Panthers Look For Big Road Win At Louisville Sunday Afternoon

PITTSBURGH – The Pitt women's basketball team (7-8, 0-4) looks to snap a three-game skid Sunday afternoon as they travel to Louisville to take on the Cardinals. Sunday's game is set to tip at 2:00 pm and will air live on ACC Network with Kelly Gramlich and Sam Ravech on the call from the KFC YUM! Center.

HOW TO FOLLOW

Sunday's game will air live on ACC Network and can be viewed HERE.
Live stats of the game can be found by clicking HERE.
Live updates throughout the game will also be posted on Twitter by following the Pitt women's basketball account @Pitt_WBB.

STORYLINES

Junior Liatu King has been the Panthers' best player all season long as she leads the squad averaging 11.4 points and 8.5 rebounds while shooting 45.1% from the floor. King ranks 6th in the ACC in rebounding while posting five games with 10+ boards this season.
Senior Amber Brown netted her fourth straight game in double figures last time out as she posted a career-high 21 points, seven rebounds and five assists at Syracuse. Over her past six games, Brown is averaging a team-high 14.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.2 steals while shooting 54.5% from the floor.

THE OPENING TIP

The Panthers hit the road Sunday for a matchup against Louisville inside the KFC YUM! Center. Sunday's game will tip at 2:00 pm and air on ACC Network.
The undersized forward duo of Liatu King and Amber Brown have combined to average 21.4 points and 13.8 rebounds while shooting 48.0% from the floor on the year.
The trio of freshmen for the Panthers saw their most action of the season last time out and they delivered. Off the bench Aislin Malcolm netted nine points and Marley Washenitz had four points, five rebounds, seven assists and three steals while Avery Strickland started and had eight points, three rebounds and two assists.

THE SERIES WITH LOUISVILLE

This meeting marks the 27th between the two programs with Louisville owning the 24-2 lead in the all-time series.
The Cardinals have won 20 straight in the series with Pitt's last win coming on Feb. 14, 2010.
Louisville owns a 11-0 record against Pitt in games played in Louisville.

SCOUTING THE CARDINALS

The Louisville Cardinals enter Sunday's game with a 12-5 overall record and a 3-1 ACC mark. The Cardinals won last time out at home against Georgia Tech, 63-55.
Junior Hailey Van Lith is leading the way for the Cardinals as she ranks 2nd in the ACC in scoring (20.5 ppg) while adding 5.4 rebounds and 3.4 assists while shooting 44.6% from the floor across 36.4 minutes per game.
Chrislyn Carr is enjoying a strong start to her season as she is second on the team in scoring (10.6 ppg) while adding 2.9 assists and 2.8 rebounds while connecting on a team-high 41 three-pointers and shooting 46.6% from deep. Morgan Jones is averaging 9.9 points, 4.5 rebounds and a team-high 1.1 blocks so far this season.
As a team, Louisville is averaging 76.0 points per game while allowing just 62.9 points against per contest.

BEST CONFERENCE IN THE COUNTRY: THE ACC

The ACC continues to prove that it is the best women's basketball conference in the country.
In the latest NET Rankings released Monday, the ACC has seven teams in the Top-30, the most among any conference.
Overall, 14 ACC teams rank inside the Top-90 in the latest NET Rankings. » The ACC landed three teams in the Associated Press Top 10: Notre Dame (4th), Virginia Tech (9th) and NC State (10th) and a total of five in the Top 25: Duke (19th) and North Carolina (22nd).
Three of the Top-30 scoring defenses in the country are in the ACC -- Duke (3rd), Virginia Tech (14th) and Virginia (27th).

NET RANKING BY CONFERENCE
Conference     Top-25             Top-50             Top-100
ACC                  5                      8                      14
Big Ten            4                      9                      11
SEC                  4                      9                      12
Pac-12             5                      8                      11
Big 12              4                      6                      9

BROWN MAKING 96^TH STRAIGHT START THURSDAY

Senior Amber Brown has turned into one of the most consistent and reliable players on the Pitt roster over her strong four-year career.
The do-it-all player has started all 95 career games for the Panthers while averaging 27.9 minutes per game in her career. Brown will be making her 96th straight start to begin her career Sunday, marking the most consecutive starts to begin a career for a Pitt player since Brianna Kiesel started a program record 122 straight games in her illustrious career.
Last time out, Brown led the Panthers in scoring for the third straight game while scoring in double figures for the fourth straight game as she netted a career-high 21 points, seven rebounds and five assists in the road loss to Syracuse.
The 20-point game marked the third of her career and second of the season for the four-year starter.
She is one of three ACC players this season (Ta'Niya Latson, Haley Cavinder) to post at least 21 points, seven rebounds and five assists in a game.
Brown has been great for Pitt over her last six games as she has five games scoring in double figures. In her past six games, Brown is averaging a team-high 14.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.2 steals while shooting 54.5% from the floor.
With her third point and third rebound against Wake Forest last week, Brown became the first Panther since Chelsea Cole (2007-11) to record at least 800 career points and 600 career rebounds.
Earlier this year against Ball State, Brown had a massive double-double as she finished with 20 points, 17 rebounds, three blocks and two assists across a career-high 42 minutes of work. The 17 rebounds and three blocks marked new career-highs for the senior. She finished the game going 7-for-10 from the floor and 6-for-8 from the free throw line.
Brown is one of two players this season (Alexis Markowski - Nebraska) to post at least 20 points, 17 rebounds and three blocks while shooting at least 70% from the floor. Her 17 rebounds are also tied for the most by an ACC player this season.
On the year, Brown is averaging a career-high 10.0 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.5 assists while shooting a team-high 52.4% from the floor. She is currently 4th in the ACC in field goal percentage (52.4%) while shooting over 50% from the floor in eight of 15 games.
Against Coppin State, Brown became the fastest Panther (81 games) since Lorri Johnson in 1989-90 (59 games) to record at least 700 points, 500 rebounds and 100 assists.
For her career, Brown has scored 10+ points 43 times while grabbing 10+ rebounds 16 times. She has also secured at least five rebounds in 66 of her 95 career games.
She has racked up nine career double-doubles with five coming during her impressive freshman season.

SMART PANTHERS

The fall semester ended for the Panthers, and it proved to be one of the best in program history.
Pitt posted a cumulative team GPA of 3.26 for the fall 2022 semester, marking the highest in program history for a semester (besides fall of 2020 during the Pandemic)
A total of 10 of the 14 Panthers had a 3.0 GPA or better while four posted a 3.5 GPA or better.

NEXT UP

Pitt will have a week off before returning home Sunday, January 15 against Clemson. Sunday's game tips at 2:00 pm and will air on ACC Network Extra.
Sunday's game will be the annual Girl Scout Day game for Pitt.

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