Pitt enters tourney on two-game slide

The regular season ended with a thud for Pitt volleyball, as they dropped two matches to fall… The regular season ended with a thud for Pitt volleyball, as they dropped two matches to fall to the conference’s sixth seed.

But for libero Megan McGrane and the rest of the team, Friday marks a new season.

“This is the beginning,” she said, speaking of the Panthers’ first round matchup against Syracuse today. “Our focus [now] is on winning the Big East.”

The Panthers enter the postseason on a sour note. After stunning then-No. 5 Notre Dame in five games on senior day, Pitt dropped road matches at Connecticut and St. John’s to close out the regular season.

The Panthers hit just .107 against the Huskies, and followed with a meager .050 against the Red Storm. Diana Andreyko, the team’s top hitter and defending conference Rookie of the Year, notched 11 kills against St. John’s but negated the effects with 11 errors. The Panthers hit below .000 in the final games of both matches.

The problems don’t just fall on the attack, as setter Nicole Taurence had a shaky weekend. Her struggles have opened up a new concern for head coach Chris Beerman to deal with, as fellow setter Azadeh Boroumand played increasingly well toward the end of the regular season.

“It’s now a battle, and Azadeh has been playing fantastic,” Beerman admitted.

Boroumand has shown a knack for playing well in big games, which may sway the decision. Against Notre Dame, she provided a crucial spark with a quick kill and timely assists; in a match against Louisville, another top conference team, Boroumand had another tremendous game, according to Beerman.

The junior supplanted Lindsey Macke to take the starting job in her sophomore campaign last year, so cracking the starting lineup over the team’s top setter would not be a new occurrence.

The team won’t sit and ponder its setting and attack issues, however. All eyes now turn to the Big East tournament.

“You can either dwell on what happened, or shift your focus,” McGrane said.

Andreyko added that moving on didn’t mean forgetting what happened altogether.

“Losing is never fun, but I think in some ways losing is good,” she said. “You learn from it.”

Beerman felt the same way, and therefore the two practices this week focused on things that went wrong, but moved quickly from what happened last weekend to what needs to happen this weekend.

The Panthers have beaten the Orange four straight times, including this season’s 3-0 sweep on Oct. 8. It also includes the Panthers’ victory in the first round of last season’s conference tournament, which took place at Pitt’s own Fitzgerald Field House. The recent success isn’t enough to make the team overlook the match facing them today, but the Panthers feel good about their chances.

“I’m not going to look past anyone,” Andreyko said. “But at the same time, there’s always confidence.”

Beerman concurred, but also made sure to point out that once the postseason hits, the slate gets wiped clean and all teams prepare at a whole new level.

“It’s a different part of the season,” he said. “Still, you’d rather play somebody you beat 3-0 than lost to 3-0.”

The tournament won’t have just a new location this year, as it travels to the Kentucky International Convention Center – it will also have a new format. The addition of the Conference USA teams this year bumped the league total to 15 teams and to compensate, the tournament was expanded to an eight-team affair.

The favorites in the tournament, Louisville and Notre Dame, enter with identical 13-1 records. Notre Dame holds the top seed by virtue of their win over Louisville earlier this year. The Cardinals, however, hold a higher ranking in the American Volleyball Coaches Association poll. They stand at No. 7, while the Fighting Irish come in at No. 8. The two are the only teams in the conference receiving votes.

Pitt and Notre Dame have a rich history in volleyball. The Panthers’ upset knocked the Fighting Irish from not only their highest ever school ranking, but also the highest ranking a Big East team has ever attained. Pitt also upset the Irish in 2003, when they swept then-No. 17 Notre Dame to take the conference tournament. In that year, they also won in South Bend, Ind., becoming the first conference team to accomplish the feat since Notre Dame joined the Big East in 1995.

The two teams have a rich tradition in the championship matches. Overall, the Panthers – 47-9 all-time in the postseason – have won the tournament 11 times, while the Irish have eight titles of their own in just 10 postseasons. Combined, they have won 16 of the last 17 tournament titles, with only Georgetown’s victory over Notre Dame in 1999 interrupting.

Louisville will try to mimic the Hoyas this year. The Cardinals won the last two Conference USA titles before moving to the Big East, and have won four titles since 1998. The three times they didn’t win the championship, they were in the finals. Newcomer Cincinnati won Conference USA in 1999.

The top two teams are followed in the standings by Syracuse, Cincinnati and St. John’s. Marquette and Villanova round out the field. The tournament will take place Friday through Sunday.

The Panthers open play today at 3:30 p.m. Should they knock off Syracuse, they will resume play tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. against the winner of Louisville versus Marquette. The championship game is scheduled for Sunday at 3 p.m., and the championship will air live on CSTV.