Considered by itself — if it had not been preceded by six losses in eight games — Pitt’s 67-66 defeat at North Carolina would have been far easier to accept.

“We fought for 40 minutes,” coach Jeff Capel said. “Really proud of my team with how we fought and how we battled, put ourselves in a position to win.”

But the past month makes celebrating a brave effort almost meaningless in terms of Pitt earning that NCAA Tournament bid that has been so elusive since Jamie Dixon left in 2016. Unless Pitt (14-9, 5-7) rallies over the next eight games and in the ACC Tournament, the Panthers of 2024-25 will be the school’s eighth team in the past nine seasons without a tournament berth that matters.

Whether they were the four close losses totaling a margin of defeat of 10 points or the double-digit blowouts slapped on the Panthers by Duke, Florida State and Virginia, the fact remains that Pitt has won only twice after it stood 12-2 on Jan. 4.

Capel was correct when he said Pitt was in “position to win” in the waning moments Saturday. But those nine points by North Carolina’s Ven-Allen Lubin — in a span of only 2 minutes, 6 seconds at the outset of the game — put Pitt in an early 12-3 hole that turned into 30-19 with five minutes left in the first half.

Capel changed defensive strategy before intermission, and Pitt was able to go to its locker room at halftime only down 35-32.

“They were attacking our switching,” he said. “They were prepared for us, and we got out of that. The last eight minutes (of the first half) we did a really good job of getting back in transition, making them take tough shots.”

The result was the lead changing hands 12 times in the second half, and neither Pitt nor North Carolina leading by more than three points (other than a 47-41 UNC lead with 15:48 left in the game).

But the outcome hinged on several plays: two 3-pointers by Tar Heels freshman Drake Powell and the decisive 2-pointer by All-American guard RJ Davis with 52 seconds left. Pitt didn’t score in the last two minutes.

“They made more plays than us down the stretch,” Capel said.

The box score will show that Pitt held a rebounding advantage (33-27) at the end of the game for only the fourth time against an ACC opponent.

“We did a better job. We still need to do better,” Capel said.

It’s a rebound the Panthers didn’t get that Capel referenced in his postgame remarks.

With 19 seconds left and Pitt down one, Guillemo Diaz Graham got his hands on Lubin’s missed free throw but couldn’t hold it. North Carolina ended up with the basketball after Diaz Graham was last to touch it before it went out of bounds.

“We have to grab that,” Capel said. “(Lubin) is the guy who knocked it out of our hands when we had it and he missed the free throw.”

After UNC’s Seth Trimble missed another free throw, Pitt’s last two plays of the game were also a bit disjointed, with Jaland Lowe fouled out and Damian Dunn unavailable with a fractured elbow that he suffered after a fall previously in the second half.

First, Pitt couldn’t execute a clean in-bounds pass at midcourt with 13 seconds left. The ball went out of bounds in the backcourt off a Tar Heels player after Leggett appeared to be fouled while trying to get open for a pass. Still, Capel got what he wanted with 7 seconds left: Leggett driving for the potential winning basket.

Leggett missed an off-balance shot in the paint, but Capel disagreed with a reporter’s suggestion that North Carolina’s defense “blew up” the play.

“We wanted to get the ball in Ish’s hands and get him going downhill,” he said, “trying to drive and trying to create something for himself or someone else. They didn’t blow it up. We got a good shot. We missed a good shot. We got a good look. We missed it.”

Going forward, the schedule leaves no time for Pitt to feel sorry for itself. The team’s plane flew directly from Chapel Hill to Dallas for its next game Tuesday against SMU.

It’s a game Pitt will play without Dunn.

“I doubt if we’ll see him the rest of the season,” Capel said.

The coach agreed that his team’s outlook is “not great.”

“But we have to keep fighting.”

After what he called a “deplorable” effort against Virginia last Monday, Capel was encouraged by how players responded in practice last week and in Chapel Hill.

“It just wasn’t enough at the end.”

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