Basketball Preview: Pitt faces tough ACC schedule

The final seasons in the Big East were unforgettable for Pitt women’s basketball, but for all the wrong reasons.

The Panthers ended their Big East tenure with two consecutive 0-16 conference records, so it can’t get much worse for Pitt in the Atlantic Coast Conference, right?

According to preseason polls from both the Blue Ribbon Panel and conference coaches, the Panthers will wind up in the cellar yet again as the bottom feeders of the 15-team ACC. The Big East was tough, but the ACC is tougher: the Panthers ditch UConn but encounter Duke; they avoid Louisville but meet Maryland and North Carolina.

Pitt begins its season at home against Bucknell in an 11 a.m. nonconference contest Friday, Nov. 8, and faces 13 other opponents before ACC play begins. Among the notable nonconference matchups, the Panthers are scheduled for an intra-city affair on Dec. 29 with Duquesne. Pitt women’s basketball head coach Suzie McConnell-Serio coached for six years before taking the job at Pitt in the spring.

The Panthers will also participate in the Duel in the Desert, a three-day tournament in Las Vegas featuring games against DePaul, Louisiana-Monroe and Washington, from Dec. 19 to Dec. 21. After the Duquesne matchup and the turn of the calendar year, Pitt enters a grueling ACC schedule that begins with a home game against Florida State on Jan. 2 at 7 p.m.

The Seminoles are projected to finish fifth or sixth in the conference, depending on which preseason poll you’re reading.

Pitt will host Notre Dame at the Petersen Events Center on Jan. 16 — the same scenario that resulted in a 73-47 win for the Irish on Jan. 23 of last year. Notre Dame highlights the slate of eight ACC teams that come to Oakland this season, including Syracuse, Georgia Tech and North Carolina State.

On the road, the Panthers face three teams listed in USA Today’s top-25 preseason poll: No. 2 Duke on Jan. 26, No. 6 Maryland on Feb. 6 and No. 11 North Carolina on Feb. 13. Pitt also gets Syracuse, pegged to finish seventh in ACC preseason polls, on the road on Feb. 23.

The ACC Tournament, held in Greensboro, N.C., begins March 5. The tournament’s championship is scheduled for March 9.

Although the Panthers have escaped their Big East woes of the past, they’re nowhere close to being in the clear. If the preseason polls are any indication, they are about to write the first chapter of a similar story in the ACC.