Pitt Shows Heart But Falls In Second Round Of The ACC Tournament

Thursday, March 5

Greensboro, NC

6:00 PM

Pitt

5-26,1-17ACC

Georgia Tech

20-10,10-8ACC

Pittsburgh

Georgia Tech

Pitt Shows Heart But Falls In Second Round Of The ACC Tournament

3/5/2020 9:41:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Box Score Final Season Stats Photo Gallery

GREENSBORO, N.C. – The ACC Tournament run by the Pitt women's basketball team came to an end on Thursday night inside the Greensboro Coliseum as the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets handed the Panthers a 66-56 defeat in the second round of the tournament. Freshman Phenom Dayshanette Harris netted a team-high 21 points as she finished off her first season with three straight 20+ point scoring games.

"I was really pleased with our effort for a long period of time today," said second-year head coach Lance White. "These kids when we were recruiting them we told them this year they're going to have to make all the mistakes underneath the bright lights. For our four freshmen, junior college player, they have come in and done everything I've asked. I'm excited that, again, they've laid the foundation of what we're going to be in the future. I'm most excited that these freshmen will become sophomores, and they quickly become juniors by the amount of minutes and the games that they've had to play."

The two sides exchanged buckets early on as Amber Brown grabbed an offensive rebound and finished off a layup for the first points of the game for Pitt. After Georgia Tech made a layup to take the 8-6 lead, Brown fed Rita Igbokwe for a fast break layup to tie things up. Cara Judkins and Ismini Prapa scored back-to-back buckets to give Pitt the 16-15 lead late but the Yellow Jackets netted the final points of the first to take the 17-16 lead through 10 minutes.

The Panthers opened up the second quarter strong defensively as they didn't allow a bucket for three minutes as they took the 20-17 behind a jumper from Dayshanette Harris and a Jahsyni Knight layup. The Yellow Jackets responded with a run of their own to take a 27-24 lead before Brown fought throw traffic for a layup. Georgia Tech scored the final four points of the quarter to take the 31-26 lead at halftime.

Harris scored the first two buckets of the third for Pitt as the Yellow Jackets surged out to a 38-30 lead just over two minutes into the quarter. After a quick timeout, Gabbie Green made three free throws and then knocked down a deep triple to send the game to the media timeout with the Panthers trailing by six, 42-36. The Panthers pushed hard to close out the third as they went on an 8-0 run behind a Harris and one layup, a Green triple and a Prapa runner in the lane but Georgia Tech banked in a shot at the buzzer to take the 48-45 lead into the fourth.

Georgia Tech opened up the fourth quarter on a 10-2 run to push their lead out to 11, 58-47, just over three minutes into the final frame. The Panthers never quit on the game as they scored seven points across the final two minutes as their season came to an end by the score of 68-58 in favor of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

Harris had another monster game on the biggest stage as she netted 21 points, five rebounds, three assists and two steals on 9-for-20 shooting. She led the Panthers with six 20+ point games on the season. Brown posted 12 points and seven rebounds while Prapa scored seven points and a career-high six rebounds off the Pitt bench.

Green netted nine points while going 2-for-5 from behind the arc. With her two three-pointers, Green finished the season with 60 triples, setting a new program record for three-pointers made by a junior and tied for fourth most in a season overall. Igbokwe posted another multi-block effort as she finished off her impressive freshman campaign with 60 blocks, the freshman record and eighth most in a single season in program history.

As a team, the Yellow Jackets held the 36-30 edge in rebounds including a 19-9 edge in offensive rebounds. Georgia Tech scored 14 second chance points to the Panthers' eight while the Yellow Jackets also outscored Pitt 20-7 in points off turnovers.

NEXT UP

With the loss to Georgia Tech, the Panthers saw their 2019-20 season come to an end.

PITT NOTES
TEAM

With the loss, the Panthers close out the 2019-20 campaign with a 5-26 overall record after winning just their second ACC Tournament game in program history.
With the loss, Pitt is now 2-7 all-time in the ACC Tournament.
The Panthers fall to 3-6 all-time against Georgia Tech and have lost three straight.

Dayshanette Harris

Finished off her evening with her third straight 20-point effort as she netted a team-high 21 points, five rebounds, three assists and two steals across 35 minutes of work.
Harris closed out her freshman campaign with three straight 20-point efforts for the first time in her career. For the season, she has a total of six 20+ point games, the most by a Pitt freshman since 2011-12 when Brianna Kiesel had seven.
Her nine field goals made tie her own program record for field goals made in an ACC Tournament game.
Harris has now scored in double figures 16 times this season including in eight straight to finish the season.
She finished out her successful freshman season averaging a team-high 12.7 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.8 steals as she becomes just the fourth Pitt freshman in the last 20 seasons to lead the team in scoring.
She has played 20+ minutes in 26 games while notching 30+ minutes 14 times this season.

Amber Brown

Finished off her night with 12 points, seven rebounds and two assists across 36 minutes of work while going 5-for-11 from the floor.
The 12 point effort marked her team-leading 17^th double digit scoring outing of her freshman campaign.
She grabbed at least five rebounds in 27 of her 31 games while leading Pitt in rebounding 15 times on the season.
Posted a team-high five double-doubles on the season, most by a Pitt freshman since 2015-16.
Finished her first season at Pitt averaging a team-high 31.9 minutes, 9.1 points and a team-best 7.7 rebounds while shooting 41.6% from the floor.
Only Pitt player to play 20+ minutes in all 31 games while going over the 30-minute plateau 25 times including in 13 straight to end the season.