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In the final home game of the 2014-2015 basketball season, the Deacs hosted the Pittsburgh Panthers, who are a team on the bubble for the NCAA tournament. Thankfully, the Deacs were able to put the last game behind them, and came out of the gates ready to fight. Wake jumped out to an early lead, fell behind in the second half, and fought hard to ultimately come back and win, 69-66.
The Deacs had a fantastic first half shooting the ball. Most notably, Freshman guard Mitchell Wilbekin finished the first half shooting 4-4 from downtown for 12 points.
The Deacs as a team hit 7 first half 3-pointers on some really unselfish passing, especially against the zone. The great shooting effort gave the Deacs a 37-35 lead over Pitt at the half.
In the second half, Pitt started to control the offensive glass and started scoring off second chance points. The Deacs gave up way too many easy baskets because they weren't boxing out. Pitt had way too many possessions where they missed and missed and missed, but kept grabbing offensive rebounds and eventually scored.
The gif above is 1 possession that lasted almost 2 minutes. Wake's defense was fine, they just couldn't finish the defensive possession by grabbing a board. Lack of rebounding would give the Panthers a lead in the second half. Pitt finished the game with 17 offensive rebounds.
The Deacs would come back behind the efforts of Codi Miller-McIntyre, who scored 6 quick points late in the second half to tie the game.
With the game tied at 61, Miller-McIntyre would drive to the free throw line in transition and drop the ball off to Dinos Mitoglou trailing behind the play for a huge 3-pointer.
It was fitting that the Greek Deac would make a huge shot on Greek night at the Joel. Side note, I absolutely love the bench reaction to Dinos hitting this 3.
The Deacs took the lead on that 3 and never looked back, thanks to some good free throw shooting from Cornelius Hudson and Miller-McIntyre, who went a combined 5 of 6 from the line late to close the game. It was nice for Wake to gain a little momentum at home before taking on 4th ranked Duke in Cameron on Wednesday.