After Pitt’s 84-61 loss Feb. 11 against Louisville, freshman forward Brenna Wise was asked about her emphatic reaction to a basket at the end of the third quarter.
Before Wise could answer, teammate Destinie Gibbs chimed in.
“Brenna gets pumped up about anything,” Gibbs said.
That infectious enthusiasm is part of the reason Wise, a former Vincentian Academy standout, has been able to endear herself so quickly to her Pitt teammates. It also helps that she already has established herself as one of the Panthers’ best players, just a few months into her college career.
With just two regular-season games remaining, Wise leads the team with 10.3 points and 7.6 rebounds per game. And even though an ankle injury in a win Thursday against North Carolina limited her to just 16 minutes in a loss Sunday against Syracuse, she still is second on the team in minutes played, averaging 29.0 per game.
More than that, though, she has become the emotional leader.
“She is genuinely happy for her teammates,” Pitt coach Suzie McConnell-Serio said. “There is not a selfish bone in her body. She wants to win. She’s a winner in every aspect of the word, on and off the court.”
Unfortunately for Wise and the Panthers (12-15, 4-10 ACC), they haven’t been doing much winning. The loss against No. 21 Syracuse snapped a brief two-game winning streak, and Pitt is headed for a postseason at home after the jubilation over the NCAA tournament run a year ago.
That has been especially challenging for Wise, coming off a record-breaking high school career. In four years at Vincentian, Wise lost just eight games, winning four WPIAL titles and PIAA championships as a junior and senior.
“Losing doesn’t get easier, especially when we’re in these tight games,” Wise said, pointing to a triple-overtime loss against North Carolina State and a 10-point defeat against No. 2 Notre Dame as evidence that the Panthers really are close to breaking through.
“But, at the end of the day, it doesn’t show, ‘Oh they competed and they fought or whatever.’ All it shows is two letters, a ‘W’ or an ‘L’ at the end of the day. I’d rather see more Ws than Ls.”
Even the Ls haven’t dampened Wise’s enthusiasm.
“If we need a player to go with the practice guys, she’ll be one of the first ones to put on a practice jersey,” McConnell-Serio said. “If she’s off, she’ll go with the guys.”
Wise’s teammates have taken notice, too. McConnell-Serio did not have the team vote on captains before the season, hoping to see leadership grow organically during the season. After a loss Feb. 4 against Wake Forest, McConnell-Serio decided it was time to put it to a vote. The team elected Wise — who said she was “shocked” — as well as junior guard Fred Potvin, as its captains.
“They see how hard she works when they show up to practice and she’s out here shooting,” McConnell-Serio said. “She’s late to the weight room because she’s still out on the court shooting.”
McConnell-Serio saw it, too, back when she was recruiting Wise out of high school. When the process started, McConnell-Serio was still at Duquesne and admitted that Wise might be out of the Dukes’ league from a recruiting standpoint.
“She came to visit, we had offered her,” McConnell-Serio said. “But, in the back of your mind, you knew, even at that young age, she would prefer to play big-time basketball.”
In spring 2013, the end of Wise’s sophomore year in high school, Pitt hired McConnell-Serio to take over a program that hadn’t won a conference game in more than two years.
But still, McConnell-Serio had the allure of the ACC — “big-time basketball” — behind her and, more importantly, her name and reputation.
Wise, rated by ESPN as the 13th-best small forward in her class, took recruiting visits to dozens of schools, but couldn’t shake the hometown school from her mind.
“Pitt really stuck with me,” she said. “It wasn’t necessarily Pitt, but it was coach Suzie McConnell-Serio that stuck with me.
“Being a Pittsburgh girl, you just kind of admire her and always heard the McConnell name, heard about Suzie. It just echoed.”
Part of McConnell-Serio’s recruiting pitch to Wise was her potential to be the face of Pitt’s program for the next four years. She represented Pitt at ACC media days before this season, a rarity for a freshman, and figures to appear on plenty of ticket booklets and promotional material heading into next year.
“It’s definitely weird, but it’s nothing I really pay attention to,” Wise said. “You can’t get distracted by that.
“I’d love to be in that position. Whether that’s my role or not, I’m happy to do it. Just to be a role model, to represent Pittsburgh. I’m from Pittsburgh, and I’m proud to be a ’Burgh girl.”
Sam Werner: swerner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @SWernerPG.
First Published: February 23, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
