[Louisvillekid1]

Pittsburgh Panthers West Virginia Mountaineers

February 7, 7:00 PM @ WVU Coliseum

ESPN

Pittsburgh is off their best start in Big East history, entering this matchup 9-1 in conference 21-2 overall. A big reason to their success this year is junior guard Asthon Gibbs who leads his team in scoring at just 16 a game. Kid is deadly from deep and rarely misses from the line. Defensives have to know where he is at all times shooting over 46% from deep. This allows Players like Brad Wannamaker and Gilbert Brown to get space on the floor to score of the bounce. Unfortunately for the Panthers Gibbs recently suffered a sprained MCL and looks like he will be out about 2 weeks.

West Virginia comes in to this backyard brawl carrying a 6-4 conference record and 15-7 overall. However that record is meaningless, this squad can beat anybody in the country when they are making shots consistently and rebounding the ball. Also Bobby Huggins could take 7 members from this forum and we'd be competitive. The Mountaineers leading scorer also has had some issues coming a 3 games suspension, Casey Mitchell (15.7ppg) logged 9 minutes off the bench in their last, a losing effort in Philadelphia. When he is on, he can take over a game.

I look for pittsburgh to flat out struggle to score the ball without gibbs, unless wannamaker goes for 20+ over the next few they could drop a few games in this unforgiving big east schedule.

I think tonight will be a great opportunity for Casey Mitchell to get out of the one place you don't wanna be, HuggyBear's DogHouse. This is a very important game for the Mountaineers and If Pitt drops this one on the road they are still in First Place.

Look for WVU to be physical on the offensive glass, and use their length on the defensive end of the court to force the panthers into tough contested shots.

If West Virginia can knock down some three's tonight, and not go into one of their stretches where they just can not make a shot, they should have no problem beating the #4 team shorthanded @ home.

WVU 67- Pitt 60

[DennisT]

Astute post! Will give some thought though still undecided!

[Louisvillekid1]

ty,

BOL on your plays tonight...

[alukk]

Like the play, GL