By BRIAN WOODSON
MORGANTOWN — Bob Huggins wasn’t accepting any moral victories after West Virginia’s 79-67 loss to No. 4 Pittsburgh on Sunday afternoon.
“I’m not a big proponent of losing to learn, I think you’ve got to learn every time you go out and play,” said Huggins, the Mountaineers’ second year head coach. “I told this bunch the very first day that we can win and we’re going to win, but we can’t not do things right and win, and when we haven’t done things right it has got us.”
West Virginia learned that the hard way in the second half, as the Panthers used a 28-10 run over an eight-minute span to erase a two-point lead and build a 16-point advantage on their way to a Big East win over the Moun-taineers in the Backyard Brawl played in front of a sellout crowd of 14,329 at WVU Coliseum.
Pittsburgh (18-1, 16-1), which was ranked No. 1 in the country two weeks ago, received double figures in scoring from four players, including Sam Young, who tallied 16 second half points despite being saddled with three fouls just seven seconds after the break.
“He’s a great player and he’s been doing that for a long time,” said Huggins, of Young, who finished with a game-high 22 points. “We didn’t guard like we normally guard, but they’re pretty good. They’re having one of those years where when they have open shots, they make them.”
DeJuan Blair, a 6-foot-7, 265-pound sophomore, took advantage of his size to record 16 points and 11 rebounds. Pittsburgh, which also received 13 points from Levance Fields and 11 by Jermaine Dixon, hit 30-of-56 (53.6 percent) from the field, compared to 23-56 (41.1 percent) for the Mountaineers.
“Everybody knows how tough a place this is to play and how good a team this is and how well-coached they are,” Pittsburgh head coach Jamie Dixon said. “Obviously this is a very impressive win for us and a very good win in a lot of ways.”
West Virginia, which was led by DeSean Butler’s 21 points, traded the lead with Pittsburgh 11 times. The Mountaineers, who were also tied with the Panthers 10 times, had its final lead at 45-43 on a Butler basket with 16:24 left in the game.
From there, it was all Panthers. Pittsburgh made 10 of its next 14 shots, and West Virginia committed 10 of its 13 turnovers in the second half. Pittsburgh built its biggest margin to 16 on three different occasions.
“It was just a matter of us doing things that we normally don’t do,” Butler said. “We got ahead running our offense, but we didn’t run our offense when we got ahead.
“We took stupid shots and they came down and they ran their offense and took a number of good shots. ... It’s just about executing offensively and defensively, and that’s something we didn’t do tonight obviously.”
West Virginia (14-5, 3-3), which entered the game after an impressive 17-point win over Georgetown, also received 16 points from Alex Ruoff and 12 by Darryl Bryant.
The Mountaineers did out-rebound the bigger Panthers 34-31, but Huggins was disappointed that the ‘Eers couldn’t pull their big men away from the basket.
“They got us out of doing what kept us in the game in the first half,” Huggins said. “We didn’t play the ball and we have to move them. I felt we could rebound as long as we moved them out of the lane.
“You can’t have those big, wide bodies stand in the lane and we just got down and tried to stop them in the lane and that is a recipe for disaster.”
The first half featured 10 ties and six lead changes, with West Virginia’s biggest lead being six (11-6) and Pittsburgh highest margin being four (39-37) before settling for a 39-37 lead at the break.
Young, who Dixon called a first round NBA draft pick, had just six points at that point, and received his third foul just seconds into the second half.
“I feel like early on I got it rolling and I was kind of on, but in the second half, I just started being more aggressive on defense,” Young said. “I could see they were favoring the home team so I tried to put myself in position where I would get no more fouls.”
Young’s third foul was answered by a Butler 3 for a 40-39 West Virginia lead. Blair followed with two baskets of his own. At 265-pounds, Blair outweighed the ‘Eers’ heaviest player, Wellington Smith, by 35 pounds.
“We did a good job of taking advantage of that and we did a good job of turning the ball over and we got a couple of plays off of it,” said Blair, who liked the super-charged atmosphere that lasted until late in the game.
“It’s hard to come in here and play. The crowd is pretty into it, they get real emotional about their team, but that’s what I like about coming in here and playing.”
A Ruoff 3 and a Butler field goal put the ‘Eers up 45-43. Pittsburgh then went 10-14 from the field, along with 6-6 from the free throw line to expand its lead to an insurmountable 71-55 lead with 7:09 left in the game.
“We didn’t do the things that a team like us that has to do to beat a team like that ... ,” Huggins said. “We just have to do the right things, and that’s not easy. We missed a lot of shots, we missed a lot of open shots, but we’re going to miss shots ... .
“Sometimes you can’t control if the ball goes in or not, but you can control the other things. We have to get better at controlling the things we can control.”
West Virginia got within 11 on a Bryant basket with 5:31 left, but that was as close as it would get.
The Panthers, which was undefeated and No. 1 until a loss last week at Louisville, narrowed the all-time series to 93-83 in favor of the Mountaineers, although Pittsburgh has won five of the last six.
“We know how good they are and we came in and executed throughout,” Dixon said. “I thought we really played well. I thought we really took care of the ball, especially in the second half, and it was not giving them any transition buckets on our turnovers.”
Pittsburgh stayed within a game of Marquette and Louisville at the top of the Big East, while the Mountaineers dropped into a tie for seventh.
West Virginia will host St. John’s on Wednesday before traveling to Louisville and Syracuse, two clubs ranked among the nation’s top teams.
“We have to do things right, that’s what it comes down to,” Huggins said. “It’s not that we can’t win, we just have to do things right.”
— Contact Brian Woodson at bwoodson@bdtonline.com
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PITTSBURGH (18-1)
Biggs 1-3 2-2 4, Young 9-14 4-4 22, Blair 6-12 4-8 16, Fields 4-7 5-5 13, Dixon 4-8 0-0 11, G.Brown 2-5 0-1 4, Gibbs 1-2 0-0 3, Tiesi 0-0 0-0 0, Wanamaker 1-1 0-0 2, Frye 0-1 0-0 0, Robinson 2-2 0-0 4, McGhee 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 30-56 15-20 79.
WEST VIRGINIA (14-5)
Butler 6-13 7-9 21, Ebanks 4-7 1-1 9, Smith 1-4 0-2 3, Ruoff 5-11 4-4 16, Bryant 4-12 4-4 12, Thoroughman 0-0 0-0 0, Jones 3-5 0-0 6, Thomas 0-0 0-0 0, Flowers 0-4 0-0 0, Proby 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-56 16-20 67.
Halftime—Pittsburgh 39-37. 3-Point Goals—Pittsburgh 4-13 (Dixon 3-5, Gibbs 1-2, Fields 0-1, Frye 0-1, Young 0-2, G.Brown 0-2), West Virginia 5-19 (Butler 2-5, Ruoff 2-7, Smith 1-2, Ebanks 0-1, Bryant 0-4). Fouled Out—None. Rebounds—Pittsburgh 31 (Blair 11), West Virginia 34 (Butler 6). Assists—Pittsburgh 18 (Fields, Wanamaker 5), West Virginia 15 (Bryant 6). Total Fouls—Pittsburgh 16, West Virginia 12. A—14,329.
