When the Pittsburgh March Madness started, everyone had the same expectations. It was going to be the four No. 1 seeds — Ben Roethlisberger, Sidney Crosby, Andrew McCutchen and Antonio Brown — in the Final Four. That’s just how it works.
Except this time, it wasn’t.
In the first round, when we logged on to check the results to see who advanced, one result made our jaw drop:
#16. Monica Wignot – 459 votes vs. #1. Andrew McCutchen – 455 votes.
For the first time ever in a tournament, a #16 seed knocked off a #1 seed…but little did we know it was just the beginning.
Soon, Wignot started creating waves after advancing each round, until she made her way to the Elite Eight. At that point, on the Pittsburgh Sporting News Facebook page and website, people had just one question:
Who the hell is Monica Wignot?
“I understand that no one knew who I am. I just thought it was funny that people were getting angry,” Wignot said during a phone interview on Tuesday. “If Sid (Crosby) tweeted that once, I would have lost by five million. People were taking it too seriously for something that was supposed to be for fun. Some people that I didn’t even know were really nice, though.”
It became a question that the Wignot family themselves had fun with, as her brother even made it into a hashtag.
To best answer the question to who she is, rewind back to five years ago.
Before becoming the second-leading scorer for the Pitt women’s basketball team and recording the second-most blocks in a single season in school history, Wignot was a star for the Pitt women’s volleyball team, which she played for four years during her undergrad.
After she graduated with double-major in psychology and sociology, a familiar face spoke to her about pursuing her Master’s at Pitt, while playing basketball for the school.
“In high school, I played basketball, and I’ve basically played it my whole life. Toward the end of high school, I wanted to switch it up and decided that I wanted to play volleyball in college instead,” Wignot said. “Coach Suzie McConnell-Serio (now of Pitt) recruited me to play basketball when she was still at Duquesne, but she stopped the process once she heard I was going to play volleyball for Pitt.
“Coach came to Pitt and saw my name in the paper for volleyball. Somehow, four years later, she remembered my name and reached out to my volleyball coach to speak to me. She saw that I had one year of eligibility left and she asked me if I was interested in joining the team and getting my Master’s. After some convincing from my family and friends, I figured I would play and go to school for two more years.”
It was her first year playing basketball in more than four years, and Wignot’s presence was automatically felt.
“It was cool going into the program and hopping right in. I was surprised with how easy it was to pick up again,” Wignot said. “I had great coaches and great teammates. They helped me have a successful season. I was happy to play that one year under Coach Suzie.”
While finishing up her Master’s in social work, Wignot is going to stay involved with the Pitt women’s basketball team as a graduate assistant.
When she found out she was in the Pittsburgh Sporting News tournament, she also found out about another tournament that, understandably, was just a little more important: The NCAA Women’s Tournament.
“It was so much fun. It was surreal. From the section show, to the first round and winning the first game. It was so exciting because no one expected us to be there,” Wignot said. “If we didn’t make it past the second round, we accomplished more than anyone thought.
“Pitt women’s basketball hasn’t been the best in the past. It was cool to be part of the foundation that sets the new bar for where we want to be. We were picked last in the ACC, and to be there was a fairytale ending.”
It wasn’t the only fairytale ending for Wignot, as she would later find out, as she went one by one through the Pittsburgh March Madness Tournament.
But just one question; how did she get all of those votes?
“When Bri (Kiesel) and I first got the text from the other girl on my team, I sent it to my boyfriend. He sent it to literally everyone on his contact list asking for votes,” Wignot said, with a laugh. “My brother did, too. He sent it to family, friends, relatives and since he played college basketball, he sent it to his old college teammates, too. We had a lot of supporters.”
But was it rigged? After the first round, the PSN staff checked the IP and host addresses to make sure nothing was going on, but in the end, it was support that carried her through each round.
“It was fun to be in, but I let it in the hands of everyone else. They didn’t need help from me,” Wignot said. “I did vote for myself one time each round. Everyone else was contacting friends and family to get votes. I stuck to my one vote.”
Also supporting Wignot was the University, including the official Pitt women’s basketball and Pitt women’s volleyball Twitter accounts. After each round, Ted Feeley, the director of media relations, put together a photoshopped image showing who Wignot took down and who was next.
“He’s made some awesome graphics all season. I was dying when I saw the images he was creating,” Wignot said. “It was great to put art with it. It was a funny experience, and Ted was the man there.”
To make her way to the title, Wignot took down Andrew McCutchen, Ben Roethlisberger, Ryan Shazier, Francisco Liriano and Marc-Andre Fleury before facing Sidney Crosby in the title match.
“The first one against Cutch was the closest of all. It was down to the last hour trying to get votes from anyone we knew. I was just excited to be in it. Everyone said there hasn’t been a 16-1 upset, so we really wanted to win that one,” Wignot said. “Then we were looking down the bracket. We thought if we kept it up, we could take down Ben, but we figured Sid would face us if we reached the title game, and he’s the face of Pittsburgh.
“Just going into every single one, I don’t know how this will sound, but I wanted it to be close like the first one. Just getting my name there was cool to see.”
Wignot went on to win the championship with a 751-184 win over Sidney Crosby, which was “pretty awesome.”
“I thought it was so cool just being in the tournament. To be honest, I haven’t heard of that tournament before. I didn’t know if you guys did it in the past or not,” Wignot said. “A girl on the team texted to let us know that me and Bri were in it.
“I think it’s awesome that I won. My family and friends had a lot of fun with it. They were just excited I am playing hoops, and to be put in a pool like that, it was a lot of fun. It’s cool that I upset some big name in Pittsburgh, and it was a fun experience.”
A fun experience for Wignot, but not for all fans, as they took to social media and our comment section to voice their displeasure with Wignot after seeing their favorite Pittsburgh athletes get knocked off one by one.
“It didn’t really bother me too much. I had to bite my tongue a few times, but people didn’t know what they were talking about,” Wignot said. “Someone said I was a coach. But it was nice that people I knew and didn’t know were telling the story of who I am. It’s unfortunate that people were angry over something that is supposed to be fun, and it’s sucks they didn’t follow Pitt women’s basketball this year. We can’t let that bother us. I took it for what it was and let it go.”
That’s who the hell Monica Wignot is.
