I was somewhat taken aback with the gushing from punditry and others both on Twitter and ESPN following Pitt beating the Hoopies in Morgantown. Yes, Pitt was down Ashton Gibbs and it was in Morgantown, but largely this is what Pitt does when a starter goes down. Don’t freak out, play their game and gut it out.

We’ve seen it in the past when Levance Fields was hurt and the team lacked any sort of true point guard. The team, adjusted to the circumstances and still played their game. It may have been a little harder, and uglier but Pitt would get through those spells still winning more than they lost. Why, then should this be any different?

Pitt started out struggling in the first half. Trying to find the right spacing. Some surprising line-ups on the floor at points (Patterson, Zanna and Moore out there at the same time?). Essentially, a bit of experimenting on the fly.

But as Coach Dixon said before the game and afterwards:

“We really got the message across to our guys in the last 24 hours,” Dixon said. “We didn’t have to have anybody step up. No one had to become a different player overnight.”

Pitt (22-2, 10-1) trailed by eight points early and shot 29 percent from the field in the first half, but the Panthers shot 60 percent in the second half to pull out a victory in a rivalry dating to 1904.
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“What I like about it was how we did it,” Dixon said. “We really focused on the rebounding and defense.”

That’s not entirely true, of course, with Pitt not altering their game plan. Pitt only attempted six 3-pointers and only hit one. Brown and Wanamaker are still struggling with their outside shot and you could see them hesitate and refuse to take even the open looks. That seems more of a confidence issue and not necessarily because Gibbs was out.

I guess part of why I am somewhat surprised at how lauded this win is, is that WVU really isn’t looking that good — and hasn’t for a couple weeks.

“They kept attacking, kept going after the ball and we relaxed,” Kevin Jones said. “Against a good team like Pitt, especially when their best player is out we have to take advantage. All five of them attacked the glass. If one guy missed another came after it.”

The boards made a difference, a big difference, so much so that Pitt had 30 possessions in the second half and came up without any points on only five of them — and on one of them Kevin Brown missed two free throws.

If that were the only problem, maybe Huggins could fix it, but then there is this thing about shooting the basketball. Someone has got to tell WVU that you are actually allowed to put the ball in the basket.

Honest, even Tim Huggins, who refereed Monday night’s game, will allow that.

WVU decided in this game to work from the inside out, featuring Deniz Kilicli, who had a memorable 19-point game with a variety of hooks from everywhere but out of bounds.

But he wasn’t alone. They tried Casey Mitchell down low and Joe Mazzulla. It was the game plan.

Why?

“We can’t shoot,” said Huggins. “What do you want me to do? I get tired of watching them miss, I don’t know about you. I have to watch every practice. You don’t. After a while, you’re like ‘Damn!’

“What do you want me to do, trade ‘em? Waive ‘em? I guess I could waive ‘em but I can’t get anybody for them, so. I could sit here and lie to you, if you want,” Huggins said.

Kilicli was insane. His hook — with either hand — was going in and there was little that could be done to stop him. This was where not having Gibbs played a factor.

Pitt had concerns with keeping the guards out of foul trouble, because of depth at that spot. So there was definitely a decision not to bring much help defense to double him and force Kilicili to give it up. There seemed to be a conscious decision not to risk being called for a reach-in foul or have the guards get there late defending another guy on the perimeter off a pass.

At least, that was how it looked to me — and I’ve been known to rationalize.

So Kilicli kept scoring on offense, but his defensive presence was a non-factor. Only 2 rebounds in the game — and he had to be in there because he was the only one scoring for them and Flowers was in foul trouble. The rebounding, oh, the rebounding for Pitt.

“We were running good stuff in the first half,” Dixon said, “and we took good shots and just missed them, and those are shots we are usually going to make.”

The Panthers came out and played one of their most efficient 20 minutes of offensive basketball of the season as they scored 48 points on 17-of-28 shooting (60.7 percent).

Pitt had 10 offensive rebounds in the second half and converted them into 12 second-chance points.

The Panthers guards and wings continually drove to the basket for layups and dunks as the West Virginia defense was powerless to stop them at times.

For the game, the Panthers outrebounded the Mountaineers, 40-28, (including an 18-8 edge on the offensive boards) and scored 42 points in the lane. Neither team shot the 3-pointer particularly well, but the Mountaineers attempted 17 (and hit only four); Pitt shot six (and made one).

West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, whose offense was carried by center Deniz Kilicli’s game-high 19 points, said it was difficult to watch the Panthers continue to drive to the basket, but the Mountaineers simply couldn’t match up.

“They outmanned us, that is what happened,” Huggins said. “They beat us to death on the offensive glass and drove it where they wanted to drive it.”

Huggins was asked if there was a difference in the way the Panthers played without Gibbs and he said, “They drive it more, they just attack the rim.”

Well, attacking the rim is something I know a lot of us have wanted to see Pitt do a bit more lately. This seemed to be the game where they did it.

The game has WV writers trying to look for the good. The best they can figure, there aren’t that many very good teams in the rest of the country. Fair enough. It explains how WVU can remain a fringe top-25 team.

You know it was a tough game for Huggins, when he’s complimenting Pitt.

It was the kind of performance, frankly, we became used to seeing from the Mountaineers last season during a Final Four run.

That’s what Huggins thought, too.

The Panthers, he said, were playing for the names on the front of the shirts, not the back.

”It’s admirable in today’s times,” Huggins said. ”We have all these guys who think they’re going to go play in the league (NBA). They’ve got guys that just go play; they just play to win. They don’t force shots, they don’t do things they can’t do. They just do what they can do. It’s refreshing actually.”

Huggins indicated he was talking mostly as a basketball fan in that regard, though, and not about watching it when those things are happening against one of his teams.

As an opposing coach? ”I can’t say what it was,” Huggins said.

It was a win for Pitt. 10th win in the Big East for the tenth straight year. I say it almost every year. I know I said it a lot last year, but it bears repeating. This doesn’t get old. Never take it for granted