Women’s Basketball: Pitt throttled in last home game

Perhaps it’s a good thing that the Pitt women’s basketball team doesn’t include any… Perhaps it’s a good thing that the Pitt women’s basketball team doesn’t include any seniors. Saturday’s loss at the Petersen Events Center would have been a disappointing way to end a career.

The lopsided 63-39 defeat to Seton Hall (8-21, 1-14 Big East) — a team that hadn’t won a Big East game until Saturday — was far from indicative of the type of performance a team wants to have in its last home game of the season.

“It was just an unbelievable train wreck,” Pitt head coach Agnus Berenato said.

With the loss, this year’s Pitt team will become the first under Berenato — who has been at the helm for nine seasons — not to win at least two Big East games. The Panthers, now on a 14-game losing streak, will wrap up the regular season on the road against West Virginia tomorrow.

The Panthers (8-20, 0-15 Big East) struggled mightily with scoring, and redshirt sophomore Ashlee Anderson was the only Pitt player in double figures. She finished with 11 points.

“We didn’t have anyone stand out, which was unusual,” Berenato said.

Anderson made a 3-pointer at the final buzzer to bring the Panthers’ final tally to 39. The basket managed to keep the season low for total points at 37 — a score Pitt has reached twice, against Hampton and No. 4 Connecticut.

Pitt managed not to turn the ball over for the first seven minutes of the game, but after a Marquel Davis turnover at 12:53, the team’s old habits reappeared.

Eleven of the Panthers’ 19 turnovers came in the first half.

Berenato blamed the turnovers for Pitt trailing in the first half despite the team’s shooting 39.1 percent from the field.

“The first half we were down because we didn’t get as many shots,” Berenato said. “If you turn the ball over, it takes opportunity away from shooting the ball. Even though we were shooting 40 percent, we didn’t get enough shots up.”

Pitt had 23 shot attempts to Seton Hall’s 29 in the opening period.

The Panthers led just once after making the first basket of the game. They tied the score five times during the first half, but that’s as close as they would get for the rest of the game.

After shooting 9-23 from the field in the first half, Pitt dropped off after the break.

Down by 11 points at the start of the second half, Pitt went on a seven-minute scoring drought that killed any possibility of a comeback.

The Panthers scored their first point of the half on a Chyna Golden free throw, but roughly three minutes went by before TiAnna Porter converted a layup for the next Pitt basket.

The scoreless stretches led Berenato to bemoan her team’s offensive ineptitude in the second half.

“You can’t continue to go possession after possession defensively and not have productivity offensively,” she said. “That’s a collective effort. Everybody was dejected and couldn’t pick up anyone.”

Seton Hall and its league-worst offense made easy work of Pitt’s porous defense, and the Pirates snapped a 16-game losing streak with the victory.

Seton hall senior Jasmine Crew showed why she’s one of the best offensive players in the Big East as she picked up 19 points. Junior Terry Green finished with 11.

The Pirates dominated on the glass, out-rebounding the Panthers 45-30.

Pitt’s defensive rebounding in particular left much to be desired.

In a telling sequence during the first half, a Pirate player at the top of the key tracked an errant shot from the wing, moved to corral the miss and glided down the lane completely untouched for the putback.

Pitt sophomore Kyra Dunn said the team’s failure to compete during the last few games boils down to its members’ lack of desire.

“It is a matter of us wanting it,” she said. “It comes with us wanting it and wanting to come in tomorrow and be a better team.”

The young Pitt team’s lack of confidence was a factor throughout the game.

Berenato declared that Saturday’s performance was the only one she could recall this season in which all of her players performed without confidence.

As Seton Hall’s lead continued to grow in the second half, at one point reaching a margin as high as 28, Dunn said the team’s spirits wavered.

“In a game like this, it is easy to get down on yourself when the score is not going your way,” Dunn said. “Early on we were not making shots, but once we started, our momentum did pick up. It was hard to keep momentum once they scored.”

The loss means that Pitt will play as the No. 16 seed in the Big East tournament, which begins on Friday.

“All we can do is focus on the next day and getting better,” Dunn said. “We need to move on.”