West Virginia at Pittsburgh: 2019-20 storylines for Backyard Brawl battle
By Connor Gluck
Can West Virginia capitalize on its height advantage?
West Virginia should have a significant size advantage over Pitt, if they are able to take advantage of it. In their first game against Akron, WVU’s three leading scorers were Derek Culver, Jermaine Haley, and Emmit Matthews Jr., all of whom are over 6’7”. Haley, as a 6’7” guard, should create some major match-up problems for Pitt’s much smaller guards. Pitt’s three primary guards are all under 6’3” and Haley should have plenty of room shooting over them.
However, despite their height advantage, WVU may fail to capitalize on it in their favor. In their first game against Akron, WVU only outrebounded the Zips 37-36 and lost the offensive rebounding battle 10-9. Coach Huggins was not happy with his team’s rebounding performance following the game saying, “We can’t outrebound somebody by one and expect that we are going to win many games. We have to dominate the glass, and we should.”
The longtime coach is, unsurprisingly, right. West Virginia will need to dominate the glass and not allow too many second-chance points if they hope to win. Pitt has already grabbed 41 offensive rebounds in their three games, good for 24th in the nation. Allowing the Panthers to get the ball back after forcing a missed shot would be a killer for WVU, and make it very difficult for the Mountaineers to maintain any kind of defensive momentum.
Overall, WVU has the height advantage to dominate with Pitt offensively and defensively with their size. They will need to do a better job capitalizing on this advantage than they did to start the year to win the Backyard Battle.