PITTSBURGH — Reeling Villanova figured its best chance for an upset at Pittsburgh was to slow down the game.

It just wasn’t enough, not with the Panthers on the brink of the Big East championship.

Ashton Gibbs had 18 points and No. 4 Pittsburgh clinched the outright conference title, using a big second half to beat No. 19 Villanova 60-50 on Saturday.

“They tried to hold out and basically break us down and make us force shots up in our offense while they remained patient,” Panthers senior Gilbert Brown said. “We had to really stay focused and stay patient and value every possession, because every possession and every shot mattered with the minimal possessions we had.”

Pitt (27-4, 15-3) earned its first outright Big East title in seven years and the No. 1 seed for next week’s conference tournament for the third time. Second-place Notre Dame put pressure on the Panthers with a 70-67 victory at Connecticut earlier Saturday, but Pitt was up to the task.

“We’re happy, but we realize that this is just the first checkpoint of what we want to do this year,” senior guard Brad Wanamaker said. “We focused on this, but after tonight, we’re just focused on New York and we gotta do down there.”

Brown, Nasir Robinson and Travon Woodall each had nine points for the Panthers, who won their first seven Big East games on the way to the wire-to-wire title.

Villanova senior guard and second-leading scorer Corey Stokes aggravated a left hamstring injury at practice Thursday and was ruled out of Saturday’s game earlier in the day.