In 2007, the University of Pittsburgh women’s basketball team reached the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history, making it to the second round before losing to eventual champion Tennessee. In 2008 and 2009, the Panthers reached the Sweet 16 under Head Coach Agnus Berenato who took over the Lady Panthers in 2003. The future of the program looked bright and many media members and opposing coaches began talking about the Panthers program as being a sleeping giant in women’s college basketball. The Panthers began producing WNBA players such as Marcedes Walker and Shavonte Zellous, who was a key member of the 2012 WNBA Champion Indiana Fever.
However, the number of wins began to rapidly decrease over the next several seasons. In addition, numerous players began to transfer out of the program and several big local recruits all decided to play at other colleges and universities. During the past two seasons, the Lady Panthers, filled with a roster of primarily all underclassmen, failed to win a Big East Conference game, including a 9-21 overall record last season against a very soft non-conference schedule. Berenato was fired at the end of the season after 10 seasons at Pitt, where she compiled a 161-149 overall record.
The Panthers did not look far to find their new head coaching, hiring Duquesne University Head Coach and Western Pennsylvania native Suzie McConnell-Serio on April 12, 2013. McConnell-Serio comes to Pitt with an impressive resume and background. A legendary player at Seton LaSalle High School, Penn State, and later in the WNBA, McConnell-Serio was a two-time Olympic medalist in 1988 and 1992 while playing on the US Women’s Basketball team. She later won three PIAA Championships as the Head Coach of Oakland Catholic High School in Pittsburgh, which she later left to become the head coach of the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA. She was hired as the Head Coach at Duquesne University in 2007, where she compiled an impressive 123-68 record in six seasons, including a 24-8 (11-3 in Atlantic 10 play) record in her final season and an RPI of 36, by far the best in school history.
“Our program is on the cusp of a new era with new opportunities in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Suzie is the right person to lead us into that new era”, said Steve Pederson, University of Pittsburgh Athletic Director at the time of McConnell-Serio’s hiring.
As the Panthers prepare to move into the ACC next season, the McConnell-Serio is a homerun hire for many reasons:
First, McConnell-Serio brings instant credibility and a identifiable face to the program that very few programs can match. All of the top programs in college basketball have identifiable coaches such as Geno Auriemma at Connecticut, Muffet McGraw at Notre Dame, and Tara Vanderveer at Stanford. Very few can match McConnell-Serio’s resume as a player and coach. She has won at all levels of basketball and with the additional resources of a major ACC university such as Pitt, the sky is the limit in what she could possibly do with the program. It will not be an easy task but she knows better than anyone the potential that the Lady Panthers could have. She was able to win at Duquesne with much less resources despite playing in a very competitive basketball conference such as the Atlantic 10.
Secondly, McConnell is known as both an outstanding recruiting and also a coach who gets the most out of her players abilities. The WPIAL has become somewhat of a recruiting hotbed for girls basketball over the past 15 years producing players such as Swin Cash (Connecticut), Charel Allen (Notre Dame), Madison Cable (Notre Dame) and Markel Walker (UCLA) just to name a few. There are several major girls AAU programs in Western PA. With McConnell’s reputation and familiarity with Western PA, it will be very surprising if she is not able to keep many of the major recruits in this area home. She already has good relationships with many of the current high school and AAU coaches in the area.
While at Oakland Catholic, she had 12 players sign with Division I schools and many others who played at Division II and Division III colleges and universities. It is also important for McConnell-Serio to recruit well nationally to compete with major programs such as Duke, Maryland, and North Carolina in the ACC. She has the personality, pedigree, and the type of coaching staff to do so and become successful. She also has been known for bringing in players who also excel in the classroom as excellent student athletes and role models. Duquesne University had an outstanding APR rating in women’s basketball during Coach McConnell-Serio’s time there. This is something important to any university.
McConnell-Serio is bringing a well-rounded coaching staff to Pitt that has strong ties to the region and university but also has the experience to recruit nationally. Two of her three assistants, Carmen Bruce and Lindsay Richards were part of her staff at Duquesne. Bruce, the daughter of Kirk Bruce (the former head women’s basketball coach at Pitt and a current Associate Athletic Director at the university) also played at Duquesne and grew up in the region. Richards father Tom played at Pitt also in the late 1970s and she is a former Division I player at Iowa University. McConnell-Serio’s sister, Kathy McConnell-Miller is joining her at Pitt as the associate head coach. McConnell-Miller brings a wealth of experience to the program.
She served as the women’s basketball head coach at the University of Tulsa and the University of Colorado. She recently served as an assistant coach with the Tulsa Shock of the WNBA. Many times when a new staff is hired, they need to build relationships with local coaches and get a better understanding of their university, etc. This will not be the case with this new coaching staff. This is an outstanding staff that already understands the recruiting area and environment they are entering. They are also used to working each other and already understand the role they will play on the coaching staff.
McConnell-Serio has always been known as a coach who gets the most of the talent that she is given. She inherits an experienced roster at Pitt that did not have any seniors the past two seasons, something that is very unique and almost unheard in women’s basketball. This includes the two leading scorers on the team in Brianna Kiesel (14.9Pts, 4.7Rbs.), a junior, and Asia Logan (14 Pts, 7Rbs.) who will be a senior next season. While the team only averaged 58.7 points per game (and only 49 points per game in Big East games), the roster is very experienced with 10 girls having started at least one game last season. Kisiel was named to the Big East Honorable Mention team the past two seasons and will be a good piece to build around.
If the Panthers can improve their efficiency on offense and limit their turnovers (16.8 per game) they will have a chance to become competitive in the ACC. The team has nice size and outrebounded their opponents on the season. McConnell-Serio will also have the services of Marvadene “Bubbles” Anderson, a 6’11 Freshmen who redshirted last season. Anderson, who attended Rutgers Prep in New Jersey, will be an interesting storyline to follow because of her size to see what impact she will have on the Panthers.
Last season, the Panthers played their final year in the Big East Conference, which included three Final Four Teams in Louisville, Notre Dame, and eventual champion Connecticut. The competition will not get any easier for the Panthers as they enter the ACC, which had 7 teams in the NCCA tournament last season, including perennial powers Duke, North Carolina, and Maryland. Pitt will play a 16 game ACC regular season schedule, with 8 home games and 8 away games. Florida State, Notre Dame, North Carolina State, and Syracuse are among the home ACC games that the Panthers will host. The Panthers will travel to both Duke and North Carolina in their inaugural season in the ACC. The remainder of the schedule will be announced sometime later in the summer.
