Pitt at Wake Forest: Quad 1 Opportunity Available

The Pitt Panthers and Wake Forest meet in a critical clash between NCAA Tournament bubble teams.

PITTSBURGH -- One of, if not the most compelling games in the ACC this week will be played in Winston-Salem, North Carolina between the Pitt Panthers and Wake Forest Demon Deacons. 

Pitt visits the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum looking to shore up an NCAA Tournament bid while Wake Forest seeks to hold on to their precarious place on the bubble. Two motivated teams will settle the season series in a critical matchup between March Madness hopefuls. 

Game Info
Opponent: Wake Forest (16-9 overall, 8-6 ACC)
Time: 9:00 p.m. EST
Location: Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum; Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Broadcast: ACC Network and 93.7 The Fan

Odds
Pitt is a 6.5-point underdog to Wake Forest, according to Action Network, with moneyline odds of +210 to -260 for the Demon Deacons. The point total line has been set at 144.5.

MORE: Pitt HC Jeff Capel Talks Blake Hinson's Response to Historic Performance

Three Storylines

Battling In The Standings
Much of the talk this time of year, especially with these two teams, concerns their place in the NCAA Tournament conversation and understandably so, but there is still a league regular season and conference title left to play for and both of these teams are capable of contending for both. 

Tied for fourth in the ACC standings, both Pitt and Wake Forest sit 3.5 games back of first place. The Panthers hold the tiebreaker over the Deacons and thus are in a position to earn the fourth seed and a double-bye in the ACC Tournament. When the dust settles, this game will be looked back upon as a pivotal one in determining how the final standings shook out. 

Quad 1 Win Up For Grabs
Both the Panthers and Wake Forest are battling on the NCAA Tournament bubble as the 2023-24 regular season hits the home stretch and this game represents one of a dwindling number of chances for marquee wins. 

Road trips to Wake Forest and Clemson represent Pitt's only two Quad 1 opportunities remaining in the regular season. Win one and you don't need the other. Lose both and the Panthers will put themselves in danger of falling on the wrong side of the bubble. Pitt's been one of the best road teams in the ACC and they'll need to lean on their road experience 

What To Do with Efton?
The Panthers struggled to contain 7' Wake Forest center Efton Reid for roughly three quarters of their first matchup with the Demon Deacons. But a desperate substitution from Pitt head coach Jeff Capel changed the game. 

He sicked Will Jeffress, a 6'7 defensive specialist, on Reid and Jeffress shut him down. Reid didn't score, committed two fouls and a turnover and grabbed three rebounds over the final 9:26 of the game. Meanwhile, Pitt was able to rally from down 12 and build a 10-point lead by the 1:20 mark of the second half in an eventual five-point win. 

There's no silver bullet to containing Reid, who's averaging 9.8 points and 7.7 rebounds per appearance while shooting 55.6% from the field over his last six games, but Capel just wants his bigs to make everything difficult on the former five-star center. 

"If you try to double, they have such great shooting around and playmaking," Capel said. "If you leave him by himself one-on-one, he’s shown that he can score the basketball at a really, really high percentage and doing it very efficiently. You just have to try and fight and try not to let him get to spots and hopefully you can contest shots and hopefully he misses some." 

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