Pitt women’s basketball loses steam in second half against Louisville, drops fourth straight ACC game

364 days ago Louisville stepped foot in the Petersen Event Center as No. 15 in the country and left the building with a 30-point win off of a “fourth-quarter blunder,” by Pitt. On Thursday night, Pitt women’s basketball (8-9, ACC 0-4) took on the Cardinals (11-5, ACC 4-1) in the two schools’ first matchup of the year, with the result no different from the previous. After leading for most of the game, and down only a bucket heading into the final 10 minutes of play, Pitt fell 65-56. 

Louisville, who holds a 27-2 all-time record against the Panthers, continued its perennial dominance by notching its 24th straight win against the blue and gold. 

The first quarter started off slowly in terms of scoring, with the first bucket coming off of a Louisville layup. The scoreboard moved in seesaw-like fashion before Pitt began to build itself a small eight-point lead with the help of back-to-back threes from near-Pittsburgh native junior guard Aislin Malcolm. 

The Cardinals battled back slightly, though, and the teams took to the benches with Pitt leading 17-13 after one.

The second quarter saw some more slow scoring, dictated by many missed shots and turnovers from both sides. The Cardinals shot just 6.7% from beyond the arc in the first half of play. They would increase their percentage to 26.7%, however, by the final buzzer — a massive difference maker that turned around Louisville’s lackluster scoring to start the game. 

Pitt’s zone defense started to tighten up, forcing seven Cardinal turnovers in the second period and giving its offense more opportunities which helped the Panthers increase their lead to seven heading into the locker room. For Verdi’s squad, though, this was the last sign of its saving grace for the night. 

“I thought that our energy and our effort was tremendous within the zone…we had 22 deflections at halftime so that tells you our activity level,” Verdi said. “Second half I didn’t think we did as good of a job. We just lost sight of that a little bit and we weren’t as successful as we were in the first half.”

The start of the third quarter saw more back-and-forth play with Pitt hitting a dry spell in the scoring department that saw Louisville narrow the deficit to just two points. A three from junior guard Marley Washenitz just over the halfway mark of the third quarter sparked life back into the Panthers, but it wasn’t enough, and not long after, the game was tied for the second time since early in the first quarter. 

After a media timeout, Louisville took the lead with a 7-0 run until Pitt senior guard Brooklynn Miles tied the game back up off of a quick move downhill for a layup. The two teams continued to battle and the game was a one-bucket contest at 37-35 heading into the final 10 minutes of play.

In the fourth, Louisville increased their lead to six in part by a second chance three granted off of an offensive rebound — something that the Cardinals excelled in down the stretch — leading Pitt 15-10 in offensive rebounds for the night.

The game started to slip out of the Panthers’ paws, most notably at the hands of Louisville’s first-year guard Tajianna Roberts, who finished with 17 points on 5-9 splits from three-point land.

“We couldn’t fight our way back,” Verdi said on the game that Louisville swiftly ran away with.

Louisville’s lead was now to double digits. Pitt tried to regain a game that was once fully in their control, but turnovers on offense and a Cardinal full-court press along with paint pressure on graduate student center Khadija Faye held the Panthers back. 

“Turnovers — I think that’s a biggie. I think they [Louisville] got up and pressured us a little bit more too, played a little bit harder in the second half,” Verdi said.

Faye saw double and triple teams flock to her all night, making it hard to get into a rhythm down low. Pitt’s five still racked up 16 points, half from perfect 8-8 shooting from the charity stripe. Louisville would start attacking the rim on the other end — forcing five personal fouls on Faye and a subsequent disqualification.

“There’s a maturation process that needs to happen with this team,” Verdi said. The coach noted that the team needs to work on not losing focus through all four periods of the game as they head into their next matchups. 

Catch the women’s basketball team next as they take on SMU at home on Sunday at 1 p.m. on ESPN.