MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- The WVU Coliseum has had plenty of upgrades and renovations in recent years, but it has been nearly 30 years since there have been as many bricks laid as there were last night.

The West Virginia Mountaineers, who shot 20 percent from the field and were outrebounded by 21, suffered a 62-39 blowout loss at the hands of Big East rival Cincinnati.

The most recent time West Virginia scored so few points at the Coliseum was a 49-38 loss Feb. 6, 1980, to Duquesne. Their field-goal percentage -- the Mountaineers made only 10 of 50 field goals (20 percent) and 1 of 22 (4.5 percent) 3-point attempts -- was the worst since 1951, when they shot 23.1 percent (12 of 52) in a 39-36 win against Maryland.

West Virginia scored only 21 points from the field, and only a late basket by reserve Jonnie West spared the Mountaineers their worst offensive game in Coliseum history.

"They beat us all across the board in every category and everywhere there is to beat us," said coach Bob Huggins, who seemed more agitated that the Mountaineers were outrebounded by 21. "I've had teams that shot poorly before but we found a way to win. But they were more physical than we were, they were more aggressive than we were and they ran to the ball quicker than we did. They totally dominated us on the glass.

"We are just not tough enough -- it looked like men playing against boys out there."

The game was billed as a matchup of teacher (Huggins) vs. former pupil (Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin, whom Huggins gave his first collegiate coaching job in 1997), but it quickly turned into a comedy of missed shots and errors. It also was Huggins first game against his former team, but he wasn't in the mood to wax nostalgic afterward.

"I wasn't even thinking about that. This was a game we needed to win and should have won, and we got beat convincingly," he said.

Cronin said it isn't much of a surprise how the game turned out, because the most important lesson Huggins taught him is that it is a lot easier to coach when you have superior players.

"Let me say this first, coach [Huggins] has done a great job to get that team to 15-6," he said. "That is not the most athletic team on the front line and they aren't the strongest team, either, and the Big East is a tough league. And let's just be honest, we are bigger and stronger than they are up front, that's just a fact and it showed."

The Mountaineers (15-6, 4-4) trailed at halftime, 34-23, mostly because of their poor shooting and a lack of offensive rebounding. The Mountaineers made only two of their first 18 shots and finished the first half a dismal 6 for 24 from the field.

As it turned out, that was their better shooting half as the Bearcats (10-11, 5-4) held them to only 15 percent from the field (4 for 26) after halftime.

Darris Nichols led the Mountaineers with 17 points but West Virginia's three leading scorers Alex Ruoff, Joe Alexander and Da'Sean Butler -- all averaging more than 13 points -- combined to score only 16 points.