Shortly after I finished watching the game, my son looked over at me and asked, “Did Pitt lose daddy?”

“No, Kian they won.”

“Then why are you lying on the floor?”

I uncurled from the fetal position with no really good answer other than, “It’s Pitt, son. It’s Pitt.”

Had to DVR delay the Pitt-ND game. Which may have been for the best in terms of avoiding the community meltdown with 2.8 seconds left in regulation. But I’ll get to that.

The good news about that game, other than the win. No “burn” offense from the Irish.

It’s something. So many close losses. So many final shot losses. Yet, Pitt is now 3-0 this year in overtime.

Pitt started this game looking like the shooting touch some said they regained against BC was still in Chestnut Hill. As well as any defense. Granted, ND was shooting it so well it may have been hard to judge the defense fairly, but they definitely looked a step slow.

They were necessary, given that Notre Dame shot 73.7 percent (14 of 19) from the field in the first half, making 7 of 9 3-pointers (77.8 percent), and made 23 of 27 free throws (85.2 percent).

“To withstand their barrage in the first half says a lot about our guys,” Dixon said. “I think it was a great character game for us, to keep battling and fighting.”

Notre Dame junior Pat Connaughton (19 points) had the hottest hand. The 6-foot-5 swingman was 6 for 7, making all four treys, to score 17 first-half points. He followed a 3 by scoring on a give-and-go that gave the Irish their biggest lead, 28-16, with 7:57 to play in the first half.

“At that point, they could have shot it with the opposite hand and no looking and throwing it at the rim and it was just going in,” Patterson said. “That’s what it felt like. It was amazing. If I wasn’t playing against it, it would have been enjoyable to watch.”

At that point, ND was 10-13 shooting with 5 3-pointers. That’s an effective field goal percentage (eFG%) of 96.2. Terrifying.

Pitt was getting after it. They were getting the rebounds. Heck, they were getting turnovers. They just couldn’t sink anything. At the under-7 minute mark Pitt was 5-22. They were the team that couldn’t hit water falling out of a boat.

At that point, while I could convince myself that ND couldn’t stay that hot shooting, there was no guarantee Pitt would appreciably improve theirs. This is a team, after all, that has demonstrated how capable it is of shooting 35% for the entire game.

But not that day. Pitt finished the half going 8-11 shooting and the defense got noticeably tighter. ND started to cool off, but their 3-point looks were no longer so close to the line. Their drives were being cut off before they could make a move. They were only able to attempt 6 shots the rest of the first half.

By the end of the half, Pitt was within 4 points. Cam Wright and Talib Zanna kept Pitt in the game. Wright was the only one for Pitt who was shooting the ball well enough. Which shouldn’t be a shock at this point in the season, still manages to surprise. Zanna, of course was doing it inside. Grabbing tons of rebounds.

The second half, was just typical for both teams. Pitt came out and took control of the game for most of the second half until late when they hit one of their miserable offensive droughts with 6 minutes left. I shouldn’t even be surprised at this point.

It started when Talib Zanna — who played so brilliantly before and after this moment — inexplicably launched a long two-point shot. It wasn’t like the clock was winding down. It wasn’t anything that made sense. It happened and Pitt’s entire team seemed to take its cue from that.

Turnovers, missed shots, a desperate ND team actually getting a couple offensive rebounds. Suddenly it’s a one-point game. What made it odd, is that I didn’t get the sense that Pitt was trying to slow their possessions to milk the clock. They just started getting unglued. Yet they had a hold of the lead and then Mike Young came up with a huge tip-in to get Pitt’s lead up to 3 with over a minute left. ND screwed up, and Pitt had the ball.

Patterson missed his 3-point attempt but Cam Wright came up with a big, big offensive rebound to force ND to foul with 25 seconds left. It sent Wright to the line for a 1-and-1.

I have to be honest, this is where I think Jamie Dixon made his first mistake in the final 25 seconds. He had Wright go to the line and had the other four players behind him to be ready on defense.

I know Cam Wright is a 60% free throw shooter and there was a logic to it, I did not like the message it sent to Wright as he was stepping to the line. Despite how well, Pitt’s offensive rebounding has been. And, as much as Cam Wright had been huge in the game, his coach was working from the assumption he would miss the front-end and the defense had to be ready. Not seeing any of his teammates in front of him.

Sure enough he missed the front end. ND tried to get Pitt napping with an early shot that didn’t go, but of course that time no defensive rebound for Pitt. Instead, a bit of chaos and the big three goes to tie the game.

And then…

Pitt inbounded it to freshman Josh Newkirk, who was to drive the lane and either find a big man inside or kick it out to Patterson. Instead, his pass was more of a handoff and left Dixon dissatisfied with the spacing.

After the timeout, the Panthers inbounded the ball to point guard James Robinson — who was 1 of 7 from the field at that point — and he missed an off-balance 15-footer fadeaway before the buzzer.

That left Doris Burke howling at the timeout. And everyone else. Patterson had a one-on-one with freshman Steve Vasturia, and got a step past him heading to a clear line for the basket. Afterwards, Dixon chose to defend the timeout and protect Robinson for the weak shot attempt.

“I thought it was terrific, the shot at the end,” Dixon said. “I thought we put it in a good situation. I didn’t like our spacing and that’s what we did [call a timeout]. We got a good look. Any time you miss a shot, you can question that shot.”

I am going to work from the assumption that Dixon had not seen a replay when talking to the media after the game. I guarantee you he looked at the tape later and had to be shaking his head at his own overcoaching there. That was the almost the equivalent of the football coach calling the late timeout to ice an opposing field goal kicker when the kick would have missed.

If you still think this is a fireable mistake Dixon made in the timeout, then it is clear you just want Dixon gone. This was a mistake. It was a mistake of overcoaching. Something we know Dixon does. Sometimes it actually works. This was a glaring, flashing light and air horn sounding whopper of a screw-up the other way.

The good news, was that all it meant was overtime rather than a win in regulation.

The overtime was complete back-and-forth and I was checking to make sure I DVR’d an extra hour of recording time because it looked like more OT was coming. But, then Lamar Patterson took advantage of the ND defense extending too far out (Seriously, what was ND doing with their frontcourt all the way out to the free throw line?) and zipped a pass right past them to Zanna who simply went up and flushed it to give Pitt a 4-point lead.

Even with that Vasturia 3 to narrow it, Pitt finished it at the free throw line (9-10) and smart coaching by Dixon. By fouling ND quickly in the back court, Pitt kept them from getting any 3-point looks the rest of the game. They could only shoot free throws and foul Pitt.

What will have ND haunting them is that despite an overall great night of shooting, they committed a slew of turnovers and were killed on the boards.

Notre Dame lost, 85-81, on Senior Day for the first time since 2005 — also to Pittsburgh — and lost in overtime for the first time after six successive overtime wins. Shoved further away from a possible trip to the National Invitation Tournament, where a winning record isn’t required to participate but almost is mandatory — Notre Dame dropped to 15-15 overall, 6-11 in the ACC.

“We normally expect when we get to overtime, we get it done, especially in this building,” said Irish senior guard Eric Atkins. “It hurts to go out like that.”

Notre Dame had not lost in overtime at home since Jan, 24, 2006 to Georgetown. That one went to double overtime. It’s the first time the Irish loss after an additional five minutes since early last season in Brooklyn, N.Y., to Saint Joseph’s (Pa.).

Zanna was a question that the Irish had no answer for all afternoon. When it was over, and Pittsburgh (22-7, 10-6) had beaten Notre Dame for the first time since 2009 after five straight losses and six of seven setbacks in the series, Zanna had corralled twice as many offensive rebounds (10) as the entire Irish team (five).

“I just saw that in the locker room,” Zanna said of the stunning stat. “I’ve never had 10 offensive rebounds. I was surprised. I just go every time. It kept falling in my hands. That kind of really helped us.”

Zanna, who finished with 14 rebounds overall, admitted that the relentlessness of him and his teammates on the backboard wore down any Irish who tried to do something, anything, to keep them away from missed shots.

“We kept crashing and they just kind of gave up, and we kept going and attacking the glass, and that’s how we won,” said the 6-foot-9, 230-pound Zanna. “They were kind of tired and giving up. We just kept attacking. We were just going. We just kept grinding.”

Pittsburgh’s 21 offensive rebounds led to 21 second-chance points.

And with that, Pitt has 10 wins in the ACC. The 12th time in 13 years under Coach Dixon that Pitt has at least 10 conference wins. And hopefully began to exorcise some of the demons that they have had with the Irish.