Tory Verdi made it clear:
"Today we will act like winners. Today we will carry ourselves like winners. Today we will look like winners. I'm prepared for this moment. This program is a sleeping giant, and it needs to be awakened. The lack of success in this program have scared many coaches off, but not me."
As the 51-year-old New Britain, Conn., native stepped off of the dais in front of a welcoming crowd inside the Petersen Events Center on Friday, smiles and hugs exchanged around the room made for the beginning of what he and athletic director Heather Lyke are believing to be a new era of Pitt women's basketball.
The former University of Massachusetts head coach was not just exuding confidence and vibes of success over his new position as he was clad in a navy blue suit, white button-down shirt, gold and blue striped tie, and a Pitt lapel pin for the 30-minute session in front of cameras; he is bringing a track record of displaying those at each of the two stops he has been a head coach.
As the new head women's basketball coach at Pitt, Verdi is striving for more times of being winners than just "today."
"We had great expectations of what we needed in or next leader, and we did not settle for anything less," Lyke said. "We found that leader in Tory Verdi."
Verdi and Lyke go back to their time at Eastern Michigan, where Verdi served as the head women's basketball coach from 2012 to 2016 while Lyke served as the university's athletic director from 2013 to 2017. The 35-days-long process after the firing of Lance White March 3 led Lyke back to a familiar face. Verdi said after his press conference that he reached out to Lyke, and a "quick turnaround" landed him in Pittsburgh.
The turnaround was hardly a week. As Verdi told me, he was contacted by Lyke one week ago, on March 31. He had dinner with Lyke Sunday night, and the interview was Monday. From there, it was all about settling down the logistics, and around 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Verdi said he got the call from Lyke.
"It was one that I wanted to hear, and at that point from 8:30 on, it's been a whirlwind," Verdi told me after the news conference.
"For two years (at Eastern Michigan), I watched coach Verdi's work ethic," Lyke said. "I saw how he built relationships with his players, the interactions with our donors, and our community. I saw his concept of family come to life. I remember the tragic passing of a player, and.I saw how Tory embraced every kid on our team and brought that family together in the toughest of times. I saw coach Verdi build a program that nobody expected to be successful. He did it the right way with the right people."
Verdi is being entrusted to build a winner at Pitt -- a program which has not experienced a winning season since the NCAA Tournament-bound 2014-'15 team -- after doing so at each of Eastern Michigan and UMass. Verdi is 203-154 overall and 94-86 in conference play with six postseason appearances (one NCAA, five Women's NIT) in his 11 seasons between the two schools and with a 10-game interim stint at Columbia in 2004-'05. He brought Eastern Michigan out of the basement of the Mid-American Conference and took the Eagles to three straight WNIT appearances from 2014 to 2016. In those three seasons, Verdi guided the Eagles to a combined 64-39 record.
He improved upon each season's record while at UMass, turning in sub-.500 marks throughout the first three seasons of his tenure but storming the program into a 20-11 record in 2019-'20, a 16-8 record the next season, and then seasons with 26 and 27 wins, leading to his hiring at Pitt. Those final two seasons set program records in wins for a season, and the Minutewomen appeared in the WNIT to conclude both seasons.
UMass finished the 2022-'23 season 27-7 and won its first-ever regular-season A10 title. The Minutewomen lost to St. Louis in overtime in the A10 Tournament Championship Game and went on to defeat Albany in the Women's NIT before bowing out to Harvard March 20 in the second round.
Eleven days later, the process of his arrival at Pitt began.
"This is the city of champions," Verdi said. "It's time we do our part. It's time to get to work. It's time to play for and win championships."
It will take a sizable amount of work for Verdi to do that. Nine Pitt players have already entered the transfer portal, and he essentially has four players to build off of from last season's team.
A major piece to that is sophomore-to-be guard Marley Washenitz, who was recruited to UMass by Verdi but decided to play in the ACC -- "at the highest level," as she says -- and to be closer to her home of Fairmont, W. Va.
Washenitz played in 28 games and started 16 as a true freshman last season. The other three players which Verdi retains are guard Aislin Malcolm and forwards Liatu King and Gabby Hutcherson.
"Coach Verdi made it hard for me to make my decision, because I loved him as a coach and I loved him as a person," Washenitz said. "For it to all just kind of come back full circle, I told him I had a bigger plan in the end for both of us. I'm so proud of him, and to see him here do things and to be able to do it with him is something I'm super excited for because of who he is and how much he cares.
"It was just his demeanor, the way he comes off. He just, in some way, touches my heart as a person, and then as a coach I know because he cares about me the way he does and cares about his players as he does on the court. Everything he says, he means. So it's not like he's getting on you because you're doing bad; he's getting on you because he wants you to do better. He wants you to not make that mistake again. Just the way he carries himself and the way he puts his players first and the way he cares is, I feel, the biggest thing because he makes me want to play for him because of how much he cares. I want to do it for him. I want to make him proud, I want to be able to build this program with him. The way he carries himself and presents himself makes me want to work for him."
Lyke said she stayed in contact with Verdi via text after he left Eastern Michigan for UMass in 2016.
"He's always reached out when something positive has happened or not," Lyke said in a post-conference breakout session. "I was curious to get to see him and meet him again. I will tell you, maybe, I don't know that he's changed who he is much as his personal demeanor, but I will tell you I think he's endured what it takes to continue to build a program, and he's not afraid of the challenge at that next level, and he's hungry for it. I think overall maturity as far as the depth of relationships he has with the players over the years and who he's stayed in contact, you can tell that, I think that all those sorts of things matter to him, and I recognized that when we visited."
For those who take stock in "winning" or "losing" a press conference, Verdi said all of the right things while standing at the lectern and then while sitting at a table next to Lyke for a question and answer session. The first steps for Verdi are to assemble his staff and then hit the transfer portal and recruiting trail hard to build a team around the already existing pieces.
"We're going to be really busy, and there's going to be no question about that," Verdi said. "I'm just super excited about the four players that we have in our program right now. They're our main priority. I had the opportunity to meet with them a little while ago and spend some time, and I'm excited to coach them. I can't do this by myself. I'm going to be there for them every step of the way. But, we're going to tackle the portal and, like I said, there's a lot of work to be done here in the next 48 hours. You can bet that as soon as I get the opportunity I'm going to be tackling that. We have a great opportunity to bring in great players. Players that can impact and help us win now.
"We're not waiting for three years. We're not saying that we need all this time to rebuild and get the right people in. We're not waiting. We're winning, and I know I can't sit here and tell you before you a number, but what I'm going to tell you is this team will be different. This team will be different, and we will play hard, and we will play smart, and we will play together. The last bit and the piece is we will have fun, and I think there's a lot of coaches around the country that really miss the element. When our fans and our community will leave our games, they're going to say one thing: 'Wow. They play really, really hard.' Because that's a controllable. You can control how hard you play, and we're going to play it the right way."
