Pitt won because BC is not good.

There’s no pretending that Pitt overcame any adversity other than what they inflicted upon themselves. The Panthers struggled in all facets of the game at various points or for the almost the entire time — depending on the particular facet.

Pitt had three stretches of over 3 minutes without scoring a point. One in particular lasted 8:44 from the end of the first half into the beginning of the second half. These three droughts totaled 15:32 of the game — almost 1/3 of the total time. Still, Pitt managed to be the one getting the win.

As tempting as it was to just not bother with any recap, and relive the ugly, I’ve been doing that far too often lately with the coaching change on the football side and a lack of time. So, there will at least be a token effort to review this one.

I went into watching this game, expecting a lot more from Pitt. They got killed in Raleigh. Really just falling apart in the second half. Even when Pitt has struggled and lost a few games in a row, they rarely play that badly consecutively.

Oh, I was so wrong. The confusion by Pitt as they fell behind quickly. The frustration in their actions at the continual mistakes and poor shooting.

What stood out to me in the first half and the first five minutes or so of the second was how poor Pitt was spaced on offense. It wasn’t simply that Pitt was standing around a lot on offense (they were). It was seeing guys all kind of mill about in the same area. As if they didn’t know where they should be or they thought the other guy should be somewhere else.

What truly made it  a surprise was that Jamel Artis and Cam Wright were the main culprits. The two played only 6 and 5 minutes respectively in the second half — in the beginning. They never got back on the court for the rest of the game. In the box score, the glaring issue was neither one took care of the ball.

Artis had 5 turnovers and Wright had 2. As a team, Pitt had 13 Most of them were unforced, as BC did not exactly work to create turnovers. But it was more than that for both of them. Neither seemed to be clicking with the rest of the team. A true oddity, and hopefully a brief aberration.

But it was a message. Not just to those two, but the rest of the team. In the second half and overtime — 25 minutes — the minutes almost exclusively went to just five players. James Robinson (24), Mike Young (22), Sheldon Jeter (19), Chris Jones (18) and Josh Newkirk (17). 80% of the available minutes to just those five.

Jamie Dixon was going to put the players out there that could play together, give the best effortand give Pitt the best chance to win. Any thought that he plays favorites, was tossed.

Sheldon Jeter responded with his best game of the year, and renewed confidence. He has been seeing more action in games, as he becomes more familiar not only with what is expected on the court, but playing real games with his teammates. It is too easy to forget that he was in limbo all of last year. Not with Pitt and not even playing real games at a junior college.

Josh Newkirk had an outstanding game.

“I thought our press worked well in some of these late-game situations and we were able to get some things out of it,” Newkirk said. “But really we put ourselves in a hole and we just needed to keep fighting and good things happened. I just was fortunate to be in the right place to get that pass, but a lot of guys made that comeback possible.”

The Eagles didn’t seem too shell-shocked by the furious rally, and they scored first in overtime and even opened up a 60-55 lead with 2:46 to play after a 3-pointer by Heckmann.

But back-to-back layups by Newkirk and Jeters pulled the Panthers back to within 60-59, then the Eagles turned the ball over with 11.8 seconds left and set up Newkirk’s heroics.

“Basically, it was just the same play we had run a few possessions earlier and we saw they switched on their ball screens,” Newkirk said. “So we wanted that same look again and it allowed me to have a mismatch with the ball in my right hand and clear path to the hoop.”

Boston College had a chance to win, but Heckmann’s driving layup missed the mark and the Panthers hung on for the victory.

Again, ugly. BC: bad. Pitt is not good, but at least there is some hope that they can get better.

One final thing. Please don’t get hung up on the press “working.” It was hardly that effective, even against a bad team like BC. They broke it fairly easily, but because they were trying to just run clock they missed some easy scoring chances late in the game. Pitt is simply not fast enough or skilled enough to be a team that presses on defense.