Pitt women hope for 'fresh start' in ACC Tournament

Lance White knew rebuilding the Pitt women’s basketball program wouldn’t be easy.

Five years ago, he arrived after 15 seasons at Florida State where he was recognized as one of the country’s top assistants.

He carried energy, enthusiasm and a difficult challenge into his first head-coaching opportunity. Pitt had won a total of 10 games against ACC opponents in the three seasons before he replaced Suzie McConnell-Serio, and the program hadn’t earned an NCAA Tournament berth since 2015.

Five years later, the rebuilding project continues. Pitt (10-19, 3-15 ACC) enters the ACC Tournament in Greensboro, N.C., as the 15th- and last-seeded team. The Panthers confront No. 10 seed Clemson (16-14, 7-11) at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. Pitt has won three of the past four games in the series, but the only loss was a 72-57 decision Jan. 15 at the Pete.

In White’s five seasons, Pitt is 42-98, 11-74 in the ACC. He said rebuilding in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic and the introduction of the NCAA transfer portal has been difficult. Especially when there isn’t much tradition or previous success to help prop up the process.

“Whenever you’re trying to reinvigorate a program and you don’t have that history behind you and you really have to do it from the ground up, that’s probably been the biggest challenge of keeping that energy up,” he said.

He said it’s a matter of “continuing to believe in what you’re doing and still do it whenever you’re getting hit in the face a little bit with that ACC talent.”

“Coming into it, I knew it would be extremely difficult. You had to start it completely over,” he said. “Obviously, covid and into the transfer portal really changed so much of the way I thought coming into it. You think about five years ago, you’re going to build it with freshmen and teach those kids and then covid happened and then the transfer portal.

“Immediately in the middle of it, you had to switch course. That has been, I think, even more difficult, trying to pick those kids who believed in what you’re doing. Now, you’re not on a four-year system anymore. You’re on a one-year.”

Then, there’s the day-to-day challenge of competing against ACC opponents. Four of the top 18 teams in the Associated Press poll are ACC teams — No. 8 Virginia Tech, No. 10 Notre Dame, No. 13 Duke and No. 18 North Carolina.

“This is the best the ACC has been in a long, long time from top to bottom,” White said. “Every night, it’s just a ferocious gauntlet of what you have to face.”

Yet, White maintains his optimism after his team won three ACC games in a 12-game stretch this month.

Plus, Pitt trailed eventual ACC regular-season champion Notre Dame by only three points, 62-59, with 2½ minutes left in the game in South Bend, Ind. The Irish won 69-63 and then 83-43, 10 days later at Petersen Events Center.

White said the tournament can offer a “fresh start,” but he has seen improvement over the past eight games.

“We played some really good basketball and really been competitive,” he said. “Now, you can just cut loose. There is no pressure on us and see if we can go make some noise in the ACC Tournament.”

He said players haven’t lost their love of the game.

“That’s something I credit this group of kids with, just the resiliency to be able to come and every night give their absolute best performance,” he said. “Look at the way they played (Sunday in a 68-63 loss to N.C. State), fighting and clawing, and that shows their character and who they are.

“It starts with Amber Brown,” he said of the team’s leading scorer (9.6 points per game). “To come to Pitt from Louisiana, (her) resiliency feeds into everyone else on our basketball team.”

Brown, a senior four-year starter, leads an experienced group that includes Liatu King and Dayshanette Harris. King, a junior, scores at a 9.5 rate and leads the team in rebounding (7.6). Harris averages 8.6 points and sophomore Maliyah Johnson 8.4.

White has made frequent use of his reserves, with 10 players averaging at least 10 minutes per game. Reserves scored a Pitt record 178 points in the past five games, including consecutive 50-plus efforts for the first time in program history.

“I like our young kids a lot,” he said. “I think they really are going to be great basketball players. I like where we’re going, what we’re doing to be able to play at a higher level.”