Men’s hoops looks to get own Backyard Brawl win

The Backyard Brawl is here once again.

After losing twice to Pitt last season and watching… The Backyard Brawl is here once again.

After losing twice to Pitt last season and watching its national title hopes crumble to the ground on the football field in the fall, the West Virginia men’s basketball team heads to the Petersen Events Center at 7 p.m. tonight with its eyes fixed on one thing – revenge.

“We like to have rivalries with everybody, [and] West Virginia’s our biggest,” Pitt forward Keith Benjamin said.

“Being that the football team got a win this year, we’ve got to keep it up.”

West Virginia (16-6, 5-4 Big East) is coming off a 77-65 win at Providence, while Pitt (17-5, 5-4 Big East) looks to bounce back from a 60-53 loss at Connecticut – a game in which the Panthers struggled badly offensively.

Pitt shot just 32.2 percent from the field, including a dismal 2 for 16 from behind the 3-point line.

In their game at Providence, the Mountaineers shot 50.9 percent from the field and hit 7-of-13 shots from outside.

“They shoot it well,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said of the Mountaineers, who rank fourth in the Big East in 3-point field goal percentage and first in the league in scoring margin.

Dixon added that much of West Virginia’s success this year is because of its age and experience.

“[They] have been through the Big East wars,” Dixon said. “Even their backups played huge minutes last year.”

One Mountaineer with a lot of that experience is junior forward Joe Alexander, who leads the team in scoring. Alexander, an athletic player with the ability to score from both inside and outside, is averaging 14.8 points and 5.8 rebounds per game.

Guards Darris Nichols and Alex Ruoff are also extremely dangerous from all over the floor. Ruoff averages almost seven 3-point attempts per game and converts on nearly 44 percent of them.

On the defensive end, the Mountaineers like to mix it up. At any time they could change to a 2-3 zone, a 1-3-1 zone or man-to-man.

In the past few years, West Virginia has played a lot of its 1-3-1 zone against Pitt, which is something that Dixon said Pitt junior Sam Young benefited from and was able to take advantage of.

But in their first year under Bob Huggins, the zone has changed a bit and could present a little bit of a different challenge for the Pitt offense.

Benjamin said he thought Huggins brought more physicality to the West Virginia squad but added that the Pitt offense looked better in practice compared to the past few weeks and felt confident in his team.

Benjamin, who hurt his hand a few games back in a loss against Cincinnati, said he’s feeling good and his hand is back to about 90 percent.

Dixon said he was impressed with how Benjamin has played even while injured.

“He’s played five games [since the injury] that a lot of guys wouldn’t have been playing,” he said.

Benjamin and the Panthers will still likely look to Young for much of their offensive production.

Young scored 21 points in Pitt’s first win against West Virginia last year and leads the Panthers this year with 18.1 points per game.

Still, he struggled to find his touch against Connecticut from the field and shot just 7 of 21.

Aside from using Young, Pitt could hold an advantage down low with freshman big-man DeJuan Blair.

Although West Virginia’s starting center Jamie Smalligan is taller, he’s not much of a scorer and averages fewer minutes per game than seven other Mountaineers.

If Blair finds himself matched up down low with one of the Mountaineer forwards, he’ll likely use his big frame and strength to his advantage.

Blair has nine double-doubles on the year and is averaging 11.9 points and 9.6 rebounds per game.

The Panthers have won their last three games against West Virginia, including an 80-66 win last year at home.