Sims out for season, Popovec to miss 2-4 weeks

Coming off two disheartening defeats in the last week, the Pitt women’s basketball team must… Coming off two disheartening defeats in the last week, the Pitt women’s basketball team must deal with two losses of another kind. The Panthers announced that junior point guard Jania Sims will miss the remainder of the regular season with bilateral tibial stress fractures, and freshman center Kate Popovec will be lost for at least two weeks with an ankle injury. Sims hasn’t seen game action since Pitt’s opening loss to Texas A’amp;M on Nov. 16. She played a mere five minutes in the contest before succumbing to injury. With Sims out, the Panthers have gone to more of a team approach at point guard. Shavonte Zellous, Xenia Stewart and Taneisha Harrison should continue to see the majority of time at the position. Sims played in 14 games, only one in Big East play, last season before becoming academically ineligible and missing the rest of the year. The 5-feet-7-inch junior averaged 9.6 points per game last season and 6.9 points in her 48 career games. Sims will apply for a medical redshirt because she only played in one game. Former point guard Mallorie Winn, who started on Pitt’s Sweet 16 squad last year, was awarded a medical redshirt after missing all of the 2006-07 season from an injured knee. The news is better for Popovec. The 6-feet-3-inch freshman hurt her ankle in practice on Friday and will be out two to four weeks. Popovec provided vital contributions in her 14 games off the bench and ranks sixth on the Panthers in scoring at 6.4 points per game, while leading the team with 6.7 rebounds per game. Popovec sat out of Pitt’s 69-62 setback to DePaul on Saturday. The loss was the second straight for the Panthers, following a 77-69 upset at the hands of Providence on Wednesday. Pitt dropped out of the Associated Press poll with the two defeats but just missed out on the No. 25 spot.