MILWAUKEE — Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon said his team needed to do three things in order to beat No. 18 Marquette on Saturday. The 16th-ranked Panthers did none of them.

Vander Blue scored 19 points to lead the Golden Eagles to a 79-69 win over Pittsburgh, handing the Panthers just their second loss in nine games.

Marquette shot 57 percent (26 for 46) from the field, went 22 for 29 from the free-throw line and outrebounded Pittsburgh 33-24.

“There were three things we wanted to do,” Dixon said. “Hold them under 40 percent defensively; we didn’t come close to that. We wanted to keep them off the free-throw line; we certainly didn’t come close to that. Then obviously the rebounding, we got outrebounded, so simply put, the 10-point loss is really pretty easy to see.”

Lamar Patterson scored 19 points to lead Pittsburgh (20-6, 8-5 Big East), which entered the game fifth in the nation in scoring defense (54.4 ppg). Tray Woodall added 10 points and eight assists.

The Golden Eagles (18-6, 9-3) got their 23rd straight home win, the fourth-longest active streak in the nation. They also won the teams’ previous meeting this season, 74-67 in overtime at Pittsburgh on Jan. 20.

“I think if I were to say our best performance on the road in Big East play would be at Pitt, and I thought our best performance at home in a Big East game thus far would be Pitt,” Marquette coach Buzz Williams said. “I think they’re one of the top two or three teams in our league.”

Blue, Marquette’s leading scorer, was 7 of 8 from the field and 3 for 4 on free throws to go with six rebounds for the Golden Eagles, who moved into a tie with No. 15 Georgetown atop the Big East.

Davante Gardner finished with 14 points for Marquette and scored 10 of his team’s 11 during a key stretch late in the game. Gardner started his scoring spree when he tipped in his own miss to give the Golden Eagles a 63-50 lead with 6:35 to play.

Woodall missed a 3-pointer but Pittsburgh got the offensive rebound. The Panthers also got the rebound on a miss by Talib Zanna, and then Dixon was called for his first technical of the season with 6:05 to play.

“That was my first one in I don’t know how long,” Dixon said. “I congratulated them on that. There was no bad language. I’ll be sure to pass that on to my mom.”