Pittsnogle smothered by tough Panther defense

This time around, Kevin Pittsnogle got Pittsnogled himself.

Pittsnogle, the 6-foot-11… This time around, Kevin Pittsnogle got Pittsnogled himself.

Pittsnogle, the 6-foot-11 senior, torched the Panthers on two separate occasions last season, but failed to score a single point in West Virginia’s 57-53 loss to Pitt inside the Petersen Events Center last night.

“[Pitt] didn’t allow us any help from him,” West Virginia head coach John Beilein said of the defense. “They’ve got good defenders, but we’ve got to learn to play appropriately.”

He came into the game as the Big East’s third leading scorer, averaging 19.5 points per game. He left the game, however, after a 0-for-12 shooting night, including a 0-for-6 mark from behind the 3-point line.

“I can’t remember him getting a real open look,” Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon said of Pittsnogle. “He tried to go underneath in the second half, but Aaron [Gray] did the job of getting a hand in his face.

“It was mainly a great team defensive effort.”

In 18 minutes of play in the first half, Pittsnogle finished 0-for-7 from the field, with five of those shots coming from beyond the arc, while turning the ball over twice.

It wasn’t just him, though, as the whole Mountaineer team came out cold in the early going.

As a team, West Virginia shot just 23.1 percent (6-for-21) including 23.5 percent from three. West Virginia entered the game as the fifth-ranked team in the Big East for field-goal percentage

Pitt center Aaron Gray received the task of following Pittsnogle around all game long, and the 7-foot junior was up to the challenge.

“We’ve pretty much been watching film on [Pittsnogle] since the last game,” Gray said. “Coaches told me that you just can’t leave him. The guys did a great job helping me out when he did get loose.

“It was a combination of him missing some shots and good defense.”

Things didn’t start off well for the West Virginia big man in the second half, either.

Within the first three minutes of the half, he found open looks underneath with a hook shot, a short fade-away jumper and a 3-pointer that all failed to find their way through the net.

Wide open again beneath the basket, Pittsnogle turned and laid up a shot, but Pitt’s Sam Young soared from the middle of the lane and swatted it away, denying Pittsnogle his first bucket.

As if the stingy defense of the Panthers wasn’t enough, Pittsnogle’s struggles carried over to the defensive side of the ball as well.

He served no match for Gray in the paint as the dominating center muscled his way for two layups during the first half and forced Pittsnogle into fouls later on with his play.

“It wasn’t really me versus Pittsnogle,” Gray said of the play underneath. “But there’s definitely points in the game where I feel I have an advantage and my teammates are taking advantage of it.”

Pittsnogle picked up his third foul on a moving pick with 14:24 remaining the game. A couple minutes later, Pitt’s Antonio Graves dribbled past his defender and into Pittsnogle, who was called for the block and his fourth foul, which sent him to the bench.

He didn’t see the court for the next seven minutes, but when he got back on, he quickly exited again.

The ball found its way into Gray’s hands underneath, who turned to the basket and put in for an easy two and a foul on Pittsnogle for his fifth with 6:42 remaining.

As the whistle blew on the foul, Pittsnogle looked straight up, untucked his jersey, and slowly started for the West Virginia sideline. His fifth foul ignited the crowd of 12,508, all of whom waited patiently for the senior to find his seat on the bench.

Pittsnogle watched the rest of the game as his team failed a comeback, and for the first time in a while, he didn’t play a factor in the game.

“They are a tremendous defensive team. I have to watch the tape to see what we can tweak and what we can do,” Beilein said of Pitt. “It’s tough to get a good open look and you’ve got to have a good blend of patience to look for the right shot.

“They frustrate you and can frustrate a team.”