Pitt took on an old basketball acquaintance Saturday on the road, looking to end a two-game losing streak.

In their first meeting with Villanova in 12 years, the Panthers couldn’t keep up.

“We haven’t been able to sustain how we have to play in order to be good on either side of the ball,” Pitt coach Jeff Capel told reporters in Villanova after the Wildcats pulled away to beat Pitt, 79-61, at Finneran Pavilion for their first victory against the Panthers in 16 years.

Bryce Lindsay and Duke Brennan scored 24 points apiece to lead Villanova (8-2). Brennan was a perfect 8-for-8 shooting and led all players with nine rebounds, though Pitt won the battle on the glass, 36-27, with Cameron Corhen leading the Panthers with seven.

Acaden Lewis added 11 points for Villanova, which bounced back from an 89-61 loss at No. 2 Michigan on Tuesday night.

Barry Dunning Jr. led Pitt (5-6) with 17 points. Nojus Indrusaitis added 14, and Corhen and Demarco “Polo” Minor scored 10 apiece for the Panthers, who lost their third game in a row since beating Ohio State, 67-66, on Nov. 28 at Petersen Events Center on Minor’s last-second 3-pointer.

Villanova rode a 12-0 run in the first half to take the lead for good. A 10-0 run in the closing minutes put the game out of reach for Pitt.

“Our team has always shown me resilience,” Capel said. “I’ve never questioned that. But when we get down, we drop our heads. Instead of it just being a 7-0 run, it turns into a 13-, 14-, 15-, 16-0 run. That’s where we’ve got to get better. We get down and then, all of a sudden, it’s a four-point game. Our team has always shown resilience. It’s there. We have to figure out how to bring it out all the time and have it where it’s consistent.”

The last time Villanova defeated Pitt was in 2009 in an NCAA Tournament regional final, a 78-76 decision in Boston, when the teams were Big East rivals.

Since then, the Panthers won six times against the Wildcats before moving to the ACC in 2013. Villanova, meanwhile, has remained a Big East member.

The Wildcats’ latest victory knotted the all-time series with Pitt at 33 wins apiece since it began in 1960. It also improved Villanova’s unbeaten record at home to 6-0 this season.

“Our focus was get back to sharing the basketball, and our guards shared the basketball,” said first-year Villanova coach Kevin Willard, a Pitt alum, who played two seasons for the Panthers under his father, Ralph Willard, from 1995-97.

In 60 games at Pitt, Kevin Willard, an All-Big East Academic performer, averaged 2.9 points and 2.4 assists. He began his college career at Western Kentucky, where his father coached him during his freshman season before the two came to Pitt.

After nine lead changes in the first half, Villanova surged to a nine-point halftime edge by outscoring Pitt, 19-7, to close out the half holding a 41-32 advantage.

Pitt got within 44-40 in the second half on a 3-pointer by Dunning with 17:41 left before again falling behind by double digits.

“They’re a good team coming off a tough loss,” Capel said. “We knew they’d be loaded for bear. They’re back at home. Obviously, it’s a really good environment here, but we handled all of that well. We did some really good things, but we’re a team where we can’t afford to have the breakdowns that we have.”

The Panthers made one last-ditch push to catch the Wildcats, inching within 61-55 on Brandin Cummings’ driving layup.

But 10 unanswered points increased Villanova’s lead to 71-55 with 3:59 remaining.

“We did some good things at first. It was a good start,” Capel said. “In the first 15 minutes of the game, I liked how we were playing and the position we were in. But we got into some foul trouble and had some very different lineups out there in the last four minutes of the half. That’s when they went on a big run. We didn’t score for a while, didn’t make a field goal.

“In the second half, we didn’t get off to a great start, defensively. But then, we had a stretch there where they got up and then we put together some stops and were able to score.”

Just not enough.

With the Panthers’ record dipping below .500 for the first time this season, they’ll be looking to end their skid when they host Binghamton on Wednesday night at Petersen Events Center.

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