Women’s Basketball: Pitt looks to build confidence with win

The Pitt women’s basketball team will look to find its confidence and end an eight-game losing… The Pitt women’s basketball team will look to find its confidence and end an eight-game losing streak when it travels to Marquette on Saturday.

Pitt head coach Agnus Berenato said a dip in her team’s confidence was inevitable.

“I think that’s natural. I think that’s normal,” she said. “We’re all competitors. Does [the losing streak] play games with you psychologically, physically and mentally? I think it absolutely does.”

Marquette (12-10, 3-6 Big East) is the third youngest team in the nation. Pitt (8-14, 0-9 Big East) is the first, with no seniors and just one junior on the roster.

The Golden Eagles are in the midst of their own losing skid and have lost four games in a row.

Pitt and Marquette also both struggle with offensive production and maintaining possession.

Marquette’s Katherine Plouffe is the only member of the team who averages double figures, with 13.8 points per game. An All-Big East freshman last year, the forward also leads the team in rebounds and steals.

Brianna Kiesel and Ashlee Anderson are the only Panthers averaging double figures with 12.9 and 10.1 points per game, respectively.

The Golden Eagles average 21.1 turnovers per game — the most in the Big East. Pitt turns the ball over 19.8 times per game.

Berenato said the shared weakness isn’t a surprise.

“It’s a sign of two young teams,” she said.

As a post player, Pitt redshirt sophomore Leeza Burdgess isn’t usually a distributor, but she still has a vital role to play if the team is going to reduce its turnovers.

She said she needs to come to the ball, so the guards aren’t cautious about passing the ball inside.

“Anything I can do to help us keep the possession, if that means diving out of bounds or knocking over a cheerleader or something, I’ll do it,” she said.

Pitt sophomore guard Marquel Davis said the team needs to have more confidence in possession.

“If the team is just more confident when they have the ball, in their handle … then we won’t have those turnovers that [make it] appear that we’re not good ball handlers,” Davis said.

In the team’s last game against St. John’s, Pitt turned the ball over 26 times, tying its season high.

Sophomore guard Asia Logan, who injured her shoulder against St. John’s, is considered day to day.

The Panthers need a player or a few to step up offensively to fill the void left by Logan’s injury. Despite averaging just six points per game, Logan has amassed seven double-digit games this year.

Berenato said that forwards Kyra Dunn, TiAnna Porter and Chyna Golden will all continue to rotate through, whether or not Asia plays Saturday.

The Panthers appeared to have solved their scoring problems in the first half against St. John’s, shooting 50 percent, but then relapsed in the second half and shot just 30 percent.

Davis linked the team’s offensive struggles to a shared lack of confidence.

“You have to continuously be positive throughout the whole game,” she said. “A lot of times if somebody does make a mistake in their heads, they’re thinking, ‘Shoot, I just did that,’ instead of, ‘It’s cool, I’m gonna get it right back on D.’ It has to be a constant reminder … To keep confidence you have to keep positively reinforcing that you got it.”

To Berenato, a lack of confidence doesn’t mean it’s time to sound the alarm.

“For us, we’re not at that point where we’re going to go nuts,” she said. “You’re already fragile.”