On Saturday afternoon in Coral Gables, Pitt overcame a 19-point deficit with 10 minutes to play and took Miami down to the wire, but the comeback efforts fell short and the Panthers fell to the Hurricanes 72-68.

Miami struck quickly in the game, hitting four of its first six attempts from the floor to take an early 12-5 lead, and after Pitt cut that lead to 14-13, the Hurricanes made 5-of-8 to push the lead into double digits at 28-15.

Of course, Miami couldn’t build that lead without help from Pitt, and the Panthers proved to be gracious visitors by missing eight shots in a row and 10-of-11 over a nine-minute span in the middle of the first half. And the misses were a total-team effort: Bub Carrington missed three, Jaland Lowe and Ishmael Leggett missed two each and Zack Austin, Guillermo Diaz Graham and Blake Hinson each missed one in that stretch.

Hinson was particularly quiet in the first 14 minutes of the game, carrying over from his 0-for-1 performance in the second half at Georgia Tech on Tuesday night. But then Pitt’s leading scorer got hot, making four shots in a row on his own to help give the Panthers some life.

Miami didn’t cool off, though, and took an 11-point lead into halftime at 40-29 that grew back to 16 when the Hurricanes made their first three shots to open the second half.

Miami went cold with five consecutive misses after that, but Pitt couldn’t capitalize, and once the Hurricanes got hot again, they pushed the lead to 19.

Once again, Pitt’s offense produced nothing to compete with Miami’s onslaught. The Panthers made two-of-seven in the first six minutes of the second half, and by the time the half hit its midpoint, the Hurricanes were ahead 60-41.

But then Pitt went on a run. Hinson, Lowe and Leggett combined to built a 9-2 run heading into the under-8 timeout, and the Panthers held Miami to just two field goals over the next four-plus minutes so that some well-timed three’s from Hinson and Lowe had the score at 66-60 with less than three minutes to play.

Miami pushed the lead back to eight points on free throws, but Leggett hit a three and Lowe made two from the charity stripe to cut the lead to three, and after a Wooga Poplar jump shot, Lowe hit another three to make it a two-point game with 45 seconds left.

Poplar missed the next time down the court, giving Pitt the ball after a timeout with 10 seconds left on the clock. But the Panthers’ play out of the timeout ended with Lowe on the three-point line, where he attempted to draw a foul.

Despite contact, the whistle didn’t blow, and Miami hit two free throws to ice the game.

Hinson scored a game-high 21 points on 8-of-19 shooting, while Lowe had 17 on 6-of-13 and Leggett scored 14 on 5-of-12. In the second half, the Panthers shot 42.4% from the field and 36.8% from three. The shooting struggles throughout the game were compounded by issues at the free throw line, where Pitt hit 9-of-16.

With the loss, Pitt drops to 12-8 on the season and 3-6 in ACC plays. The Panthers will come home to host Wake Forest at the Petersen Events Center on Wednesday night.