8 out of the last 11 against Pitt.  And 3 in a row vs Pitt.  Pitt coach will be gone after this season.  The curse of SMS continues.  Lol

It is amazing with all their resources how bad they are in women’s bb.  They lost to a D3 team this year and very low level D1 teams.

luckymcd wrote:

DuqBlue wrote:

8 out of the last 11 against Pitt. And 3 in a row vs Pitt. Pitt coach will be gone after this season. The curse of SMS continues. Lol

It is amazing with all their resources how bad they are in women’s bb. They lost to a D3 team this year and very low level D1 teams.

I was sure that had to have been a typo, but it's not. Either way, I'll take any win over Pitt.

I remember watching the presser when Verdi was hired at Pitt from UMass.  Someone asked him if he would play Duquesne in the future.   He said something like “Yes I’m not afraid of them & I have beaten them.”   And the room cracked up. 

Verdi is 0-3 vs Duquesne. And probably won’t get another chance to beat them. 

Honestly three years in to this and Verdi has a roster on maybe 25% D1 caliber players.  Still don’t understand how that can happen.

Actually I don’t think she was that good of a coach. She always had a late season stumble at DU that kept us out of the tournament in two seasons particularly. 

She made the NCAA tournament with Pitt one year
on a 9-7 ACC record and 20-12 record.   That was her second season there.  Duquesne easily beat them that year.   They got in with a late season upset of a ranked North Carolina team. There only good win of the season.  Duquesne was in the mix for at large bud under Burt that season. 

SMS was hired by Scott Barnes and fired during AD change with Heather Lyke.  Lyke hired Lance White and was she was also fired a year or so ago. 

She found a post player Monica Wignot (who tragically died a few years ago) who switched during last year of eligibility from volleyball to basketball.  Her other 4 ACC seasons had 3, 4, 4 and 2 wins and well under 500 overall.

They fired her after season 5.  Lance White was there 5 years with an actually worse record than SMS.  He beat DU once.   Verdi who is working with a new AD that didn’t hire him is underperforming Lance White now.  It’s his is third year and he may go 0-18 in the ACC.   You can just watch his team and see they aren’t D1 caliber let alone ACC caliber.

Last edited by DuqBlue (12/22/2025 6:46 am)

Thanks for the explanation DuqBlue. I can probably count the Dukes women's games I've been to on one hand. Other than that about all I'll usually see is a game or two of the tournament on TV. It sounds like Pitt did it to themselves; and even as a fan of the Dukes men's team, I don't have any sympathy for them.