Pitt women’s basketball run over by Connecticut

The Pitt women’s basketball team was candles on a cake, serving as accessories in the… The Pitt women’s basketball team was candles on a cake, serving as accessories in the University of Connecticut’s senior night celebration, and in the end, the Panthers were blown out.

The Panthers lost 97-49 in front of a sold-out Gampel Pavilion crowd of 10,167 as four Huskies seniors, including Pittsburgh native Ashley Battle, played in their final home game.

“Our players were in shell shock,” head coach Agnus Berenato said.

The Panthers held the lead on three separate occasions early in the first half, 3-2, 5-4 and 7-6, but the scores were merely an indication of things to come as Battle and the Huskies stole the show.

The Huskies (19-6 overall, 12-2 Big East) recorded 12 first-half steals by employing a full-court press that forced the Panthers (12-13, 4-10) into 18 turnovers before the break. Leading 18-14 with 12:51 remaining in the first half, the Huskies went on a 31-5 run en route to opening up a 58-26 halftime lead. Twenty-eight of the Huskies’ first-half points came off Panther turnovers.

Pitt shot 39.3 percent from the field in the first half, but its inability to take care of the ball led to only 28 attempts from the field. The Huskies on the other hand attempted 40 and made 19 (47.5 percent).

“We were panicking,” Berenato said. “We were throwing the ball away. They were blitzing defensively. They are big and strong, and they manhandled us in the first half. We were so unnerved.”

The Panthers’ performance forced Berenato to use four timeouts in the first half, in addition to the four media timeouts, something she says she has never had to do before.

“I’m not going to save them,” Berenato said of her timeouts. “We just needed to settle down. The place was so loud and crazy. It was great, it was awesome, but that’s not the way our players took it.”

The Huskies pressed less in the second half, and as a result, the Panthers held onto the ball better, turning it over only four times. However, they shot only 21.2 percent from the field and 20 percent from beyond the 3-point line.

While the Panthers turned the ball over a total of 22 times, they were only able to force the Huskies into three turnovers — an all-time low for Connecticut.

“In the second half,” Berenato said, “I felt Marcedes Walker, when she came out of her shell shock, she competed. In the first half she was non-existent. I took it as a positive that [she] finally got it together. She was very competitive offensively and defensively she had four blocked shots.”

The four blocks were a new career-high for Walker, who also led the Panthers with 17 points and nine rebounds, while shooting seven-for-eight from the free-throw line. Jennifer Brown scored 10 points and grabbed five rebounds before leaving the game late in the second half with a shoulder injury.

Connecticut started all four of its seniors, Battle, Jessica Moore, Ashley Valley and Stacey Marron. The quartet holds a 126-11 record during their collegiate careers. Battle led Connecticut in scoring with 23 points, a new career-high. Her 3-pointer with 2:04 remaining in the game made her the 27th player, fourth this year, to record 1,000 career points for the Huskies.

The Panthers will be back in action Friday at home against Rutgers. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Petersen Events Center.