Box Score Joe Toussaint's 18 points led four double-digit scorers in West Virginia's 81-56 victory over Pitt Friday night at the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh.
 
Tonight's victory was the Mountaineers' sixth straight since the series was resumed in 2017 and represents the longest winning streak since claiming nine in a row from 1964 to 1968.
 
Toussaint, an Iowa transfer, had a big-boy line score tonight for the victorious Mountaineers with five assists, four rebounds and two steals to go with his game-high 18 points. He was 5 of 11 from the floor and 7 of 9 from the free throw line.
 
South Carolina transfer Erik Stevenson contributed 16 points on 7-of-12 shooting, emerging sophomore forward Mohamed Wague tallied 11 on 5-of-5 shooting and Emmitt Matthews Jr. chipped in with 10.
 
"Erik kind of got it going making some shots early," said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, who got his 918^thcareer victory to move to within two of Jim Calhoun for third place on the men's Division I all-time win list.
 
The Mountaineers made a sizzling nine of their first 10 shots and finished shooting 52.6% from the floor, converting 30 of 57, including 8 of 21 from 3-point distance. WVU hit 4-of-12 from behind the arc in the second half when Pitt played primarily zone defense.
 
The Panthers had an early 15-10 lead before West Virginia took control of the game late in the first half when the Mountaineers outscored the Panthers 16-6 over the remaining 4:54 to lead 47-36 at the break.

Pitt (1-1) closed its deficit to nine points on the opening possession of the second half, but WVU immediately answered with Kedrian Johnson's 3.
 
WVU's margin got to 15 on Seth Wilson's 3 with 6:41 left and then quickly to 21 on Matthews' triple two minutes later. After Nelly Cummings' basket with 9:03 to go, Pitt converted only one more field goal for the remainder of the game.
 
West Virginia's 25-point victory was its largest against the Panthers since Jan. 17, 1968, when Huggins was a high school freshman.
 
"I thought it was a great team effort," the Hall of Fame coach said. "As I told (the players), we've won some things here, but we haven't won the big one – the one that everybody wants. So, let's just keep getting better; let's keep working at it and let's start lagging and not coming in with some enthusiasm. Hopefully, they do."
 
Ten WVU players logged eight or more minutes tonight and all 10 got into the scoring column. The Mountaineers had a 42-10 advantage in bench scoring and outscored Pitt 36-22 in the paint.
 
"I think our staff did a great job with the (NCAA transfer) portal," Huggins said.
 
Inside scoring was the team's biggest Achilles heel last season.
 
Jamarious Burton led Pitt with 16 and Greg Elliot added 12. Forward John Hugley, who scored 17 in last year's loss in Morgantown, sat on Pitt's bench in street clothes after missing his second straight game because of a preseason knee injury.
 
West Virginia boosted its overall series record to 101-88 and is improves to 38-56 in Pittsburgh and 5-7 in games played at the Petersen Events Center.
 
A crowd of 10,827 attended tonight's game but dwindled to mostly West Virginia fans at its conclusion.
 
West Virginia (2-0) returns to the WVU Coliseum to face Morehead State on Tuesday night, followed by a quick three-day turnaround to play Penn next Friday night.
 
Tickets for both of those games are on sale through the Mountaineer Ticket Office and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.