Women’s basketball: Panthers try to end losing streak

The Pitt women’s basketball team is fed up with losing.

The team has dropped 10 straight… The Pitt women’s basketball team is fed up with losing.

The team has dropped 10 straight games and remains winless in the Big East.

Redshirt sophomore Ashlee Anderson said that given how the team has played thus far this season, the team has no excuse not to go all out in the remaining games.

“We’re at the point where we have nothing to lose,” she said.

The Panthers (8-16) (0-11 Big East) have played some of their worst basketball coming off close games. First, they followed a 70-62 loss at Villanova by getting trounced 83-60 on their home court against Syracuse. Then the Panthers came close to upsetting No. 21 DePaul, but followed the loss with a historic 120-44 dismantling at the hands of No. 2 Notre Dame. Along the way, the team has managed the Big East’s worst defense – a defense that will be tested in its next game.

Bucking the trend against Louisville (18-7) (7-5 Big East) Tuesday night won’t be easy. The Cardinals are coming off a game in which they made a school record: 18 3-pointers in an 89-62 drubbing of Syracuse.

Pitt head coach Agnus Berenato agrees with Anderson that now is the time for the team to get a breakthrough win.

“This is our next step. Now the third time around [coming off a close game], the kids have experience. Now we have to come out and play like that against Louisville,” she said.

Louisville has the fourth-best scoring offense in the conference, led by sophomore guard Shoni Schimmel, who averages 14.3 points a game, and senior guard Becky Burke, who averages 11.4 and had a career day against Syracuse, converting 28 points and eight 3-pointers. The Cardinals average 6.08 3-pointers per game.

The Cardinals lost senior forward Monique Reid to a season-ending knee injury in the middle of December, and they also lost junior guard Tia Gibbs for the season after she injured her shoulder in the team’s first game.

With the loss of Reid, Louisville’s strength, like Pitt, is in its guards.

Leeza Burdgess will play a big role in how much success Pitt has. The redshirt sophomore arguably played her best game of the season Saturday, collecting a career-high 16 rebounds, along with 10 points for her third double-double of the season. She did all of that while playing 36 minutes, the most she’s ever played in her career.

“Leeza really needs to be our ‘X’ factor,” Berenato said.

Solid play by Burdgess in the post gives the team’s guards confidence, which they’ll need given Louisville’s talent there.

“[Burdgess’s rebounding] had a lot to do with the guards feeling comfortable taking their shots,” Berenato said. “They really felt like our posts were going to get the rebounds for them.”

“It just gives us another scoring attack and another scoring balance,” Anderson added. “We need everybody to score. It gives us another type of dynamic.”

Having lost 10 straight games, Pitt won’t settle for moral victories anymore.

“You have to get past it. You have to come together and not be satisfied with just doing better than we did the last game. We have to win the game,” Burdgess said. “You can’t [have the attitude], ‘Oh well, we were close to this great team.’ No. We have to get over that hurdle and just win a game.”

Pitt players have realized there’s nothing fun about losing.

“It sucks to come up short,” Anderson said.

Burdgess concurred.

“It’s so draining when you’re not used to losing,” she said.