Box Score PITTSBURGH - West Virginia had little trouble with Pitt when guards Jevon Carter and Daxter Miles Jr. were in the game.
 
When they weren't, well, that was different story.
 
With Carter and Miles sitting on the bench with four fouls, Pitt nearly erased an 18-point second half deficit, but when Carter and Miles returned, so did the Mountaineers' lead.
 
Carter and Miles scored the game's remaining six points to power the 18^th-ranked Mountaineers to a 69-60 victory in the renewal of the Backyard Brawl tonight at the Petersen Events Center.
 
The last time these two rivals played was on Feb. 16, 2012, a 66-48 Mountaineer victory in Pittsburgh. It was the 185^th meeting in a series that began in 1906.
 
"Kevin (Stallings) can coach," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "I've got great respect for him and what he's done for years. He runs good stuff; his guys play hard. They kicked our butt on the glass. I told our guys for two days I was afraid this was going to happen."
 
The Panthers had a 38-32 advantage on the backboard, and a much wider disparity at the free throw line.
 
Tonight, officials Lee Cassell, Michael Stephens and Michael Roberts were busy calling fouls on West Virginia - 25 in all, with sophomore Wesley Harris fouling out and three of his teammates saddled with four each.
 
Pitt (5-5) used those fouls to pile up a 31-9 advantage in free throws, the Panthers hitting 22 of them to stay in the game.
 
In the first half, the free throw line was about the only way Pitt could score. The Panthers made five of their 22 first-half field goal attempts but hit 15-of-21 from the line.
 
In the second half, Pitt went on a 9-2 run after Carter was called for his fourth foul with 9:12 remaining. A Ryan Luther tip-in followed by a Marcus Carr four-point play pulled Pitt to within two, 61-59.
 
Harris fouled Carr on his made 3 and retired to the bench with his fifth foul with 5:31 to go.
 
"I enjoyed the game a lot more when Carter was on the bench with four fouls," Pitt coach Kevin Stallings said.
 
Sophomore Sagaba Konate answered Carr's play when he rebounded a missed shot from the corner and scored from the baseline. Carter's only points of the second half came moments later to make it 65-59, West Virginia.
 
After one Shamiel Stevenson free throw, Miles Jr. scored on a reverse layup with 2:32 remaining, forcing Pitt to use a 30-second timeout.
 
When play resumed, Luther couldn't get a tip-in to go down and Carter grabbed the rebound. At the other end, following a 30-second WVU timeout, Miles Jr. hit another driving layup with 1:39 to go.
 
Stewart and Luther missed 3s on Pitt's final two possessions.
 
The Mountaineers never trailed.
 
West Virginia (9-1) took control at the outset, using the 3-ball from Lamont West to build an early 8-2 lead. The margin swelled to 20 when Carter took over during a five-minute stretch midway into the first half, scoring 14 of West Virginia's 16 point-flurry.
 
He began the run with a difficult, off-balance shot close to the basket, then hit back-to-back 3s before adding another triple with 5:47 remaining to give West Virginia a 38-18 lead and force the Panthers to call timeout.
 
That was West Virginia's biggest lead of the game.
 
"I thought the difference was they made shots and we didn't," Stallings said.
 
When the fouls began accumulating, Huggins effectively used a 1-3-1 zone for the latter portion of the first half.
 
"I was trying to survive," Huggins said. "We had three starters in foul trouble."
 
Carter led everyone with 19; Miles Jr. added 15, West contributed 13 and James Boden came off the bench to score 10. Miles Jr. is now seven points shy of becoming West Virginia's 52nd 1,000-point scorer.
 
Luther led Pitt with 13.
 
West Virginia forced 10 turnovers in the first half but ended the game with just 14.
 
"Our pressure sucks," Huggins said. "We haven't done a very good job with it."
 
"If you would have told me at the start of the game we have 14 turnovers I would have taken it," Stallings added.
 
Pitt shot 44 percent from the floor in the second half and finished the game at 34 percent. WVU hit 48.5 percent of its field goal attempts in the first half and finished the game shooting 45.8 percent.
 
It was West Virginia's second straight victory over a regional ACC rival; the Mountaineers held on to defeat 15^th-ranked Virginia 68-61 on Tuesday night in Morgantown.

The attendance for tonight's game was 7,748, many West Virginia fans making the short drive to Pittsburgh. At one point late in the first half when West Virginia was leading by 18 points, the "Let's Go Mountaineers" chant took over the building.
 
The Mountaineers are off this week for finals and will play an exhibition game against Wheeling Jesuit next Saturday. Four days later West Virginia will play host to Coppin State.