MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Two new-look basketball teams will be on display Friday night when West Virginia meets Pitt at the Petersen Events Center.
 
It's the 189^th meeting of the Backyard Brawl, revived six years ago after being dormant for five years when Pitt left the Big East for the ACC and West Virginia departed the Big East for the Big 12.
 
Up until 2012, the two teams played twice a year from 2005-12 and annually since 1918.
 
West Virginia's current five-game winning streak against the Panthers is the most since topping Pitt nine times in a row during a four-year span from 1964-68.
 
WVU also enjoyed a four-game winning streak against the Panthers in the mid-1970s when Bob Huggins was a Mountaineer player.
 
Friday night, Backyard Brawl history will be virtually meaningless to two teams that have undergone significant renovations following losing seasons. West Virginia has just five players back on its roster from a year ago, and only two – Kedrian and Kobe Johnson – appeared in the 74-59 victory over the Panthers at the WVU Coliseum in Morgantown.
 
On the other side of the scorer's table, Pitt will have only three players who got into last year's game if 6-foot-9, 265-pound junior center John Hugley is cleared to play Friday night. 
 
"We're a whole lot different, and they're a whole lot different than the last time we played them," Huggins said.
 
Hugley, who scored a team-high 17 points in last year's game against the Mountaineers, missed Pitt's season-opening win against UT Martin because of a preseason knee injury but has since been cleared to do some non-contact work, according to a report in the FanNation website Inside the Panthers.
 
"Hugley is going to play," Huggins predicted. "I happen to know everyone in Cleveland."
 
Pitt didn't need him Monday night in its impressive 80-58 win over UT Martin in Pittsburgh. Iowa State transfer Blake Hinson scored a career-high 27 points and added 13 boards in Pitt's biggest season-opening victory in six years.
 
The Panthers (1-0) assisted on 21 of their 26 field goals offensively, and limited UT Martin to just 3 of 19 from 3-point range on the defensive side. It was just the 13^th time in coach Jeff Capel's five seasons at Pitt that the Panthers scored at least 80 points in a game.
 
Pitt was 11-of-41 from 3-point range with Hinson (12) and guards Nelly Cummings (eight), Greg Elliot (seven) and Nike Sibande (five) taking most of them.
 
"They do a good job of spreading you because they've got multiple guys who can make shots," Huggins said.
 
Hinson, a 6-foot-7, 235-pound junior forward from Deltona, Florida, played two seasons of SEC basketball at Ole Miss, averaging 10.1 points and 4.6 rebounds per game in 2019-20 before transferring to Iowa State where he never played. He was a former four-star prospect who played at Sunrise Christian Academy in Bel Aire, Kansas.
 
"He's 6-foot-7, 235 pounds, and he can really, really shoot the ball," Huggins said. "He's got a great touch, a quick release and he's really good in transition. He's good enough if you try and crowd him or you go at him off-balanced he's going to drive it by you."
 
Like West Virginia, Pitt has hit the transfer portal hard to supplement its roster. Cummings (Bowling Green/Colgate), Elliott (Marquette), Sibande (Miami, Ohio), guard Jamarius Burton (Wichita State/Texas Tech), KJ Marshall (Mars Hill) and Federiko Federiko (Northern Oklahoma) all come from other four-year schools.
 
Federiko, once a WVU recruiting target, scored 13 points, grabbed seven rebounds and blocked three shots with five of his six made field goals being dunks in the season opener. He stands 6-feet-11 and weighs 220 pounds.

"They've done a really good job of solidifying their roster," Huggins noted. "They brought in a bunch of guys who can make shots and went to more of a spread kind of deal."
 
West Virginia, meanwhile, demonstrated some of that old Bob Huggins toughness we've seen through the years during Monday night's 76-58 win over Mount St. Mary's.
 
The Mount shot just 32.7% from the floor and were beaten 45 to 28 on the glass.
 
Emmitt Matthews Jr., making his WVU return after one season spent at Washington, led a balanced scoring attack with 15 points and seven rebounds. Texas transfer Tre Mitchell poured in 13 points in just 14 minutes of action coming off the bench, while South Carolina transfer Erik Stevenson overcame early foul trouble to contribute 10.
 
Huggins admitted he was surprised with how well Mitchell played on Monday night without the benefit of having a full practice under his belt. His first one was yesterday.
 
"He got the clearance from the medical people and that part you still wonder about, and to me he seemed to be well," Huggins said. "He's a smart kid. He was never in a drill nor he was ever a part of anything. When he had the surgery, he was out because we weren't in any way going to jeopardize his career. For him to be able to go out and fit in the way he fit in says a lot about his basketball IQ and certainly his intelligence."
 
Friday night's game will tip off at 7 p.m. and will be streamed on ACC Network Extra (Jason Earle and Julius Page), which can also be accessed through ESPN+.
 
Mountaineer Sports Network coverage with Tony Caridi and Jay Jacobs begins at 6 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia, online via WVUsports.com and the mobile apps WVU Gameday and The Varsity Network. The broadcast can also be heard on Sirius XM channel 969.
 
WVU leads the all-time series 100-88 but is just 37-56 in games played at Pitt and 4-7 at the Peterson Events Center.