Pitt Gives No. 17 West Virginia a Scare
1/28/1997 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
PITTSBURGH (AP) - Jarrod West's 3-pointer with 2:46 to play put West Virginia ahead to stay, and Adrian Pledger's two free throws finished off Pittsburgh as the 17th-ranked Mountaineers rallied for a 76-72 victory Wednesday night.
West Virginia (18-3, 8-3 Big East), which won its fourth in a row and seventh in eight games, opened a 15-6 lead, fell behind by four points, then outscored the slumping Panthers 10-4 over the final four minutes of the first half.
Pittsburgh (7-8, 2-6), coming off a 22-point loss at Big East tailender Rutgers, lost its third straight and fourth in five games.
Neither team's star - West Virginia's Adrian Owens nor Pittsburgh's Vonteego Cummings - played particularly well in a sloppy game in which the teams combined for 32 turnovers, 20 by the Panthers. West Virginia shot 47 percent but was 3-of-14 from 3-point range.
Owens, averaging 19.7 points, scored 10 points in the first half before finishing with 16. Cummings, who has played virtually every minute of Pittsburgh's eight conference games, had 17 points - only two below his average - but also had nine turnovers.
Brent Solheim scored 16 points and Brian Lewin, averaging only 6.7, had 15 for the more experienced Mountaineers, who started four seniors. Jarrett Lockhart had 17 points for the Panthers, who have no senior scholarship players and used only seven players.
As a result, fatigue was a factor down the stretch after West's 3-pointer, only his second basket of the game, gave West Virginia its first lead in 4 1/2 minutes at 69-68.
Pittsburgh's Kellii Taylor then threw the ball away attempting a no-look pass in the lane. Taylor's turnover on a behind-the-back pass led to Pittsburgh's 90-83 double-overtime loss to St. John's last week.
After Attila Cosby scored for Pittsburgh, Brent Solheim's layup on an inbounds play and Lewin's free throw pushed the lead to 74-70. Lockhart scored on a layup with 15 seconds to go, but Pledger made his two decisive free throws a second later.
It was the first game between the teams in Pittsburgh's downtown Civic Arena since Pitt upset the then nationally-ranked Mountaineers 79-72 in the now-defunct Eastern Eight tournament finals in 1982.