PITTSBURGH — Clemson spent the latter portion of its week off going through two-a-day practices and mentally hitting the reset button following six straight losses in the meat grinder that is the ACC.

“We understand we’re a good team still,” forward Jaron Blossomgame said. “This conference is crazy. We understand to beat the good teams we just had to sharpen up a little.”

The struggling ones too. Blossomgame scored 25 points on 10-of-14 shooting and Gabe DeVoe hit a pair of late buckets to fend off a late Pittsburgh surge as the Tigers topped the sliding Panthers 67-60 on Saturday.

The Tigers (12-8, 2-6 ACC) won for the first time in 2017 by holding Pitt to just 32 percent (18-of-55) shooting and keeping it together after the Panthers trimmed a 10-point deficit to 60-57 with 4:35 left. DeVoe knocked down a turnaround jumper and then slipped into the lane for a putback. Clemson’s defense — yes, it’s defense — did the rest. Pitt made just 5 of 28 shots in the second half and missed its final five shots over the final 2:33.

“We were just really locked in defensively,” Blossomgame said. “They were shots that we wanted them to take and fortunately they missed them.”

Jamel Artis and Cameron Johnson led Pitt with 16 points each but the Panthers (12-9, 1-7 ACC) lost their sixth straight. Four days after falling to Louisville at home by 55 points, Pitt responded with better effort but not better results while falling into last place by itself in the nation’s toughest conference.

“It’s amazing that we shot as poorly as we did in the second half and we had a chance to win the game,” coach Kevin Stallings said. “We didn’t play well enough to win but certainly played a lot harder.”