March Madness: Experts discuss struggles of women’s basketball team

As the youngest NCAA Division I women’s basketball team in the nation, the Panthers were… As the youngest NCAA Division I women’s basketball team in the nation, the Panthers were expected to struggle this season.

It’s the extent of the struggle that has served as a shock.

With a roster composed solely of freshmen and sophomores, the Panthers failed to record a single Big East win and finished with an overall record of 8-22, including 0-16 in Big East play.

But Karen Price, the Pitt women’s basketball beat writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, said that youth can’t be the only explanation for the team’s struggles.

“Youth doesn’t completely explain away an 0-16 Big East season,” she said. “There’s something else going on there that’s not getting through to these kids.”

Despite the team’s final record, some results show that the team has talent. The Panthers beat an NCAA Tournament-bound Michigan State team to win the Caribbean Classic back in December. In the past two months, Pitt took DePaul and Louisville — also projected NCAA Tournament teams — to the buzzer.

But indicating the opposite are other results, including sizeable losses to the other bottom teams in the Big East: 72-48 to Marquette, 66-50 to Providence and, perhaps most alarmingly, 63-39 to Seton Hall. Before the Pirates’ win over Pitt in the last game of the regular season, Seton Hall also hadn’t won a Big East game.

Mechelle Voepel, who covers women’s basketball for ESPN.com, couldn’t believe that final tally.

“I look at the Seton Hall game, and it looked like they gave up,” Voepel said. “That’s the game you thought, ‘If there’s any game they can get up for, it was that one.’”

Price agreed.

“To come out and not really compete against Seton Hall is inexcusable,” she said. “There’s no excuse for that when you’re facing the one team in the conference that you legitimately should beat.”

Price said that, unlike losses earlier in the season, the Seton Hall game came after the players had experienced a full Big East slate.

“To absolutely not even make it a game, you can’t blame that on youth and inexperience,” Price said. “These kids, by this point, had played a whole year.”

Voepel described the 0-16 conference mark as a “red flag” and said the results raise questions about the team’s effort.

“Is your team still fighting and playing hard?” Voepel questioned.

Pitt head coach Agnus Berenato said she thinks so. She mentioned the team’s efforts when looking for positive observations to take away from the season’s disappointments.

Freshman point guard Brianna Kiesel provided the only constant for the Panthers. She led the team in minutes played (36.2), points per game (13.2) and assists per game (3).

Her efforts earned her a unanimous selection to the Big East All-Freshman Team.

“She was the one player who impressed me every game I saw,” Price said. “For a true freshman to play the kind of minutes she did and have that kind of pressure of being the starting point guard is unreal. She responded as well as she possibly could have.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette women’s basketball beat writer Paul Zeise said Kiesel provides the Panthers with a go-to player who can score baskets.

Redshirt sophomore Ashlee Anderson was the only other player to end the season averaging double figures, having scored 10.6 points per game.

The failure of the players to fill a void created by injuries surprised Berenato.

“You’re expecting more from returners, and they didn’t have it,” Berenato said.

Price said that next year will decide how the trio of sophomores — Anderson, Leeza Burdgess and Marquel Davis — are perceived.

“There’s no excuses for them next year,” Price said. “All three of those girls need to ramp up their games. They need to show more than they did this year.”

Berenato described improvement in the play of Burdgess and fellow sophomore Kyra Dunn in particular as building blocks for the future. Zeise said that Burdgess showed promise down the stretch and, along with Kiesel, could provide an outside-inside game.

This summer, Berenato explained, will be crucial to the team’s development going into next season. During the summer, coaches aren’t allowed to work with the players, so the responsibility falls on the team.

“They need to [improve],” Berenato said. “Obviously they just went through a really rough year. We’re going to need great leadership. They’re going to have to [work hard].”

A recurring aspect of the team’s performance this year, whether in a single game or over a span of contests, was inconsistency.

“It really was kind of maddening for everyone how inconsistent they were,” Price said.

Pitt followed up its tight contest with then-No. 21 DePaul (86-83) by losing to then-No. 2 Notre Dame 120-44 in the worst defeat in program history.

Earlier in the year, Pitt dropped a 70-62 game away to Villanova but then came back to Pittsburgh to be blown out by Syracuse, 83-60.

“They had this thing where they would get down by so much and then be able come back and play in the second half and do pretty well,” Price said.

Two season-ending shoulder injuries to players Cora McManus and Asia Logan added to the difficult task facing the Panthers.

Freshman shooting guard Loliya Briggs also missed the entire season after injuring her knee while playing with the Nigerian U19 national team. Briggs was the highest rated recruit (No. 50) of Pitt’s 2011 recruiting class.

Berenato said Briggs, who “was brought in here to be a major-impact player” will get a medical redshirt if the request is approved by the NCAA, meaning she will have four years of eligibility beginning next season.

“You can’t plan on injuries,” Berenato said.

What does such a poor season mean for Berenato?

Nothing quite yet.

But if the team doesn’t show improvement, next year might be the beginning of the end of the coach’s time in Oakland.

Berenato’s contract runs until the 2015-2016 season, and Voepel said schools don’t often buy out coaches’ contracts in women’s basketball.

In this particular case, Voepel thinks it is unlikely that Pitt will buy out Berenato given where she’s taken the program in her nine years.

Before Berenato, the women’s program had never received an NCAA bid. Under Berenato, the team has enjoyed, until recently, an unparalleled period of success. The Panthers went to the tournament for three consecutive years (2007 to 2009) and made Women’s NIT appearances before and after, in 2006 and 2010.

“She’s been doing this a long time,” Voepel said. “I do think she knows what she’s doing.”

Zeise said that Berenato will get the opportunity to improve the team’s performance based on her recent success.

“Agnus, she’s done a good job here. She’s done a good job of making basketball relevant,” Zeise said. “[The adminstiration] has faith in her. That’s the biggest thing. When you’ve had success, they’re going to give her some more time to get this thing straightened out and turned around.”

Given that women’s basketball at Pitt doesn’t garner much attention or support, Zeise said that there isn’t immense pressure for a coaching change. He added his agreement that the adminstration is unlikely to buy out Berenato’s contract.

“Next year these players have to take the next step. They really have to take the next step,” Zeise said. “There has to be some progress. That’s what [the administration] will be looking for — not necessarily wins and losses.

This year, Pitt became the fourth Big East team in the last 10 years to go 0-16. The longest a coach lasted after a 0-16 season during that time was two years.

Providence College’s Susan Yow resigned after two consecutive winless conference seasons in 2002-2003 and 2003-2004.

Zeise said that in order to improve next season, the team needs to utilize the weight room to get stronger.

“If you look at what Big East teams look like, they’re big and they’re strong,” he said. “This team wasn’t exactly that, but of course they’re young. You don’t expect them to be fully developed.

“They got pushed around in every game that I watched, just about. Big East teams just threw them around the lane and manhandled them a bit.”

Voepel and Price both said that the team’s performance next year will be crucial in deciding whether or not Berenato retains her job.

“They need to show forward progress,” Price said. “Not just to improve, but to show that they’re headed back in the right direction and that it’s not going to be long before they’re challenging in the conference and putting themselves in the mix for an NCAA bid.”

Zeise summed up the goal for next season simply: The Panthers need to win games.

“They need to show improvement next year, or things will start to get pretty tight,” Zeize said. “Next year the seat would get extremely warm. That’s just reality. That’s just how it is.”

With the season done, Berenato said there’s only one thing to do.

“Now we just look to the future,” she said.

Correction: In the story “Experts discuss the Panthers’ struggles, winless Big East Conference season” published on Monday, March 12 misattributed a quote from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Paul Zeise. The Pitt News regrets this error.