Women’s Basketball: Pitt hosts Providence in battle of Big East strugglers

Every team finds it difficult to succeed when a player from the starting lineup is injured.

It’s even more difficult when a team loses its starting point guard. Consider what happened to the Pitt men’s basketball team last season after Tray Woodall suffered an injury against Duquesne. The team looked lost at times following the loss, eventually missing the NCAA tournament for the first time in a decade.

The Pitt women’s basketball team hopes to avoid a similar fate without the services of its starting point guard, freshman Brittany Gordon, on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. when they take on conference foe Providence.

Still looking to earn their first Big East conference victory since 2011, the Panthers welcome the Friars (6-15, 1-7 Big East) to the Petersen Events Center. Pitt (9-12, 0-8 Big East) enters the game coming off a 78-60 home loss to the University of South Florida on Sunday, a game in which the Panthers shot a lowly 8-for-20 from the free-throw line in the losing effort.

Pitt will remain without Gordon — who sustained a foot sprain — on Wednesday night. Her injury pressed sophomore guard Marquel Davis into point-guard duties on Sunday — her performance resulted in nine points but also four costly turnovers.

The offense never seemed to get into a rhythm with Davis or sophomore guard Brianna Kiesel running the point, and whoever is responsible for carrying the ball up the floor against Providence will need to do a much better job of setting up teammates for open shots.

Agnus Berenato, Pitt’s head coach, stressed the importance of missing her starting point guard after Sunday’s loss.

“I made the decision to go ahead and let Marquel [Davis] run the point and put Bri [Kiesel] at the No. 2 spot,” she said. “My point guard is out. She’s sitting on the bench with her crutches. Marquel had to be the point today and that was big. [She] hadn’t started for us all year. Marquel is not a point, she’s a two. Bri’s played the two the whole year and then you have your point guard on crutches.”

Pitt will need consistent play at the point guard position in Gordon’s absence to have any chance of breaking its 28-game losing streak in Big East Conference play.

And though the Panthers have yet to win a game in conference play this season, they remain confident after strong performances against the likes of DePaul, Marquette and Notre Dame.

The Friars enter the matchup with just one victory in conference play this season that took place all the way back on Jan. 23, when they beat then-No. 25 Villanova, 65-60, in overtime. Providence trailed by 19 points at halftime of that contest. Senior guard and leading scorer Symone Roberts recorded 20 points in the winning effort, and her record of 14.5 points per game ranks 12th in the Big East this season.

Since that victory, Providence has lost three straight games to conference foes Notre Dame, St. John’s and Syracuse.

As the Friars look to rebound from the three-game slide, Pitt is presented with quite possibly one of its best opportunities to earn a victory in Big East play this season.

A one-win Providence team may be the weakest squad Pitt will face in the Big East all season, and the Panthers will hope to break the losing streak before going on the road to face top-tier teams in Syracuse and Louisville in the upcoming week.

Junior forward Asia Logan will lead the offensive attack for Pitt, coming off one of her best shooting performances of the year against USF, in which she shot 8-for-12 from the field.

“I just focused on going straight up and down on my shot and making the shot,” Logan said. “One of the other things I really focused on was when I missed a shot, to not get too upset or worried. I just had to move on to the next shot and not get discouraged.”

In what could be a very close game, the Panthers will need to follow Logan’s lead and not get discouraged if things don’t go their way early against the Friars.