For the fourth-seeded Panthers (22-11), the loss snaps a four-game win streak and puts their NCAA Tournament hopes in limbo. Entering this game, the Panthers had a NET ranking of 40 and ESPN projected Pitt to be among the First Four Out of the 68-team field.
Davis shot 8-of-18 from the floor for the Tar Heels and was also aided by the play of Armando Bacot, who contributed 19 points and 11 rebounds.
Carlton Carrington led Pitt with 24 points and five rebounds, while Jaland Lowe added 17 points and four assists.
Pitt had the hot hand early in the first half and broke off a 13-0 run, sparked by back-to-back 3-pointers from Guillermo Diaz Graham, to take a nine-point lead.
The Tar Heels eventually responded with a 16-7 run to tie the game at 24-24 after a fastbreak two-handed jam from Bacot and a putback layup from Harrison Ingram.
The Panthers led by two points at the break after a layup from Diaz Graham with 22 seconds left in the first half.
UNC held Blake Hinson — the Panthers’ top scorer and First Team All-ACC selection with 18.9 points per game — to zero points on 0-of-3 shooting in the first half. He finished the game with five points and was 0-for-5 from the arc.
Davis also struggled in the first half for UNC, scoring just six points on six shots. He found his stride in the second half, though, pouring in 10 points in the first 11 minutes as the Tar Heels went up by seven.
Pitt tied the game at 62-62 with 4:23 to play after a mid-range jumper from Lowe, but Davis answered with a 3-pointer that sparked a 7-0 UNC run, pushing the Heels’ advantage to three possessions with 2:24 to play. Davis then sank three free throws in the final minute to ice the game.
Pitt lost the rebounding battle by 10 and was outscored by 14 points in the paint.
–Mitchell Northam, Field Level Media