A Backyard Blowout!

Thursday, November 13

Morgantown, W.Va.

6 p.m.

West Virginia University

4-0,0-0Big 12

Pitt

3-1,0-0ACC

Pittsburgh

West Virginia

The WVU baseball team was honored for its 2025 season during the first half of the Backyard Brawl at Hope Coliseum on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, in Morgantown, W.Va.

Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks

November 13, 2025 08:50 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: John Antonik

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia used some tenacious defense to smother rival Pitt 71-49 tonight at Hope Coliseum.

The 22-point victory tonight was the largest against Pitt in games played in the Coliseum.

The Mountaineers limited the Panthers to just 25% shooting from 3 and 37.7% overall while forcing 12 turnovers that resulted in 21 points, much to the delight of the 12,453 in attendance here on a week night.

"The two areas we challenged our team going into the game were defending without fouling and outrebounding them," said West Virginia coach Ross Hodge, whose teams have now kept its opposition below 70 points for the 27^th straight game dating back to last season at North Texas. "I thought our guys did a good job and made it hard on them all night."

Senior center Harlan Obioha scored a season-high 19 points while senior guard Honor Huff added 15 for victorious West Virginia, now 4-0 to start the season for the first time since 2023.

Guard Jasper Floyd contributed 13 points and freshman forward DJ Thomas tallied all 10 of his points in the first half.

Pitt (3-1) led by seven, 21-14, with 8:01 left in the first half before coming unglued.

Huff got things going with a 3 and then Thomas added a layup to begin an 18-2 run over a four-minute stretch that saw the Panthers' lone basket coming from Brandin Cummings.

Pitt's field goal drought lasted more than 10 minutes and extended into the second half. By the time coach Jeff Capel used his second timeout with 16:29 left, West Virginia was comfortably ahead 46-25.

Threes by Nojus Indrusaitis, Roman Siulepa and Cameron Corhen helped get Pitt's deficit down to 10, 50-40, but West Virginia answered with baskets by Brenen Lorient, Obioha and a 3 by Huff.

After that, it became a free throw shooting contest because of technical fouls called on Indrusaitis, Corhen and Capel. That's only partly why West Virginia had a 21 to 6 advantage at the free throw line. The other reason was the Panthers settling for jump shots while the Mountaineers were getting the ball inside to Obioha, Thomas and Lorient.

West Virginia outscored Pitt 32 to 20 in the paint, 24 of those coming on layups. The Mountaineers were successful on 32 of their 64 possessions while the Panthers could only manage baskets on 22 of their 61 possessions.

Corhen led Pitt with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Omari Witherspoon added 11 while Cummings, Pitt's leading scorer, finished with just 7 on 3 of 13 shooting.

Floyd's stat line included seven assists, five rebounds and three steals for the Mountaineers.

"Jasper was just Jasper – so solid and we trusted him all game long," Hodge said.

Obioha led West Virginia with six rebounds while connecting on 8 of his 9 field goal attempts.

"I thought Harlan really anchored us and that's what I really love about this team - the beauty of being on a team," Hodge explained. "B-Lo (Lorient) was incredible on Sunday but got into a little foul trouble and you have to play the whole first half without him and guys stepped up across the board."

WVU had a 34 to 31 edge on the glass overall.

"I've had teams before when you get that first really big crowd it can weirdly go the other way and you play outside of character, but I thought our guys stayed in character," Hodge said.

Since the resumption of the series on an annual basis in 2017, the winning team has had a double-figure winning margins in all but one game.

West Virginia won the 2017 game in Pittsburgh by nine and then by margins of 10 in 2018, by 15 in 2019, by 15 in 2020, by 25 in 2022 and by 21 tonight.

Pitt won the prior two games by 17 points two years ago and by 24 last year.

Overall, West Virginia owns a 102-90 advantage in all-time play.

The Mountaineers conclude their five-game homestand to begin the season on Monday, Nov. 17 against Lafayette in a game that will be televised on ESPN+.

That will be the final game senior Chance Moore must sit out to satisfy NCAA transfer requirements. Senior forward Jackson Fields is also getting closer to being ready to go for the Mountaineers after dealing with a preseason hand injury.