Pitt women grind out first ACC win of year

Panthers defense holds conference’s top scorer in check

Lance White always knew this season was going to get tough for his Pitt women’s basketball team.

When the Panthers started the season 8-2, the best start of his tenure, he insisted that steady improvement was still needed. As ACC play began, that showed. Pitt lost its first five conference games, allowing its opponents to shoot 40% or better in all of them and seeing its early season momentum come to a screeching halt.

After Sunday, though, White and his players have an example for how stronger defensive effort can win a basketball game. The Panthers welcomed Wake Forest and Jewel Spear, the ACC’s leading scorer, to the Petersen Events Center. It wasn’t pretty but they locked in on defense and held the Demon Deacons off to earn their first ACC win of the season, 65-57.

“I thought overall that was one of our best defensive efforts that we’ve had all year long,” White said. “Again, I thought our kids really took to heart those last ACC games, learned from it and changed some things in how they prepared, and really took ownership of our team. You could see the results in that there was an intentionality about what they were doing, how hard they were playing on the defensive end.”

Without a strong defensive effort, Pitt would likely would have lost. As a team, it shot just 29.4% from the floor. It was outrebounded 48-43. Senior guard Jayla Everett, the Panthers’ leading scorer this season, scored just 11 points on a brutal 3- for- 17 shooting night. On the offensive end Pitt couldn’t get much going.

On the other end, though, the Panthers more than made up for it. Wake Forest shot 35.1% from the field, but the Panthers forced the Demon Deacons into 21 turnovers.

Spear entered the game averaging 19.6 points per game, the best mark in the ACC. She surpassed that Sunday, scoring 20 points in the end, but she committed six turnovers and was held to just four points in the second and third quarters combined. Keeping Spear quiet for that long of a stretch allowed Pitt to keep churning away offensively and produce just enough to win.

“We’re a versatile team, and we gave her so many different looks,” White said. “Length, quickness. Whenever [guard Dayshanette Harris] guards you, it’s so different from when [forwards Amber Brown or Taisha Exanor] guards you. I think that confused her, and we’re athletic enough to stay with her, but for a long time I didn’t think she was a factor, and that’s a credit to our defense.”

Harris was the spark plug, in general. The junior had made just three 3-pointers all season. She equaled that mark in Sunday’s game, finishing with a team-high 14 points and seven assists. Her most notable contribution came with three minutes left in the fourth quarter and Pitt clinging to a fivepoint lead.

The Panthers had forced yet another turnover, when Everett came down the floor, drove into the lane, turned and flipped the ball to Harris, wide open on the perimeter. Harris drilled it, giving Pitt an eight-point advantage and sending it on its way.

Really, though, it was the perfect game for White’s point about doing little things well. It was the type of performance where the box score doesn’t necessarily read like a Pitt victory. It didn’t shoot the ball well, its leading scorer was generally stymied. It was the type of grinding, defense-first game that the Panthers needed to secure the ACC win.

“We talked all week about just, you have to do more in the ACC,” White said. “The level, you’ve got to do more. Some of that is all the stuff away from the ball. We still think we have to do it with the ball, but no, it’s screening, creating catches, and I think that’s the thing that we’re learning.”