Women’s basketball: Panthers struggle against Bulls, remain winless in Big East

The Panthers women, who entered last night’s game against the Bulls with four consecutive Big… The Panthers women, who entered last night’s game against the Bulls with four consecutive Big East losses, desperately needed a win in South Florida last night to keep their NCAA tournament hopes alive. But a 68-52 loss sent the Panthers searching for their first conference win.

South Florida (11-7, 2-3 Big East) dominated the game from the tip-off as they held the lead throughout the entire game.

The Panthers went into halftime down eight points, but the Bulls extended their lead to 19 with 14 minutes remaining in the game.

Despite a late 12-1 scoring run, the Panthers managed to only get within nine points as the Bulls went on the way to victory.

A dismal second-half 22.9 percent field goal shooting percentage hindered the Panthers from gaining any ground on the sure-firing Bulls. South Florida shot 60 percent from the field in the last half of the game.

As in previous games in the Panthers’ slump, scoring distribution emerged as a problem, especially in comparison to the balanced contribution of the South Florida players.

Pitt’s Taneisha Harrison finished the game with a team-high 19 points, but no other Panthers turned in double-digit performances.

As for the Bulls, Janae Stokes led her team with 22 points, while three other South Florida players scored more than 10 points.

Ball control and turnovers have been a recent problem for the Panthers, but in this game, capitalizing off South Florida errors was more of an issue. The Panthers committed only 14 turnovers in comparison to South Florida’s 17, but the offensive accuracy was not present for Pitt.

The shooting woes carried over to the Panther’s performance behind the arc and at the free-throw line as well.

The Panthers attempted 19 long-range shots, but only converted four. In addition, Pitt barely crossed the 50 percent mark for free throw shooting percentage.

One other statistic that truly represents the Panthers’ struggle, especially against South Florida, was the difference in defensive rebounds. The Bulls pulled in 34 rebounds on the defensive end while Pitt managed 19.

This disparity in rebounding performance gave the Bulls a big advantage in their offensive transition game, while severely limiting the Panthers’ second-chance opportunities.

Pitt remains winless in the Big East conference and with eleven games to go against some of the nation’s best teams, the Panthers must find solutions for their ongoing slump.

The next chance for the Panthers to return to the win column will be on Saturday as they travel to conference opponent Providence for a 2 p.m. game.