Pitt can’t finish off late rally
Ball State does just enough in victory
The Pitt women’s basketball team fell to the Ball State Cardinals by the score of 7362 on Tuesday afternoon in the first game of the Sun Coast Challenge in Tampa, Fla.
The loss snapped Pitt’s season-long three-game winning streak.
Liatu King once again led the Panthers (5-6) as she recorded her seventh 20-point game of the season, finishing with 22 points, 8 rebounds, 4 blocks, 4 assists and 2 steals in the loss. Jala Jordan and Bella Perkins came off the bench with 10 points each.
King opened the final quarter with a pair of free throws to cut the Ball State lead down to single digits but the Panthers didn’t get any closer to the Cardinals (8-2). Pitt concludes the Sun Coast Challenge on Wednesday at noon as they take on Georgia.
Top 25 women South Carolina 93, Bowling Green 62:
Chloe Kitts scored a career-best 21 points, and visiting No. 1 South Carolina ( 11- 0) quickly ended any thoughts Bowling Green may have had of pulling off an historic upset. The Gamecocks
hit their first 10 shots against the Falcons (6-3).
Top 25 men Providence 72, Marquette 57:
Tyler Kolek, a Rhode Island native, and No. 6 Marquette didn’t have enough as the host Friars won their Big East opener. Devin Carter had 22 points for Providence (102, 1-0 Big East), and Kolek had 21 points for Marquette (9-3, 0-1).
James Madison 87, Coppin State 48: TJ Bickerstaff scored 18 points to lead host No. 20 James Madison (11-0) to a win against Coppin State (1-12).
Memphis 77, Virginia 54: David Jones scored 26
points, and host No. 23 Memphis (9-2) built a second-half lead to pull away from No. 22 Virginia. Reece Beekman led the Cavaliers (9-2) with 13 points.
Mississippi 74, Troy 53: Matthew Murrell scored 18 points and added 10 steals, and host No. 25 Mississippi (11-0) beat Troy (5-6).
Notes
The No. 17 Connecticut women’s team is headed to Canada for a game Wednesday against Toronto Metropolitan University, which is not an NCAA team but a member of the Canadian organization U Sports.
Rick Nixon, a spokesman
for the NCAA, said the game will be recognized as a regular-season contest and all the statistics will count under the organizations’ rules involving “outside competitions.” The only caveat, he said, it that because TMU (10-0) is not an NCAA Division I opponent, a win or a loss won’t be calculated in UConn’s NET rankings for consideration in postseason seeding.
The opponent was supposed to be Pitt, which at the time of the agreement also had a couple of Canadian players. But the Panthers backed out of the game after a coaching change in March, leaving UConn scrambling to find a replacement.