Pitt
Duquesne
Pitt Women's Hoops Falls at Duquesne, 70-62
1/5/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 5, 2011
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PITTSBURGH – The University of Pittsburgh women’s basketball team dropped a 70-62 decision to Duquesne on Wednesday night at the A.J. Palumbo Center. The contest marked the 29th meeting between the city rivals.
Senior Jania Sims (Newark, N.J) scored a game-high 21 points and Taneisha Harrison (Bowie, Md.) added 14 for the Panthers (8-6), who saw their three-game win streak come to a halt. Senior Shayla Scott (Monroeville, Pa.) collected 11 points and a team-high nine rebounds.
The Dukes (13-2), who received 19 votes in the Associated Press Top-25 Poll released on Monday, were paced by Alex Gensler with 19 points.
Give credit to Duquesne and I think that turnovers cost us the game,” said head coach Agnus Berenato. “Our shooting was awful (to start) and when we settled down and attached the basket, we played well and played within our game and were able to get scores.
We just turned the ball over too much. I said to my team when I called a timeout to ‘just take your time, take a deep breath and get to the basket and free throw line’. All of sudden, we were scoring. Next timeout, I called I said ‘you gotta stop throwing the ball away.’ You cannot have 21 turnovers and play the game and give the other team 21 possessions. We missed a lot of really easy shots – contested, yes – but if you don’t knock them down, you have to get offensive rebounds and we were killed on the boards.”
Duquesne opened the contest by scoring 13 of the game’s first 18 points. After the Panthers cut the deficit to six on the next possession, the Dukes moved ahead again by eight - their largest lead of the stanza - on a pair of foul shots from Vanessa Abel. Six of Duquesne’s first 15 points were courtesy of the charity stripe.
The Panthers answered behind the guard play of Scott and Sims, who combined to run off an 8-0 spurt. Scott started the surge with an old fashioned three-point play and closed it with two from the free throw line to close the gap to 18-15 at the 8:31 mark.
Gensler ended Duquesne’s drought with a triple - one of her three on the evening - to make it a six-point game (21-15). Scott calmly drained a trey from the top of the key on the next Pitt play and Sims added a three-foot jumper to get within one at 23-22 with 6:28 to go in the first.
Pitt turned the ball over on four of its next five possessions as Duquesne took advantage and pushed ahead, again, by six (30-24). The Panthers scored seven-straight points – with scores from three different players - to take its first lead (31-30) since the game’s opening basket. A late layup by Gensler gave the home team a 32-31 edge at intermission.
The Dukes commenced the second period with another basket from Gensler before the Panthers responded. Consecutive three-pointers from Harrison and Scott gave Pitt its largest lead of the game at 37-34 with 18:31 remaining. Held without a field goal for nearly four minutes, the Pitt lead disappeared as the Dukes used their interior offense to take over for good.
The Panthers allowed the Dukes to score 17 points off their 21 turnovers. Duquesne gained a 47-35 rebounding advantage as Pitt moved to 0-6 on the season when it loses the board war. The teams combined to make 46 visits to the free throw line.
“I think we were over anxious in the game and we stepped out of our (game) plan,” said Sims. “We just need to go back the drawing board and execute like when we were on the winning streak. We took ourselves out tonight, especially with the turnovers. Hopefully we will go back and know what we need to do to get better and prepare for the BIG EAST season.”
Pitt holds a 19-10 lead in the all-time series with Duquesne.
The Panthers jump into BIG EAST play on Sunday, Jan. 9 at Louisville. Tip-time at the KFC Yum! Center is at noon. The game will be broadcast on ESPNU.
