After facing a major-conference opponent on Wednesday night, Pitt welcomed University of Maryland Baltimore County from the America East Conference on Saturday afternoon in what seemed like it could be a bounce-back for the Panthers.

But, as has become readily apparent in the still-young 2021-22 season, the bounce-backs are few and far between, and Pitt’s roster this season cannot take anything for granted.

The most recent example came against the Retrievers, who arrived at the Petersen Events Center with losses to UMass and Longwood but walked out with a 87-77 win.

The Panthers fall to 2-4 on the season with a pair of major-conference games coming up against Minnesota (Tuesday, Nov. 30) and at Virginia (Friday, Dec. 3).

Saturday’s loss was the story of two halves. In the first 20 minutes, Pitt’s defense was as poor as it has been all season. After playing relatively well on that end in recent games, the Panthers were exposed by UMBC. Under the direction of former Duquesne head coach Jim Ferry, the Retrievers are a hot-shooting team, and they looked every bit of it in the first half against Pitt, hitting 11-of-17 from deep to score 55 points before halftime.

Surprisingly, the Panthers were rather hot themselves from beyond the arc, hitting 8-of-14 after not making more than five three-pointers in any game this season.

But UMBC’s success was enough to stake the visitors an 11-point lead after 20 minutes.

If the first half was a shootout, things calmed down a bit after halftime. That was especially true of UMBC’s three-point shooting; whereas the Retrievers had made 11-of-17 from deep in the first half, they didn’t connect on their first long shot in the second half until nearly 10 minutes had come off the clock.

Pitt made a run early in that drought. After UMBC went up 59-44 two minutes into the half, the Panthers but the lead to five with a 13-3 run. But Pitt’s offense went cold; after John Hugley converted an and-one to cut the lead to five, the Panthers didn’t make another field goal for more than five minutes of game time.

In that stretch, UMBC connected to push its lead back to double digits. Pitt flirted with cutting the lead under 10 several times in the final 10 minutes, but the Panthers could never keep it in that range, despite a pair of three-point shots from Will Jeffress in the final 31 seconds.

Jeffress had three three-pointers in the game to finish with nine points, but Hugley was the game’s leading scorer with 21 points on 8-of-10 shooting and 5-of-7 free throws. Femi Odukale scored 19 and Mo Gueye also finished in double digits with 14 points on 4-of-8 shooting from three.

Pitt will be back on the court Tuesday night to host Minnesota.