Women’s Basketball: Pitt looks to continue early winning ways

On a college basketball schedule, regular season games in early November usually pit teams against lesser opponents in an effort to find the right mold for a roster before the start of the upcoming conference season.

But for the Pitt women’s basketball team, the next two contests are games that go against conventional scheduling wisdom, with opponents as tough as some of Pitt’s new Atlantic Coast Conference foes.

The Panthers (1-0) travel to Muncie, Ind., on Thursday for a matchup with Ball State, in a game in which head coach Suzie McConnell-Serio said Pitt “will have to do a lot of things well.”

“We have to defend well because they shoot well from the perimeter,” she said.

Pitt returns home Sunday to face Lafayette and hopes to avenge last year’s 68-65 loss to the Leopards.

Senior guard Marquel Davis is expected to make her season debut after sitting out the season opener with a mild ankle sprain. 6-foot-11 Marvadene “Bubbles” Anderson is also expected to return Thursday from a one-game suspension after violating team rules.

The trip to Ball State will represent the first of three out of the next four games that the Panthers play on the road, with upcoming trips to Michigan and Loyola (Md.) set for next week.

Redshirt sophomore guard Loliya Briggs said the road trips are a great opportunity to build camaraderie among teammates, especially early on in the long season.

“I personally like road trips because you build team chemistry,” Briggs said. “When you go on the road, you don’t pick your roommates, so you find yourself hanging around people you don’t usually hang around and that helps build chemistry on and off the court. Road trips are really fun for me.”

McConnell-Serio shared similar sentiments, saying her teams have thrived on the road in the past. 

“It is exciting when you travel. I think that is the one great thing about college basketball,” McConnell-Serio said. “Even the way we travel, everything we do is first-class with the accommodations. It is a time for the team to bond.”

She credits the success on the road to limited distractions for the players and a clear focus on preparing for the game.

The road trip comes on the heels of the Panthers’ first regular season game, a 66-51 victory over Bucknell on Thursday. McConnell-Serio said one thing the Panthers have to focus on in both the Ball State and Lafayette games is hitting the boards, after Pitt was out-rebounded 59-38 Thursday.

“Just finishing our defensive box outs will be important, because in the Bucknell game we just didn’t rebound the ball well,” McConnell-Serio said. “We have to have an improvement in that area because they send players to the glass.”

Briggs and Logan echoed their head coach after Wednesday’s practice, saying that staying in the right spots on the floor and bringing down boards will be key.

“With the plays that they run, if we defend their concepts the way our coach tells us, we will be fine,” Briggs said. “Just have to execute our offense and rebound — we should be fine.”

The Panthers have a bone to pick with Lafayette when they come home Sunday, one year after the Leopards ended Pitt’s five-game nonconference winning streak. Tip-off is scheduled for 1 p.m.

Briggs said the Panthers certainly did not forget about last year’s contest, a game in which Lafayette shot 50 percent (10-20) from beyond the arc.

“Lafayette is an opponent that really cut me deep, because they hit just about every three they possibly could last season, so I have a type of vengeance,” Briggs said. “That is a team you want to get back.”

Briggs said that is the type of team they have to show up to beat. 

“They can’t come in our house and beat us two years in a row. It’s not happening,” she said.