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Michalowski: Looking at Pitt’s Resume and Why the NET Doesn’t Like it

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On Wednesday night, Jeff Capel’s Pitt Panthers picked up a huge win over North Carolina in Chapel Hill, taking down the Tar Heels for the second time this season.

The Panthers currently stand at 16-7 (9-3 ACC) in their campaign to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the program made it in 2016. Despite Pitt’s tough start to the season at 1-3, the Panthers have built up a relatively strong resumé since, stacking six road wins and four Quad One wins.

After the win over North Carolina, Pitt fans have been outraged about one thing in particular: NET Rankings. The NCAA Evaluating Tool.

Despite winning an ever-so-important Quad One game, the Panthers rose just two spots in the NET rankings on Thursday: from No. 61 to No. 59. A road win over a then-top-40 team should move them up more than just two spots, right? Well, the problem is, NET, a mathematically-driven system, doesn’t favor Pitt due to a few other factors.

“The NET includes more components than just winning percentage,” the NCAA states. “It takes into account game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses.

Let’s dive in to those categories.

GAME RESULTS: Pitt is 16-7 on the year, with a combined 8-6 record in quadrants one and two.

STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE: According to WarrenNolan.com, Pitt’s NET Strength of Schedule is 75th in the country. Its NET out-of-conference strength of schedule is much worse, at No. 226 in the country.

When stacking Pitt’s schedule up against NET rankings, Pitt’s opponents’ own an average NET ranking of No. 145. That is tied for 87th in the country.

GAME LOCATION: Pitt owns a 10-3 record at home, an 0-2 record on neutral courts, and a 6-2 record on the road. Pitt’s away record in ACC play is 5-1, the best in the conference. Some notable ACC teams with worse conference road records include: NC State (3-3), Miami (3-4), and Duke (2-4).

Pitt has picked up road wins over North Carolina, NC State, Northwestern, and Syracuse, among others.

*IMPORTANT NOTE: Over the past two years, all nine High Major teams with seven road wins made the tournament. Pitt has four road games remaining, and already has six road wins.

SCORING MARGIN: Pitt has a scoring margin of +5.9 on the season (teamrankings.com), which ranks it at No. 80 in the country in that category. Due to some of the Panthers’ early-season blowout losses (West Virginia by 25, Michigan by 31) and now their run of wire-to-wire close wins, their scoring margin ranks amongst some of the lowest teams in Tournament consideration.

NET OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE EFFICIENCY: According to teamrankings.com, Pitt’s offensive efficiency rating of 1.055 ranks it as the No. 66 team in the country in that category. Pitt’s defensive efficiency rating of 0.971 ranks it as the No. 108 team in the country.

QUALITY OF WINS AND LOSSES: Pitt is 16-7 overall and 9-3 in ACC play. The Panthers own the following records by quadrant (NET):

QUAD ONE RECORD: 4-2.

QUAD TWO RECORD: 4-4.

QUAD THREE RECORD: 1-0.

QUAD FOUR RECORD: 7-1.

BEST WINS

@ North Carolina (now 15-7, NET No. 37)

@ NC State (now 17-5, NET No. 40)

@ Northwestern (now 15-6, NET No. 49)

WORST LOSS

Florida State. The math hates the Seminoles, and it hates losses to the Seminoles even more. FSU ranks as the No. 201 team in the NET. Pitt lost to the ‘Noles at home, making that a Quad Four loss.

MICHALOWSKI’S TAKE

If the Panthers continue to get the job done in the win column, they’ll be fine. Regardless of how close the wins are or how bad the opponent is.

Pitt is at the point in its season where it has beaten tournament-caliber teams on the road, it has protected its home court, and it has set itself up in competition for an ACC title.

Pitt sits at third in the league with just eight games to go. Out of Pitt’s eight games remaining on the schedule, only two come against top-100 teams in NET. It comes down to what the team has been saying all year: just win.

Regardless of where Pitt will end up in NET, if it gets the job done in the win column from here on out, it should make the tournament comfortably.

Sandy Schall, Coldwell Banker
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Mtgj
Mtgj
1 year ago

Great article. You answered the questions I had. I never knew that winning margin had anything to do with this, but it was the only thing I could think as to why the panthers NET wasn’t higher.

Eli
Eli
1 year ago
Reply to  Mtgj

Agreed. This was a good explanation of the of ranking system.

TJ
TJ
1 year ago

nice synopsis .. thanks. it is what it is and as you said, if we keep winning, things will take care of themselves. interestingly, if Pitt isn’t considered that great, why don’t I hear more commentary about UVa, UNC, NCSt and Miami having “bad” losses to us ? with all the math that goes into it, is there a possibility that a [UVa] loss to us hurts them less than it helps us ?

Srikant Narasimhan
Srikant Narasimhan
1 year ago

Only thing I’d add is they beat UVA – on best wins.

TMG
TMG
1 year ago

A lot of Trash talk between these two teams during that game. UNC fans suck!

Jason L
Jason L
1 year ago

Great article George! Thanks for the explanation!

RonDon
RonDon
1 year ago

It’s kind of dumb considering whooping L’Ville again would seem to help us more than beating the likes of UNC and Miami.

Pittband
Pittband
1 year ago

Any computer ranking program will have strengths and weaknesses (like humans). The biggest weakness I see in this program is that it assigns equal weight to games played in November/December as those in the heat of the conference schedule. I can’t even remember that Pitt played WV, Michigan or Northwestern in those made for TV challenge games. Like Narduzzi says “win the conference, no one remembers anything else”.

Hotwingscliff
Hotwingscliff
1 year ago

Need more quality wins cling on

Jay Roberts
Jay Roberts
1 year ago

Again, net cares about HOW you play more then results. When UTah St is ranked higher in NET and played a non conference schedule against zero power 5 schools and has 2 quad 4 losses something is amiss…

It’s not if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. So I assume NEt loves running up the score?

Cignetti & Friends
Cignetti & Friends
1 year ago

It’s all BS. They did this with NET because people got very familiar with how the RPi worked. When it fact it comes down to more ‘sports politics’ than anything else.
And that is where Pitt usually gets the royal screw job.

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