So, didn't see that one coming. But, regardless, I'm ecstatic that Pitt knocked off the West Virginia Hillbillies Mountaineers in Morgantown, 72-66. It was their third win in four games at the Coliseum. Jamie Dixon now is 5-4 all-time in Morgantown and has the most wins by a Pitt coach in that building.
Tray Woodall tonight - wow. Guy just went off against WVU as he was 8-12, including 3-5 from three-point range, and scored 24 points (one shy of a career high). Nasir Robinson also had a solid showing and has now made 13 consecutive shots dating back to the Georgetown game. He scored nine points on 4-4 shooting. Ashton Gibbs also had a good showing on the stat sheet, scoring 15 points on 4-8 shooting and he went 7-9 from the line.
Dante Taylor, though, probably made the key play of the game. With under two minutes remaining, Robinson was driving towards the basket when he lost control of the ball and blindly flung the ball towards the free throw line. Dante scooped up the ball and made a lay-up to keep Pitt's lead at six, and from there Pitt won the game from the line (something you won't hear a lot). The Panthers shot an uncharacteristic 21-26 from the charity stripe.
Defensively, Pitt started out struggling as WVU raced out to a 17-9 lead. But the Panthers clamped down defensively and held the Mountaineers to 40% shooting and 21% from three-point range. Pitt in particular did a great job shutting down Kevin Jones. Jones, while he scored 21 points, but that was manageable. Their defensive effort made up for the fact that they were out-rebounded 32-28.The bench still needs to work on scoring. Pitt only had 13 points from their reserves on 5-13 shooting and there continued to be a lot of inconsistency there. Also, I get that Pitt plays a physical style of basketball, but the number of fouls has to go down. The Panthers had 22 fouls in just an ugly, ugly game.
Speaking of ugly play, Lamar Patterson just looked uncomfortable all game. He only had six points on 1-9 shooting and appeared out of place defensively, which led to bad fouls. He needs to get back to how he played against Georgetown for Pitt to move forward. At the very least, he needs to be a solid contributor on offense and not commit dumb fouls on defense or allow easy buckets.
At the end of the day, though, it was a great win and Pitt now has six days off before they host cross-state rival Villanova on Sunday.
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