MORGANTOWN – Da’Sean Butler’s 18 points led No. 6 West Virginia to a 70-51 victory over No. 22 Pitt Wednesday night at the WVU Coliseum in the 179th Backyard Brawl. Kevin Jones added 16 points and Devin Ebanks grabbed 16 rebounds to get the Mountaineers to 18-3, 7-2, on the season.

“Usually when Pitt and West Virginia get together it does have a little bit of everything,” West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said.

West Virginia had several double-digit leads only to see Pitt come back almost every time. Trailing 20-10, the Panthers scored five straight points to cut West Virginia’s lead to 20-15. Then trailing 26-15, Pitt used a 9-0 run to pull within two, 26-24, on Ashton Gibbs’ 3 with 3:33 left in the first half.

“They’re terrific at dribble penetration and I think out of 28 (first-half) points, 24 of them were in the paint if I’m not mistaken,” said Huggins. “They had 14 on dribble-drives, 6 on free throws and then we gave up 4 by just throwing the ball to them in our half-court offense.”

Early in the second half, West Virginia again led by 10, 42-32, and once again Pitt made a run. Free throws by Jermaine Dixon and layups by J.J. Richardson and Nasir Robinson pulled the Panthers to within four, 42-38.

A minute later, Richardson got Pitt’s deficit down to two at 43-41 with 12:54 to go. Action was interrupted at that point when debris was thrown onto the floor, prompting a reprimand on the public address system by Huggins.

Action was stopped once again with 5:14 left in the game when John Flowers and Gary McGhee got tangled up underneath Pitt’s basket after Flowers rebounded Nasir Robinson’s miss.

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