Women’s Basketball: Panthers hope to end lengthy conference losing streak

The Pitt women’s basketball team has an opportunity Wednesday night.

The Panthers will either suffer their 32nd consecutive Big East regular-season defeat or they will grab a much-needed victory on the way to Hartford, Conn., for the Big East tournament in two weeks.

The Panthers (9-15, 0-11 Big East) host Cincinnati on Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. at the Petersen Events Center in a matchup of Big East cellar dwellers. Pitt enters the contest winless in conference play, and the Bearcats’ (9-16, 1-11 Big East) only Big East victory this season occurred on Feb. 13 when they upset Marquette, 54-52.

In what surely is the best chance for the Panthers to finally end their unwanted, more-than-two-year conference losing streak, the contest also presents head coach Agnus Berenato’s team with an opportunity to fix the problems that led to its 80-39 demolition at the hands of Syracuse on Saturday.

“We missed shots early on, and they got transition points out of those,” Berenato said after the Syracuse game. “We were going to the boards, but we weren’t knocking down shots.”

Pitt will also enter the game already having to deal with some adversity.

Pitt will be without the services of starting freshman point guard Brittany Gordon due to her season-ending shoulder surgery. In Gordon’s absence, junior guard Marquel Davis has stepped into the starting lineup and performed with mixed results. Against Syracuse, Davis was the lone bright spot, finishing as the only Panther in double figures, with 12 points in the blowout defeat to the Orange.

Junior forward Asia Logan, who leads Pitt in points, rebounds and blocks per game, has recently struggled to find her stroke. Logan shot just 3-for-12 from the field at Syracuse off the bench, and the Panthers’ key player remains hobbled by a nagging right shoulder injury and a bothersome knee.

The one constant in the Pitt starting lineup all season has been sophomore guard Brianna Kiesel. Currently ranked fourth in the Big East at 36 minutes per game, the Panthers will need their “coach on the court” — as Berenato often refers to Kiesel — to lead Pitt to victory against the Bearcats, both mentally and with her scoring touch.

Kiesel displaying any resemblance to the guard that only managed to shoot 1-for-9 from the field on Saturday will not be a good sign for Pitt. She leads the team in scoring and rebounding during conference play, but her leadership on the court may be the thing the Panthers need most on Wednesday.

Kiesel will also be faced with the task on defense of covering Cincinnati redshirt junior guard Dayeesha Hollins, the Bearcats’ only player who averages double figures. A transfer student from the University of Michigan, Hollins excelled in her first season as a Bearcat last year, earning All-Big East Second-Team honors while averaging almost 15 points per game.

Keeping Hollins and the rest of the Bearcats off the scoreboard as much as possible may be the key to Pitt ending its long conference losing streak.

The five Panthers that take the Petersen Events Center floor on Wednesday will be matched up against the Big East’s worst-scoring offense, with Cincinnati only managing to score 52 points per game in conference play.

The responsibility of consistent post play on the defensive side of the ball, especially preventing easy buckets around the basket, will fall on Pitt sophomore centers Cora McManus and Chyna Golden and freshman forward Krista Pettepier.

If those three can have success, along with Kiesel and Davis in the backcourt, then the Panthers may find themselves celebrating an unfamiliar winning feeling late Wednesday night.