After losing to the Pittsburgh Panthers (28-4, 15-3) twice already this season, the West Virginia Mountaineers (23-10, 10-8) prevailed over their bitter rival on Thursday night in Madison Square Garden 74-60.

The Mountaineers did exactly what they had to do to win the basketball game against second-seeded Pitt. Before the first media timeout, first-team all Big East player, DeJuan Blair, picked up his second foul. West Virginia caused this by going right to the bucket almost every possession.

In the shadows of MSG was West Virginia's Devin Eebanks. The freshman small forward scored a career-high 20 points. Eebanks tagged along 8 rebounds too. Alex Ruoff added 18 points and Da'Sean Butler scored 16 for West Virginia (23-10), which might be one of the nations hottest teams.

The 1-3-1 defense seemed to puzzle Jamie Dixon's Pitt squad. The Panthers had 13 turnovers and just 10 offensive rebounds for a team who averages 14 plus a game.

The Mountaineers will now play the sixth-seeded Syracuse Orangemen (25-8, 11-7) who played an instant classic in six overtimes. The orange beat the third-seeded Connecticut Huskies 127-117. Jonny Flynn has played 102 of the 110 possible minutes the last two games for Syracuse. The game will tipoff right after the Louisville Villanova Semifinal.