Mountaineers keep launching shots to sink Panthers

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The law of averages finally caught up with West Virginia and ultimately… MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The law of averages finally caught up with West Virginia and ultimately Pitt on Saturday night.

The Mountaineers, who shoot 32.9 percent from behind the 3-point arc, began the game with several missed 3-pointers, finishing the first half with a dismal two of 17 from long range. Undaunted, they kept firing though, and hit close to their average shooting percentage in a stunning 83-78 overtime win.

Behind the shooting of Kevin Pittsnogle and Patrick Beilein, WVU hit nine of its 20 second-half 3-pointers and two of three attempts in the overtime, helping erase an 11-point deficit for the win. The Mountaineers finished 13 of 40 (32.5 percent) from the 3-point arc in the game, setting a school record for 3-point attempts along the way.

“We knew we had to contain their 3-point shooting, but they came out in the second half and started making them,” sophomore center Aaron Gray said. “And we gave up a lot of offensive rebounds, which allows them to shoot more.”

“We played real good defense in the first half, contesting all their 3s,” sophomore forward Chris Taft added. “But a team like that, they don’t care, they are gonna keep shooting, and eventually those shots are going to start falling,”

Pittsnogle, making a rare start once center D’or Fischer became ill, hit one of his four 3-pointers in the overtime to give West Virginia (12-7 overall, 3-6 Big East) its largest lead of the night at 73-66. From there on, it became a free-throw shooting contest and West Virginia helped itself by making 18 of 20 attempts.

But it was the 3-pointers that propelled the Mountaineers to breaking a five-game skid to their backyard rivals, and Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon knew it.

“[Pittsnogle] is a hard matchup for us, and when he’s shooting the ball from outside, it becomes very difficult to guard for our bigger guys,” he said. “Sometimes guys step up in the absence of other guys, and that’s exactly what he did.”

Despite not being able to throw the ball into the Monongahela River in the first half, the Mountaineers helped themselves with second-chance opportunities via long offensive rebounds that the Panthers (15-4, 5-3) couldn’t get their hands on.

In a 10-minute span in the second half, West Virginia hit seven 3-pointers, helping turn a 34-23 deficit into a 52-51 lead with 7:09 remaining. The Mountaineers followed four offensive rebounds with made 3-pointers in that span. Despite being out-rebounded 39-34, WVU grabbed six offensive rebounds in the second frame for plenty of second-chance opportunities.

“WVU got a lot of second and third shots, and I think that had a lot to do with their win — the long rebounds that we talked about when they shoot 40 3s. They seemed to make the shot after those rebounds in the second half.”

“The thing about [those] 3s is, we had everybody boxed out, and they shoot long 3s, and it hit the front of the rim and went 100 miles back to them,” Taft said. “They can just catch it and give it back to their teammates, and it’s real tough to stop that.”

Like his other teammates though, he was quick to add the inevitable.

“They weren’t going to keep missing,” he said.

Pitt itself hit eight 3-pointers, but WVU’s 20-8 advantage in second-chance points, when coupled with WVU’s hot hand from outside, ended up being too much for the Panthers.

“We didn’t do things right in the second half — closing out on shooters, switching on defense … that was the big turnaround,” junior point guard Carl Krauser said.