The Pitt women’s basketball team beat 11th seeded Wyoming on Saturday 63-58 to advance to the second round against 3rd see ded Baylor. They advanced this far last year but Candace Parker from Tennessee rolled right over them on their way to an NCAA title.
Baylor (25-6) limped into the tournament with three straight losses — its first three-game skid since the 2000-01 season. The Bears’ struggles were largely due to inexperience and a lack of healthy bodies. They have just one senior on the roster and haven’t played more than seven players in any game since beating Oklahoma on Feb. 17.
That one senior, however, made a big difference on Saturday, when Tisdale had 26 points and six assists in Baylor’s 88-67 first-round victory over Fresno State. “She’s the key to our offense,” junior forward Rachel Allison said of Tisdale, averaging 24.4 points in her last five games. [ESPN preview]
If they are able to beat Baylor tonight, it would be the first Sweet 16 appearance in program history. Game time is set for 7pm on ESPN2.
Women’s basketball was once a strong point of Penn State athletics, but now we have that. At least they can always fall back on their 12 NCAA men’s gymnastics championships.
And holy hell does ESPN have a lot invested in this tournament or what. After CBS picked up the exclusive rights to every game of the men’s tourney, ESPN swooped in for the women’s. I’m willing to bet if they didn’t have the women’s tournament on their networks they wouldn’t have as much of their website dedicated to the women as they do the men. Just sayin’.
Congrats to coach Agnus Berenato for putting the Pitt women’s team on the map when they weren’t relevant even two years ago. Back-to-back tourney appearances is a big deal.
2. Let dog lick and peruse at will.
3. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Congrats to the Pitt women. Nice job putting that one away at he end. Looks like Stanford will be next.
Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!
And yeah, it’s sad that our women aren’t popular. But we’ve only been to the tourney twice. I’ve went to one game this year, and I plan on going to more next year..especially since we proved our worth as one of NCAAW’s best programs this year. Hopefully Agnus can keep it up.
I will definitely be watching the Pitt women because they’ve never been this far. But otherwise, I’m not a women’s hoops fan. I watched nearly the entire game and to be honest and fair, it was just a much sloppier and watered down game. Both teams shot pretty poorly and even though the score at the end didn’t really show it, it seemed like it was such a struggle for anyone to score. There were only two players that looked like they had any fluidness (I doubt that’s even a word) to their game – Winn and Zellous. Winn couldn’t shoot, but she was a great passer.
That said, Agnes has done a great job that’s been unrecognized. Here’s hoping they can pull off another upset.
Also, it would be about 300 total miles and six driving hours out of my way to go to the game Saturday night in Spokane. And if it were going to be at about 8:30 PM PST, I’d almost certainly do it. Alas, I guess its going to be late afternoon and un-doable for us. Still, the fact that I considered driving across Washington to check out a Womens sweet 16 matchup speaks volumes about where the program is. Congrats to Coach B. and the gals. Fight on ladies…stave off the impending off-season for all of us!!!
HAIL.
