Pitt women's basketball team on a tear to open the season

While the Pitt men are off to a solid start under coach Kevin Stallings, the women's basketball team is having a great year under Suzie McConnell-Serio as well.

The Lady Panthers are a perfect 6-0 to start the season. That's only the fourth time in school history they've achieved that and the first since 2009-10. The schedule hasn't been incredibly tough to this point, but the fast start is still noteworthy since the team has had a few non-conference stumbles in the past.

The team has been incredibly balanced with four players scoring in double figures. While Brenna Wise is arguably the team's best player, leading them in scoring (13.0 points per game) and rebounding (7.8), she is getting plenty of help from Aysia Bugg and Kauai Bradley. Notably, DePaul transfer center Brandi Harvey-Carr, who I mentioned back in May, has really stepped up. She was a modest role player at DePaul but is one of the team leaders at Pitt as both the third-leading scorer and rebounder - not to mention the team's best free throw shooter, making nearly 87% of her attempts.

You might remember that Pitt lost two key transfers themselves this offseason, including their leading rebounder, Stasha Carey. But so far, they've been able to weather the storm and Harvey-Carr has helped.

Even more encouraging is that the team is winning so much despite missing one of their best players. Forward Yacine Diop averaged 10.4 points last year and was the team's second-leading scorer. But after a rough offseason, which included some off-court trouble, she's also been out with an injured foot and hasn't yet played. She's expected to be back soon (this Trib article said possibly by Thanksgiving), and when she gets back, the team should be even better.

We still don't know exactly where the women's team stands right now, despite the strong start. The competition has been pretty light but that's about to change as they'll face Big Ten program Purdue on Wednesday as their ACC-B1G Challenge game. Purdue isn't playing terribly well now, though, and is only 3-4 on the season. Still, it will be a nice test for the team as their first major-conference opponent of the year and getting them at home will help.

The team is still untested, but so far so good.

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