The Pitt women's basketball team lost a heartbreaker tonight -- 69-63 -- to No. 5 Louisville at the Big East women's basketball tournament in Hartford and it is no doubt the kind of loss that illustrates a number of things about tournament -- be it conference or NCAA -- basketball and what makes this time of year so special.
That's because basically what you have in the NCAA Tournament and in conference tournaments (once you get through the early rounds and erase the teams who aren't very good) is two teams who (a) have won a lot of games (b) are talented and thus capable of making runs even when they get down and (c) are playing with a sense of urgency because the loser is going home.
It is also the kind of loss that will make Pitt coach Agnus Berenato sick once she sits down to think about it because the Panthers really let a major opportunity to take a huge step forward slip through their fingers. And it was another case of the Panthers having two distinct personalities -- and which one shows up come NCAA Tournament time will determine their fate.
The first personality of these Panthers was on full display in the first half of the game -- and frankly if it shows up next week when the real tournament starts they will be sent home rather quickly.
Let's call this one "Bad Pitt" because, well, that's a simple way to describe it when the Panthers, who are built around big post players and slashing guards, start settling for jump shots and start throwing the ball at the hoop from all over the court and hoping it goes in. When they play this way, they are easy to defend and they are easy to make runs on because their lack of aggression on offense always seems to show up on defense.
I can think of a sequence in the first half when the Panthers took a bad 3-pointer, way too early in the shot clock, then got beat down the court for a lay-up. They took the ball back up the court, took another awful shot -- and then failed to get to the baseline to seal Louisville's Angel McCoughtry who got an easy lay-up out of it.
This has happened some with this group of Panthers for some reason and these lapses nearly cost them against DePaul in the quarterfinals and did cost them last night.
In the second half, however, we got to see "Good Pitt."
And frankly, had the Panthers closed the final two minutes of the half the way they played the first 18, they'd have won the game and we'd have been talking about "Great Pitt."
This team, the one we saw in the second half, is more than capable of getting to the Elite Eight -- and perhaps with the right matchup, the Final Four -- but we haven't seen this Pitt team for a full 40 minutes, probably since they blew Maryland - yes, that Maryland, the one that just won the ACC -- out of the Petersen Center.
That team was aggressive on offense, took the ball to the basket and had the Cardinals backing up and fouling the entire second half. That group rebounded the basketball and changed and challenged every shot. That Pitt played the kind of physical, hard-nosed defense that the men's program has become famous for.
They clearly took Louisville - which led by 10 at the half -- completely out of its comfort zone and frankly, had it not been for a few missed free throws and the heroics of McCoughtry, Pitt likely would have won the game.
After the game Agnus Berenato said it best "every possession counts and we lost this game in the first half" and that's true -- had Good Pitt showed up in the first half and played forty minutes of basketball the way they played 18 of the last 20, there is no question they'd be lining up to play Connecticut in the championship game tomorrow night.
The good news for Pitt, however, is that the Panthers will be in the NCAA Tournament but the question on the minds of everyone who follows the program should not be -- who will the Panthers play or where will the Panthers be seeded but rather -- which Pitt team - the good one or the bad one -- will show up once the ball is tipped......