The ACC released their seeds for pool-play and schedule for this week’s conference baseball tournament that takes place at Truist Field in Charlotte, N.C.
Pitt earned a No. 11 seed out of 12 teams that made the tournament and they play in Pool B, with No. 2 and Atlantic Divisional Champions Louisville and No. 7 Georgia Tech.
The Panthers play their first game against the Yellow Jackets, in what is also the inaugural game of the ACC tournament, Tuesday, May 24 at 11 A.M. The Panthers played the Yellow Jackets this weekend and lost all three games in a sweep. The Panthers only suffered a sweep one other time in ACC play and the 39 runs they allowed against the Yellow Jackets are the most in any ACC series this season.
Pitt played much better against Louisville earlier in the season, winning two out of three games in a series at home in early April. Pitt takes on Louisville in the second game of pool-play, Wednesday, May 25 at 11 a.m.
To progress through pool-play, Pitt needs to posses the best record in their pool. They’ll need to win both games against Georgia Tech and Louisville if they are to advance. If they advance, they play on Saturday, May 28 at 5 p.m. in the semifinals and if they win that, they play in the final, Sunday, May 29 at noon.
The Panthers come into the ACC Tournament on the back of a poor finish to the season. They finished the season winning only one game in eight games. They lost both games to rivals in West Virginia in Penn State, won one game on the road against a tough Notre Dame side and then lost all three games to Georgia Tech.
The poor finish to the season makes it the second in a row where this is the case, as they lost nine of their final 11 games in 2021.
Despite the poor finish, this makes it back-to-back seasons that Pitt head coach Mike Bell got his team into the ACC tournament. Last season, Pitt defeated North Carolina, but lost to NC State to crash out of pool-play.
The only previous time that Pitt made the ACC Tournament, since joining the conference for the 2014 season, was in 2018, where they made an unlikely run to the semifinals. They defeated Georgia Tech and UNC in pool-play before losing to Louisville, 5-2, in the semifinals.
I love this team and believe Bell will get this right, but these last two late season slides have been nauseating. The pitching and hitting have been awful.
Let’s Go Pitt!
H2P!