Women to face WVU first round

On Feb. 16, the Pitt women’s basketball team let what would have been a huge win slip away by… On Feb. 16, the Pitt women’s basketball team let what would have been a huge win slip away by blowing a five-point lead in the final minute against West Virginia, losing 61-55.

That loss made the difference between the ninth and 10th seed for the Panthers in the Big East Tournament, but with the 10th seed, they will get their chance for revenge against the seventh-seeded Mountaineers on Saturday at 6 p.m. in Hartford, Conn.

One more Backyard Brawl, if you will.

But Pitt, which finished its regular season at 13-14 overall and 5-11 in the Big East, faces an uphill task that just got much steeper against West Virginia, as it tries to erase the memory of the earlier loss.

It was officially announced on Tuesday that Marcedes Walker, the Panthers’ freshman star, who leads the team in scoring, rebounding and field-goal percentage, would miss the rest of the season for surgery to repair her right shoulder, which was injured against Rutgers last Friday.

So, without their most effective player, the Panthers will try to do something they haven’t done since 1996 — win a postseason game.

Further clouding anyone’s guess as to who will lead the team is the status of second-leading scorer Katie Histed, who has not played since the Feb. 16 game against West Virginia because of what head coach Agnus Berenato described only as “conduct unbecoming of a Panther student-athlete.”

Should Histed not be in Berenato’s good graces by Saturday, Pitt will enter the game missing a combined 24.7 points per game between Walker and Histed — this from a team that only averages 62.3 points per game.

Against Providence, one of the worst teams in Division I, Pitt rolled to an 80-43 win without the pair, getting significant minutes from nearly everyone on the bench. Berenato also rested Vika Sholokhova (for four minutes), who will likely see her role shift even more from a perimeter player to a post player in Walker’s absence.

West Virginia, however, is a far better team than the Friars, and will be favored to win in Hartford on Saturday on the strength of its guard play.

It’s rare that the Big East’s leading scorer isn’t the most important player on her own team, but that may be the case for the Mountaineers. While Meg Bulger’s 20.5 points per game are impressive, the play of point guard Yolanda Paige, who has 227 assists on the season, will determine how far West Virginia goes.

The Panthers know all too well how good Paige can be, as she scored the final nine points against Pitt, as well as being the defensive catalyst to West Virginia’s full-court press, which gave the Panthers fits late in the game.

To counter Paige, Bulger and Sherell Sowho, Pitt must have top-notch play from its ball-handlers, senior Amy Kunich and freshman Karlyle Lim. Turnovers have plagued the Panthers all season, and for them to have a chance, they will probably need to keep the number under 20, possibly lower.

But on the bright side for the Panthers, West Virginia isn’t sending anyone like Georgeann Wells, a former all-American for the Mountaineers, on the court anymore. Sholokhova, Jennifer Brown and Allisha Morris all should be able to get their shots inside against a Mountaineer team with no one taller than 6 feet 2 inches.

Making inside shots will be the last big key for the Panthers, who have shot miserably from the field at times this season. If Brown and the Panthers finish in the post, there’s no reason to think they can’t advance to Sunday’s game against second seed Notre Dame.

But of course, getting balanced play, protecting the ball and shooting well is a pretty safe formula to win any basketball game — something the Panther women should probably take to heart. They are talented enough now to win games if they play smart, and while beating the Mountaineers would be an upset, it would by no means shock the world.

Of course, that’s much easier to type than to actually do, but Saturday night will show whether the Panthers are ready to leap forward in the postseason. If not, perhaps a small step back will help Pitt make the jump in 2006.

Matt Grubba is a senior staff writer for The Pitt News, and he bets you don’t even know who Georgeann Wells is. Your hint is that she did something better than Chris Andersen did at the NBA All-Star game. E-mail him the answer at grubba@comcast.net.