Coach Tory Verdi's halftime 'conversation' led Pitt to historic come-from-behind victory

In theory and practice, the college basketball locker room is off limits to the prying eyes and ears of the outside world. It’s a sanctuary for players and coaches to conduct their business on a deeply personal level.

That’s true in most postgame situations, but Pitt’s MaKayla Elmore revealed a secret from inside those walls Sunday after her team’s historic comeback from a 32-point first-half deficit to defeat SMU, 72-59, at Petersen Events Center.

“Coach was crying,” she said.

And Tory Verdi refuses to apologize or be ashamed.

“Look, I’m Italian,” he said. “I’m very emotional. I was just so proud of my team, so proud of the players and what they just did.”

While the game was winding down late in the fourth quarter, people were in Verdi’s ear, telling him that his team was making history.

Pitt trailed 46-14 with 1 minute, 21 seconds left in the second quarter, but a remarkable 28-0 third-quarter blitz turned into a 54-10 second-half advantage and Pitt’s first victory in five ACC games this season. It is the largest comeback in the history of NCAA women’s college basketball without needing overtime.

Who wouldn’t cry tears of joy?

“Regardless, if we made history or not. I didn’t really want to hear that noise until afterwards, and then it just all sank in,” Verdi said. “As coaches, we work really, really hard. When you’re not winning, you take a beating. I take this very personal. A loss to me is hard, and I hold myself accountable. I expect this program to rise, and I expect this to be successful. What I saw (Sunday) was something I haven’t seen before.

“You saw some tears. No question about it. I’m not sure if we’ll see this again in the next 15 years.”

The story of how it happened probably should include some recent history of the Pitt’s women’s program.

Verdi is in his second season as head coach after taking charge of a program that had not won more than four games in the ACC since former coach Suzie McConnell-Serio took Pitt to the NCAA Tournament in 2014-15. Recent overall records such as 5-14, 5-26 and even 8-24 in Verdi’s first season last year indicate how far the program had fallen.

But Verdi didn’t care about the past.

“I wanted to challenge myself and coach against some of the best coaches in the country, to help another program do something we haven’t done in a while,” he said about leaving UMass to come to Pitt. “I’ll be honest with you: A lot of people were scared to take this job, and I’m not one of them.”

The situation was the same, he said, in his previous jobs at Eastern Michigan and UMass. He took losing programs with single-digit victory totals and started winning 20-plus games before the end of his fourth season.

“(Eastern Michigan) had several (NCAA) violations, and they had practice time reduced and all this, that and other,” he said. “I walked in and flipped it.”

In his last two seasons at UMass, his teams won 26 and 27 games and went to the 2022 NCAA Tournament.

“Is (Pitt) a big job? There’s no question about it,” he said. “It’s a big job because of the conference that we’re in. The top of our league, they have resources that are a little bit different where they’re still attracting the best players in the country. We have to position ourselves to be successful in that regard, and I think we’re moving in the right direction.”

Sunday’s game is a good start.

The comeback started with “a positive, spirited conversation” in the locker room at halftime, Verdi said.

“I just told our players, ‘I don’t have any magic words or magic plays. What I do know is we’re being outworked. We’re being outplayed, and we’re not doing the little things. If you want to get back in this game, we have to box out. We have to match their physicality. We have to defend. We have to get the 50-50 loose balls. If we start to do the little things, big things will happen.’

“I challenged them. I talked about having a sense of pride.”

Elmore said the players walked into the locker room at halftime and told each other, “We have to fight. That’s the least we can do right now. Just chip away. We just all agreed to go out there and play hard.”

“(Verdi) had a lot of words to say, which I know we needed to hear it. We just sat there and listened.”

Then, in the second half while Pitt was recording one defensive stop after another, Verdi got down in a defensive stance in front his bench and kept shouting, “Fight, fight, fight.”

Several women stepped up to lead the charge, led by Mikayla Johnson and Khadija Faye with 22 and 21 points, and Elmore’s 13 rebounds.

Verdi also credited Marley Washenitz (14 points, three steals and three offensive rebounds) and Brooklynn Miles (eight assists, six points and two steals).

“Both of those guys had an unbelievable sense of urgency. A want-to off the charts,” he said. “That energy became infectious. By no means was the first half acceptable. It’s not who we want to be. I just wanted to see them come out and compete, and they did.”

The victory was Pitt’s ninth in 18 games, an impressive accomplishment considering starters Amiya Jenkins and Lauren Rust are hurt and haven’t played since Nov. 12.

“It’s been quite the roller-coaster ride,” Verdi said.

When he’s recruiting, Verdi sells his program with this pitch:

“You can go somewhere else where they’re really successful, or you can come to the University of Pittsburgh and be a big reason why we’re successful.”

Verdi said he accepted several calls of congratulations from around the U.S. and ACC on Monday, even from some Pittsburgh Steelers coaches he declined to identify.

Men’s coach Jeff Capel praised his colleagues’ efforts on the ACC coaches conference call.

“Really happy for them. They’ve been through a lot,” he said. “I know what it’s like to try to rebuild a program or try to rebuild and take over something that when you get there it’s in not as good a shape as you thought it was in, even though you knew it was in bad shape. It’s a testament to the young ladies in that program and the coaching staff.”

Added Verdi: “I have a lot more friends than I had 24 hours ago. A lot of people like the story. The moral of the story is anything is possible when you put your heart into it and you believe.”