From red hot to ice cold.

That aptly describes Pitt’s men’s basketball team following a 91-58 loss to the Demon Deacons at Lawrence Joel Memorial Coliseum on Tuesday night.

Just days after the Panthers blew out Lousiville, 86-59, at Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh on Saturday, just days after senior forward Blake Hinson scored a career-high 41 points, it was snake eyes for everyone dressed in blue and gold on Tuesday night.

Pitt shot just 29 percent from the floor and made only nine of its 33 three-point attempts. The Panthers don’t have much physical presence, so when they go cold from the outside, it tends to be a long night. And it was the longest night of the year for Pitt, who suffered its worst loss of the 2023/2024 campaign.

Three days after his historic night at the Pete, Hinson scored just 10 points, while connecting on three of 10 shots–including one of five from behind the arc.

Reserve guard Ishmael Leggett logged 30 minutes of action and led the Panthers with 15 points on the night. The Panthers’ dynamic duo of freshman guards, Jaland Lowe and Bub Carrington, scored 12 and nine points, respectively, but they obviously didn’t come close to filling the void left by a struggling Hinson.

After an early 13-3 run for Wake Forest, the Panthers crawled back into the game and only trailed by two points, but that’s as close as things got the rest of the night.

The Demon Deacons led by a score of 45-33 at halftime and continued to pour it on in the second half, outscoring Pitt, 46-25, over the final 20 minutes.

Wake Forest was simply unstoppable on offense, connecting on 60.8 percent of its shots. No one player dominated for the Demon Deacons, as guard Kevin Miller led all scorers with 18 points. However, all five Wake Forest starters scored in double digits.

Wake Forest outrebounded the Panthers, 39-29, and connected on 19 of its 20 free-throw attempts.

Pitt had a chance to take over sole possession of fourth place in the ACC, but instead dropped into a tie for fifth place with both NC State and Florida State.

The Panthers are now 17-9, overall, and 8-7 in conference play. Next up for Pitt is a home date against Virginia Tech at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Pitt is now 56th in the current Net Rankings and Quad Wins category, nine spots back from where it was following last Saturday’s blowout win against the Cardinals.

With five regular season games plus the ACC tournament left to go, the Panthers have little margin for error if they want to make it back to the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row.