Pitt, West Virginia enter Backyard Brawl in slumps

In a bit of a slump after a strong start, Pitt packs up and heads just over 75 miles south for its first true road game of the season Wednesday.

The Panthers (5-3) will travel to Morgantown, W.Va., to take on former Big East Conference foe West Virginia (3-4) in the latest installment of the Backyard Brawl.

Pitt has dropped three of its past four after a 4-0 start to the campaign, with its latest defeat a 79-70 setback against Clemson in the teams’ Atlantic Coast Conference opener on Sunday.

“Everything that we want to accomplish this year — and to become the team that we want to be — is on the other side of hard,” Panthers coach Jeff Capel said. “We have to learn how to do things harder. We have to learn how to compete for long stretches harder. … I thought we competed, but we played against an outstanding team. It requires more.”

Blake Hinson tied a career high with 27 points against the Tigers, 22 in the second half. Hinson’s average of 20.5 points per game ranked third in the ACC through Monday, and nobody in the league makes more than his 3.8 3-pointers per outing.

It’s safe to say he is not any sort of secret when it comes to sizing up the Panthers.

“The biggest carryover from last year is Hinson,” Mountaineers coach Josh Eilert said on Tuesday. “Hinson is a matchup problem for almost any team he’s going to go against. His size and strength and his ability to shoot the ball as well as he can — and how easy he can get it off, regardless of who it is in front of him — he’s a big matchup problem.”

West Virginia also enters having fallen short in three of its past four. The Mountaineers fell to St. John’s 79-73 on Friday in their most recent outing.

The Mountaineers have been paced in scoring by either Quinn Slazinski (16.7 points per game) or Jesse Edwards (15.7) in each contest thus far.

—Field Level Media