The West Virginia women's basketball team has rebounded from some tough early losses and made a run to put itself in position to earn an invitation to the NCAA tournament. The Mountaineers' formula for success the past six weeks has been simple -- great defense and timely 3-point shooting.

Last night, the Pitt Panthers became the Mountaineers' latest victim as West Virginia rode that formula to a 57-46 victory before 2,196 at the Petersen Events Center. The Mountaineers, led by sharpshooter LaQuita Owens, made 8 of 18 3-point shots and used an active 2-3 zone to force 17 turnovers and limit the Panthers to just 24 percent shooting.

West Virginia held Pitt's leading scorer, Shavonte Zellous, to seven points on 1-for-15 shooting. But perhaps the most telling statistic for the Panthers: center Marcedes Walker made six field goals and finished with 21 points while the rest of the team combined to make only seven field goals and score 25.

"You are not going to win any game when you have one player make six of nine shots and the other eight players combine to make seven of 46," Pitt coach Agnus Berenato said.

"I don't think we executed our scout during [practice] and when you don't do that it makes it awfully tough to be successful. Marcedes did a great job of battling and I thought she tried to carry us at times, but we have to shoot better to have a chance."

Said Zellous: "I felt it was going to start falling for me at some point, but it didn't. It was a bad night and being as I am one of our scorers I felt like I didn't do much to help us out."

The victory propelled West Virginia (18-9, 9-5) ahead of Pitt (20-7, 8-6) in the Big East but both teams still have some work to do to get into the NCAA tournament. The Mountaineers clinched a winning record in the Big East but still haven't hit the magic 20-win plateau. The Panthers, meanwhile, failed for the second consecutive game to clinch a winning conference record.

West Virginia should get its 19th win Saturday when it plays host to Cincinnati but win No. 20 will be much tougher to come by as the Mountaineers must travel to No. 19 Louisville for their season finale Monday. Pitt has a tough home game against DePaul Saturday and then will close the season on the road against Georgetown.

Berenato said her team understands the implications of every game this year, which is why she isn't worried that the Panthers -- No. 21 in the RPI -- won't be able to rebound from such a tough loss at home.

"We're fine," Berenato said. "This is a young team, but not a dumb team. These kids know this year what is at stake, what we are playing for. They know all about RPI and strength of schedule and the importance of winning these games. That is a big difference from last year because we didn't have a clue about any of that stuff. These kids know we have a lot of work to do and we need to handle our business, so this game is already behind us."

Owens didn't score in the first half but guard Sparkle Davis hit two 3-pointers and had eight points to help the Mountaineers build a 27-23 lead.

West Virginia coach Mike Carey used halftime to challenge Owens and his speech apparently worked. She came out and hit five 3-pointers and scored 19 second-half points in helping the Mountaineers blow the game open. West Virginia pushed the lead into double digits four minutes into the second half and led by as many as 18.

"I made her mad by what I said to her," Carey said.

"She came out and was determined to show me I was wrong. I told her I am going to find ways to make her mad every game."