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ACC Tournament: Pittsburgh defeats Stanford after wild final sequence, officials fix clock error

Grant Grubbs Profile Pictureby: Grant Grubbs14 hours agogrant_grubbs_

On Tuesday, Pittsburgh defeated Stanford in a nail-biting 64-63 finish. The Panthers are the 15-seed in the ACC Tournament while Stanford was the 10-seed. The heated battle was the first game of the conference tournament.

Pittsburgh leapt out to an early lead and headed into halftime with a 31-23 lead. However, with an at-large NCAA Tournament bid potentially at stake, Stanford fought back and reclaimed the lead with 13:29 remaining in the second half.

From there, the two teams continued to exchange buckets until the game was in its final moments. With 26 seconds remaining in the contest, Stanford trailed Pittsburgh 62-60. In turn, the Cardinal put the ball in star guard Ebuka Okorie‘s hands.

Okorie delivered, converting an and-one to give Stanford a one-point advantage. Pittsburgh attempted to swiftly retaliate on the other end, but ended up lucky to have the ball after Stanford broke up the Panthers’ efforts.

Ultimately, Pittsburgh guard Damarco Minor, who’d only scored two points at the time, drove to the basket and shot a floater with one second left on the game clock. He missed, but followed up on his own shot and made a put-back layup with 0.6 seconds remaining to give Pittsburgh at 64-63 lead.

The game only became more hectic from there. Stanford called its final timeout of the game and drew up a full-court set. The Cardinal ran their own baseline, hoping to draw a charge on the Pittsburgh player defending the inbound pass.

Stanford’s plan didn’t work and its inbound pass was tipped out of bounds by Pittsburgh. Initially, it appeared as if only 0.2 seconds had run off the clock and the Cardinal would have another opportunity to launch the ball down court.

Alas, upon further review, the officials discovered the game clock didn’t start as soon as the ball was touched by the Pitt defender. Further, if it had, the game clock would’ve expired before the ball hit the ground out of bounds.

After further discussion, the game’s officials ruled the contest over. Stanford has the most Quad 1 wins of any team not projected to receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament in ESPN’s latest Bracketology.

Stanford’s loss to the Panthers could be the final blow to their hopes to receive a ticket to the Big Dance. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh will advance to face off against NC State tomorrow at noon ET. The game will air live on ESPN2.