After knocking off Cincinnati and Rutgers last week, Cincinnati hosted Pittsburgh last night with a shot at getting off to a great 3-0 start in the Big East. But the Panthers, who were supposed to be one of the conference’s weaker teams before the season began – and weren’t too impressive in their non-conference slate, either – beat the Bearcats, 74-71, to earn their second straight upset road win in a row, after beating Syracuse in the Carrier Dome Saturday afternoon.

Despite losing DeJuan Blair, Sam Young and Levance Fields from last year’s team, Pittsburgh looked like the same team they’ve been for years now, first under Ben Howland and now under Jamie Dixon. The Panthers played tough, hard-nosed defense, forcing Cincinnati to take difficult shots and earn every single point.

And while Cincinnati’s three stars – Lance Stephenson, Yancy Gates and Deonta Vaughn – combined to score 48 points on 22-for-39 shooting, the rest of the Bearcats combined for 23 points on 8-for-22 shooting. So while the Big Three got theirs, Pitt ensured the rest of the team wasn’t able to pick up any scraps. That formula will almost certainly be repeated, so Mick Cronin is going to have to find some more offensive firepower from the rest of his roster to combat it.

Ashton Gibbs led Pitt with 19 points, while Gilbert Brown added 17. The Panthers, now 3-0 in the conference, have off until next Wednesday, when they’ll take on Connecticut. As for Cincinnati, now 2-1 in the Big East, they will head to Newark to take on Seton Hall Saturday night, in the first of two local games for Stephenson in the next week.

tbontemps@nypost.com