The Panthers, coached by Agnus Berenato, were a member of the Big East Conference and played their home games at the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

An unusual distribution of players by academic class, with five seniors and six freshman, but with no juniors or sophomores, and three new assistant coaches resulted in some growing pains for the 2010-11 Pitt women's basketball team which went 14–17, suffering their first losing season since 2004-05.

The Panthers lost their top four scorers, seniors Taneisha Harrison, Jania Sims, Chelsea Cole, and Shayla Scott, and return only one starters, Ashlee Anderson, along with five letter winners while welcoming seven newcomers.

[2] Composed of six sophomores and six freshman, with no seniors or juniors, Pitt is the youngest team in NCAA Division 1 for the 2010-11 season.

[3] Pitt looks to help replace 74.6% of its scoring, 64.1% of its rebounds, and 75.8% of its assists with its best ever recruiting class,[4] ranked 18th by ESPN's Hoopgurlz,[5] along with redshirt sophomore Abby Dowd, who begins play with the team after transferring from Buffalo during last season.