Pitt’s game at Miami on Sunday night was a story in three acts:

Bad. Promising. Worse.

The Hurricanes took a 16-0 lead to open the game, weathered the Panthers’ response, built a big lead and held off one final run to hand Jeff Capel’s squad a 66-58 loss at the Watsco Center.

The defeat dropped Pitt to 11-5 overall and 2-3 in the ACC, and it comes less than a week after the Panthers went to Chapel Hill and beat North Carolina Wednesday night.

Pitt’s start to the game couldn’t have gone worse, but Miami’s 16-0 run from the tip hit a snag when star guard Chris Lykes took a second foul and had to retreat to the bench. That created an opening for the Panthers to battle back. Lykes eventually returned and took a third foul, but at halftime, Pitt trailed by nine, 31-22.

The Panthers did manage four points off the bench Sunday after the reserves got shut out in the win over North Carolina. But the scoring was far too unbalanced in the initial 20 minutes, as Trey McGowens put up 12 points on 4-of-9 shooting, and his teammates combined for 10 points on 4-of-18 shooting.

Just a few minutes into the second half, Miami reclaimed the 16-point lead it had to open the game, and the Hurricanes just kept adding after that. Pitt took its final timeout of the game with 14:20 on the clock, and 21 seconds later, Miami pushed the lead to 20 points at 46-26.

Then the tide shifted. Pitt turned up the defensive intensity with pressure, trapping and a 2-3 zone that gave Miami trouble, and the Hurricanes’ issues were only exacerbated when Lykes took his fourth and then fifth fouls, leaving the home team without its leading scorer for the final 8:09 of the game.

And as Miami was playing without its top offensive weapon, Pitt started getting more out of its scorers. Junior Ryan Murphy hit his first three-point shot of the game at the 9:50 mark, junior Terrell Brown made several shots under the basket and McGowens continued to lead the way.

With 3:16 on the clock, McGowens hit a layup to cut the lead to four points, but the Panthers scored just five points the rest of the way. McGowens finished with a team-high 18 points on 6-of-16 shooting, while Brown scored 10 points off the bench.

There was nothing good in Pitt’s box score, from the 23-of-64 shooting (34.9%) from the floor to the 3-of-16 (18.8%) three-point shooting to 11 turnovers. Four of those 11 turnovers were on sophomore guard Xavier Johnson, who scored four points and sat out the final 14 minutes of the game.

The Panthers will look to bounce back on Tuesday night when they host Louisville at the Petersen Events Center.