Box Score PITTSBURGH – West Virginia was simply too big, too strong and too deep for Pitt here tonight at the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh.
 
Freshman Oscar Tshiebwe's 20 points and 17 rebounds was complemented by Emmitt Matthews Jr.'s 17 points and eight boards to power the Mountaineers to a 68-53 victory over the Panthers. 
 
In the process, West Virginia (2-0) ended one streak while continuing another.
 
Tonight's victory over Pitt was West Virginia's fourth straight against the Panthers for the first time since the mid-1970s when Bob Huggins was a Mountaineer player.
 
The win also stopped WVU's 10-game road losing streak that spanned the entire 2019 season. West Virginia's last true road win was at Baylor on Feb. 20, 2018.
 
Of course, last year West Virginia didn't have Tshiebwe, who had a double-double by the eight-minute mark in the first half of tonight's game, or Sean McNeil, whose three first-half triples really ignited West Virginia.
 
The Mountaineers also couldn't guard straight-line drives last year the way they did tonight against the Panthers.
 
Pitt (2-2) shot a horrid 3-of-25 from the floor in the second half and finished the game converting just 30.2 percent. Consequently, Pitt's only recourse was to continue driving the ball to the rim (unsuccessfully) where it was met by 6-foot-9 Tshiebwe, 6-foot-10 Derek Culver, 6-foot-11 Logan Routt and 6-foot-8 Matthews Jr.

"In the second half it was our inability to score," Pitt coach Jeff Capel said. "It was as bad as I've seen, as bad as I've been a part of. Part of it is their defense, but part of it is our inability to finish."
 
West Virginia had a staggering 51-36 advantage on the glass to offset a poor shooting night from the floor. Other than Tshiebwe and Matthews Jr., who combined to hit half of their 28 field goal attempts, the rest of the Mountaineers managed to convert just 9-of-32.
 
Tshiebwe's stat line included eight offensive rebounds, three blocks and a steal coming off a foul-plagued, five-point, five-rebound performance during last Friday's season opener.
 
"That was his best game by far," Huggins said. "We're just trying to get him to slow down. He goes too fast at times."
 
Huggins was also impressed with Matthews' performance.
 
"Every time they made a run, Emmitt made a play," he said. "He made that shot in the corner. He made a couple in the first game whenever the game was tight. Oscar had a great game, but I thought Emmitt was the key. He made plays when we had to have a play."
 
McNeil came off the bench to add 11 for the victorious Mountaineers.
 
"I think they got worn down a little," Huggins said. "We didn't do anything different in the second half than we did in the first half, conceptually."
 
Sophomore guard Trey McGowens, who had 25-points earlier this week in a cross-town victory at Robert Morris, was held to just 13 tonight on 4-of-8 shooting.
 
Forward Justin Champagnie scored 12, including two of Pitt's three second-half field goals, while guard Ryan Murphy added 11.
 
Pitt led just twice in a first half in which the officials called nearly as many fouls as there were points scored. The Panthers' final lead came with 1:24 remaining in the half on McGowen's step-back 3. But West Virginia's Brandon Knapper responded 25 seconds later with a driving layup for the final points of the half.
 
With three minutes remaining in the second half, the "Let's Go Mountaineers" chant could be heard as many of the 11,725 who came here tonight began filing out of the arena. Huggins was asked afterward if he did anything special to prepare his team for playing in a hostile environment.
 
"I never understood the meaning of hostile," he said. "I didn't see anybody with spears, knives, machine guns or anything like that. I just thought it was a whole bunch of people who paid some money to come in here and watch a good ballgame."
 
Pitt is scheduled to make a return trip to Morgantown next year for the final game of the four-year series.
 
"In the league we play in it's refreshing to jump on a bus and ride an hour to play a game, believe me," Huggins said. "It's been such a great game for so many years and it's been such a great rivalry for so many years I don't know why we don't play every sport.
 
"What's wrong with that? The reality is we don't need them and they don't need us, really. It's not like either one of us can't find other games. It's not that. I think you can't find meaningful games like this game is to the fan bases. I hope I'm saying that right."
 
West Virginia has a quick turnaround with a game Monday night against Northern Colorado at the WVU Coliseum at 7 p.m. AT&T Sportsnet will televise the contest locally.