Florida State missed early and often at and around the rim. The 3-pointers didn’t hit either.

On a day when opportunities were there for the Seminoles, chances to knock off one of the ACC’s co-leaders, they instead fell short.

Jalen Warley scored a career-high 23 points on 9 of 11 shooting but Pitt was too much down the stretch in taking an 83-75 win on Saturday afternoon.

Caleb Mills had a sluggish start but finished with 16 points on 4 of 10 shooting and was 7 of 8 from the free-throw line. Cam Corhen fouled out with 13 points on 5 of 7 shooting.

FSU (8-18, 6-9 ACC) has dropped five of six games, although those include losses to four of the five best teams in the league’s standings entering Saturday. The Seminoles will be miserable reviewing the film of the Pitt game as they missed five layups in the first half and three more layups in the second half and could not pull off the upset.

"We just didn’t get it done," FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said. "We got to be tougher. We got to be more consistent with how competitive our spirit is in those situations. That was disappointing to me."

Hamilton also pointed to Pitt's rebounding edge, which was just 36-35 but included 15 offensive boards that resulted in 20 second-chance points. FSU had 12 offensive rebounds but only eight second-chance points.

"Pittsburgh displayed more interior toughness than we did," Hamilton said. "No coach likes to admit that. No coach likes to accept the fact that a team in certain areas demonstrated they wanted to be more successful than your team. And that was on the offensive boards. No. 1, they had 15 offensive rebounds. Which means that we probably could have done a better job of blocking out. But once they got offensive rebound, they were a little more determined, much more aggressive."

It was the seventh straight game where FSU lost the rebounding battle.

But another contributor to the loss is a familiar issue as prior games: FSU shot just 5 of 21 (23.8 percent) from 3-point range, including a number of open looks. Still, Mills’ 3-pointer with 5:47 to go cut the lead to just one before Pitt responded with a pair of layups to extend the lead. FSU also went cold for a three-minute stretch late in the game and fell behind.

A few of the Seminoles' scoring leaders couldn’t offer much production as Matthew Cleveland (six points on 2 of 8 shooting) and Darin Green Jr. (nine points on 3 of 12 shooting) struggled. Instead it was Warley and a freshman who kept the Seminoles in it. Cameron Corhen had 13 points, the ninth time he has scored in double figures this season.

Pitt’s stars delivered. Blake Hinson and Jamarius Burton each scored 19 points, above their 15-point average. Center Federiko Federiko had 13 rebounds, including seven offensive boards.

The Panthers improved to 18-10, 11-3 ACC.

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Hamilton said Cleveland was questionable as he had been suffering from back spasms. Cleveland had not practiced the past few days. "I think he'll be ok, I think he'll be available for Clemson. He toughed it out tonight," Hamilton said.

FSU had enjoyed a long, successful run at the Donald L. Tucker Center before the past two seasons. The Seminoles dropped to 5-9 in home games.

The 18 losses this season are the most since FSU lost 19 games in the 2004-05 season, Hamilton's third in Tallahassee.

FSU will play at Clemson on Wednesday at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast on Regional Sports Networks.