Call it a hunch, but ESPN might break slightly from the reserved manner of hype that they usually engage and show Ronald Ramon burying that 3 to beat the Hoopies last year at the Pete. A year and 1 days later (leap year), that does not get old — at least not for me.

Fast-forward 367 days. West Virginia (16-7, 5-5 Big East) returns to Pittsburgh today for a 7 p.m., ESPN Big Monday game against No. 6 Pitt (21-2, 8-2). Conventional wisdom says the Mountaineers don’t have a chance. But that’s to forget what happened for 39 minutes and 59.9 seconds a year ago.

“We know we can play there,” WVU guard Alex Ruoff said. “We did it last year.”

The cast of characters has changed on both sides, more so from a West Virginia angle. Gone are Joe Alexander and Darris Nichols and even injured Joe Mazzulla, whose 15 points that night remain a career high. Ramon is gone, too, although the trade-off for the Panthers is pretty good: Levance Fields was injured and didn’t play.

This part is eerily similar, too: After struggling last year and losing back-to-back games against Georgetown and Cincinnati, just before that game with Pitt the Mountaineers had won an important confidence-builder against Providence. This year, after losing three of four, West Virginia routed the Friars on Saturday at the Coliseum, winning 86-59.

The Mountaineers are not feeling particularly cocky about themselves for this game.

The Mountaineers are 0-3 in their last three visits to the Petersen Events Center, last winning there in 2005. Last season, West Virginia held a 54-52 lead with just eight seconds remaining before Pitt guard Ronald Ramon drained a game winning three as time expired.

The Panthers come into the game on a three game winning streak, scoring 90-plus points in each game and winning by an average of nearly 19 points. Pitt’s 79 points scored against the Mountaineers earlier this season are the most West Virginia has allowed all year. In that game, West Virginia shot only 41 percent, falling away in the second half to eventually lose by 12.

“They’re a top four team and we’ve almost got to play a perfect game to win,” said Mountaineer point guard Truck Bryant. “We’ve just got to be mentally focused and come in ready to play.”

The one difference for WVU since the last game is that Alex Ruoff has been hitting shots lately.

West Virginia (16-7) evened its conference record at 5-5 with Saturday’s triumph. Leading the way was senior Alex Ruoff with a game-high 24 points, including 6-for-7 from three-point range. His overall 8-for-11 goaling suggests that he has snapped out of his recent shooting slump.

Huggins said, “Alex coming in and hitting (three-pointers) had as much to do with us playing well as anything. Now, all of a sudden, teams have to chase him and they have to chase Da’Sean (Butler), and that opens up things for other guys.”

The other change is that Joe Mazzula is out for the year. While the PG didn’t play in the last game, he was still in a game-to-game situation. That meant the players did not know if he would be there. He’s now done, so there is no question that Truck Bryant is the point guard. Having some certainty always helps in preparation.

Of course with Ruoff shooting better and Pitt knowing that Da’Sean Butler is just a damn good player, Pitt needs to pick it up a bit on defense.

“We’re excited about the way we’re playing on offense, but the first thing coach does is come into the locker room and talk about our defense,” senior point guard Levance Fields said. “Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get it done. I think we want to do it, but we’re just having a lot of slippage. Even when we get a stop, we give up second chances. We have to keep making [teams] hit the contested shots and don’t get away from that.”

DePaul was the fourth consecutive opponent to shoot 44 percent or better from the field. In the game before DePaul, Robert Morris of the Northeast Conference shot 57 percent.

…

Dixon might not feel comfortable with the way the Panthers are evolving, but they appear to have a different dimension from the teams that bowed out of the tournament with a whimper. This team is averaging 77.8 points per game in Big East games, and that instant offense quality is something that other Pitt teams of the recent past did not possess.

“We’re a good offensive team,” said sophomore center DeJuan Blair, who scored a career-high 32 points against DePaul and has been at the center of the offensive onslaught the past three games. “We’re a running team. We’re showing you guys that we can run. We can run with the best of them. A lot of people say we’re not a running team, but now we’re showing a lot of people.”

This is the challenge for any team when the talent level rises.  Offense is always considered more fun, and garners more attention. Defense is not. It is something that has to be done. It requires more concentration and a lot more communication.

Right now, Pitt players seem to be struggling with that. They set up okay, but don’t seem to be as aggressive. I wonder if some of that is with DeJuan Blair inside. He seems to be trying to avoid too much contact inside on defense — worrying too much about picking up fouls. We all know his importance to the team’s chances in any game, but he can’t be as timid on defense.

Still, with the way Pitt has been playing, there isn’t that much confidence down I-79.

If you are going to defeat Pitt — especially in the house of horrors that is the Petersen Athletic Center — you better go in with a full glass of testosterone and with your elbows sharpened. You don’t go through any back doors with the Panthers. If you’re going to beat them, you have to do it by beating down the front door.

And to make matters worse, the Panthers seem to just be coming together.

They have reached a point in their season where they aren’t just beating people, they are beating up people.

Pitt has scored 90 or more points in each of its last three games, last accomplished more than three years before Bill Clinton became President of the United States, scoring 105, 96 and 98 against Marshall, West Virginia and Robert Morris.

With a Bob Huggins team, this might be the thing to help Pitt get some intensity back on defense. The ‘Eers do want this game.

“It would mean the world to me,” senior guard Alex Ruoff admitted. “This may sound bad, but I really don’t like this rivalry.”

It’s mutual.