Syracuse volleyball received perhaps the greatest compliment in sports yesterday.

The Orangewomen so thoroughly battered their opponent — heavily-favored Pittsburgh — that the Panthers will return home and seek help from a psychologist.

After his team lost to Syracuse, 30-25, 30-26 and 30-27, at the Women’s Building yesterday, Pitt coach Chris Beerman delivered this message to his group of tearful players: Our confidence is shot. We’re going to find somebody who can help us get it back.

“In seven years of coaching, this is the first time I’ve even mentioned a sports psychologist to my team,” Beerman said. “But we’re young, we have high expectations and we’re not fulfilling them. This loss today, that was the last straw. This team is breaking down.”

Beerman seemed to break down himself during Sunday’s loss. The Pitt (15-8, 5-3 Big East) coach spent much of his time jumping toward the court and hollering at his players.

He used four timeouts in the first two games, but in that span his team never led.

Down, 16-12, in the third game, Beerman called a timeout to give a last-ditch shouting at his team. For nearly a minute, the coach berated his players for “wasting a trip to Syracuse.”

In stark contrast, SU (17-9, 3-5) coach Jing Pu sat calmly in his chair — he only rose three times, all when he had to move for the start of a new game — and watched Beerman’s tirade.

“I’m always calm,” Pu said. “If you study the sport, you learn that talking too much or blaming someone for a mistake only makes it worse.”

“(Pu) just exudes calmness,” SU’s Kristen Conway said. “He makes you feel comfortable all the time. You don’t want a coach like the Pitt coach today, who only makes you feel afraid.”

Apparently, Pitt’s players didn’t want that coach either. After the timeout, the Panthers remained dormant, letting Syracuse escape with a confidence-building 3-0 win.

“Sometimes you can intimidate your way to a win,” Beerman said. “I’ve won a lot of games with that strategy. Obviously, they didn’t respond to that today.

“This team is broken, and what they need now is a compassionate coach. For the rest of the year, I’ll change my style to better fit that. We need to lower the expectation level.”

That won’t be easy. Entering the weekend, Pitt had hopes of winning the conference. Now, it has to win its remaining five Big East games to be assured of making the four-team tournament that, this year, will be held in Pittsburgh.

Syracuse, meanwhile, plays without pressure. The Orangewomen, currently 10th in the conference, will not make the Big East tournament. They lost, 3-2, to West Virginia on Friday, dashing postseason hopes. With only one senior, they’re playing for next year.

“This is a huge victory for us,” Pu said. “We are getting so good, so mature. Our team is so promising. We’ve grown so fast. This was a great day.”

“You can see how good this team will be,” senior Abby Van Mater said. “I wish I wasn’t leaving. The way we played today, that was the best we’ve played all year. We dominated the whole game.”

Pitt felt every minute of it, too. And according to Beerman, his team will continue to suffer from this loss for a long while.

“Syracuse has nothing to lose,” Beerman said. “They’ll be spoilers the rest of the way. They spoiled a lot for us. This team, it needs help. We’re going back to Pittsburgh to find it.”

Published on October 27, 2002 at 12:00 pm