After the no call heard around the world on Saturday against Syracuse, the Mountaineers looked to get back to their winning ways against their big rival Pitt at the Coliseum on Monday night. In front of a crowd of 13,032 for Big Monday and playing on ESPN, the Mountaineers were hoping to end their two game skid. What happened however was a lack of execution and anything that could go wrong, did go wrong. With their 72-66 loss to Pitt, it marks the first time since Bob Huggins returned to West Virginia to coach, that the Mountaineers have lost three in a row.
“They just out-toughed us,” said Kevin Jones. ”They just wanted it more. They beat us to every loose ball. They played as a team.”
The game went back and forth in the first half as the teams traded buckets on each end of the floor. The Mountaineers took the early lead with three-pointers by Jabarie Hinds and Truck Bryant to jump out to a 17-9 lead. Tray Woodall would help spark a Pitt 17-6 run to give them their first lead of the ballgame. During a timeout, Huggins yelled at Bryant about a blown defensive assignment, but was given a technical because the ref thought he was yelling at him instead. Nothing would go their way.
“I can’t explain that,” said Huggins. “I am yelling at Truck because he didn’t make a rotation. I don’t know how that happens?”
Huggins knows that Pitt got some bounces to go their way, but he refused to use that as an excuse.
“Yeah, I’m sure they got some bounces. You always get some bounces. But our center had the ball at the start of the second half and they just snatched the ball and got a layup. They beat us to the ball. We stand around and watch too much,” Huggins said.
Going into halftime, a layup by Nasir Robinson and a three-pointer from Woodall would give the Panthers a 33-29 lead, a lead which they wouldn’t concede the rest of the game. The Mountaineers never trailed by more than 10 points in the game and managed to trim the lead back to two points in the second half. In the first half, freshman Kevin Noreen, the main backup to Deniz Kilicli, left the game with a broken ankle to make things worse. Junior Dominique Rutledge is the only healthy backup forward on the Mountaineers bench with the injury to Noreen.
Jones once again led the way for the Mountaineers with his 16th double-double of the season and his eight consecutive 20-point game – the most by a West Virginia player since All-American guard Wil Robinson had nine straight 20-point games in 1972, posting 21 points and 13 rebounds on 7-of-16 shooting. Bryant contributed 14 points and a game-high 7 assists, while Kilicli and Hinds had 12 and 10 respectively.
After suffering through an eight-game losing streak, including a seven-game losing streak in conference, the Panthers have won three in a row to try to right their ship. The x-factor for the Panthers in the past couple games has been Woodall.
“He destroyed us,” Huggins said. “He absolutely destroyed us.”
Woodall led all scorers with 24 points on 8-of-12 shooting. Preseason All-American Ashton Gibbs added 15 points of his own to help lift the Panthers to victory.
With the loss to the Panthers (14-9, 3-7), the Mountaineers now find themselves in a tie for eighth place in the league with a record of 15-8, 5-5 in the Big East. The Mountaineers have only one other game this week, Sunday at Providence.
“Nothing in this league is easy and now we’ve got to go to Providence – which is going to be hard,” said Huggins, who plans on giving his team the next two days off before returning to practice on Thursday.
Photo Credits: All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks Photo
Discussion about this post