Four Pitt Players Announce Intent to Transfer Following White’s Firing

Pitt women’s basketball is currently undergoing change with the firing of head coach Lance White following the culmination of the 2022-23 season.

White served as head coach of the program for five seasons starting with the 2018-19 season. The Panthers finished with an overall record of 42-99 (.298) and an ACC record of 11-74 (.129) under White, making for the worst five year stretch for any head coach in the 49 seasons in program history since it started in 1974-75.

With White’s dismissal, the Pitt roster is starting to change rapidly with the announcements of transfers by different players growing since the opening of the transfer portal on Monday.

Senior forward Amber Brown placed her name in the transfer portal on Tuesday, making herself the first player to transfer from Pitt.

Brown started in all 110 games in her four seasons with the Panthers and averaged 9.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 45.6% from the floor. She finished with 684 career rebounds, the 10th most in program history.

Three more Pitt players announced their intent to transfer on Wednesday. This includes guards in seniors Emy Hayford and  Destiny Strother and junior Taisha Exanor.

Hayford, like Brown, joined the Panthers as part of White’s inaugural recruiting class. She hails from Maastricht, Netherlands and served primarily as a ball handler/distributor for the Panthers.

Hayford played in 108 games and started 46 of them. She averaged 3.7 points, 1.7 assists, 2.2 rebounds and 19.2 minutes per game over her Pitt career.

Strother transferred to Pitt from Marquette after her first year in the 2019-20 season. She played for three seasons for Pitt, mainly coming off the bench as a 3-point specialist, as she made 79 3-pointers.

She played most of her minutes in her first two seasons with the Panthers, averaging 17.6 minutes per game in 2020-21 and 18.4 minutes per game in 2021-22. Strother only played in 16 games this past season, averaging 4.2 minutes per game, as she saw her playing minutes dramatically decrease with the addition of younger, more talented guards.

Exanor is from Châteauguay, a suburb of Montreal in Quebec, Canada. She spent most of her career coming off the bench, as she started just four of the 70 games she played in her three seasons at Pitt.

Exanor averaged 12.5 minutes, 3.3 points, 2.6 rebounds and a 42.5 shooting percentage during her time at Pitt.

With the four departures, here are the remaining players at Pitt for the time being.

2023-24 Pitt Roster + eligibility 

Guards
Graduate Dayshanette Harris: one year
Graduate Channise Lewis: one year
Senior Sandrine Clesca: two years
Sophomore Marley Washenitz: three years
Sophomore Avery “Ace” Strickland: three years
Sophomore Aislin Malcolm: three years
First-year Jasmine Timmerson: four years

Forward
Redshirt senior Cynthia Ezeja: two years
Senior Gabby Hutcherson: two years
Senior Liatu King: two years
Junior Maliyah Johnson: two years
First-year Hannah Mills-Watson: four years
First-year Lauren Rust: four years