Pitt HC Jeff Capel On Bracketology, Lack of National ACC Respect: ‘I Don’t Understand It’

The ACC is once again a topic of national conversation as we approach the NCAA Tournament.

Once again, the conference, according to several big-name media companies, is having a down year. For example, in the past week alone, Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports, Joe Lunardi of ESPN, and The Field of 68 have rated the Mountain West Conference higher than the ACC in either power rankings, comparisons on TV, or in NCAA Tournament bracket predictions. Check them out below.

This week’s 💥CONFERENCE POWER RANKINGS💥

Do you agree? pic.twitter.com/lSVuscOEYB

— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) February 5, 2024

🗣️ TELL ‘EM @JonRothstein 🏀

“One of the best leagues in college basketball. Better than the Pac-12. Better than the ACC.” pic.twitter.com/GkzhWVdXe7

— Mountain West (@MountainWest) January 31, 2024

pic.twitter.com/kFbcjEOmL4

— Joe Lunardi (@ESPNLunardi) February 4, 2024

In Lunardi’s bracket prediction, the ACC only has three teams in the NCAA Tournament field. This, just one year after the conference had the third-highest win percentage in last year’s NCAA Tournament. Its teams went 7-5 in last year’s Tournament, a run that included Miami getting all the way to the Final Four.

“First and foremost, I don’t look at them,” Pitt’s Jeff Capel said about bracketology predictions. “I hear about them, because I hear people complaining about them. People on my staff. But I try not to look at it. I don’t because it doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t understand it. I don’t. For the life of me, I don’t.”

The eight top-70 teams in the ACC this year, according to NET, are listed as follows: North Carolina (9), Duke (19), Clemson (37), Wake Forest (41), Virginia (42), Virginia Tech (53), Miami (62), and Pitt (64). When looking at games played against opponents that slot under the NET’s Quadrants 1 and 2, the ACC only has Florida State (6-5, ranked No. 94), Miami (7-5, ranked No. 62), Virginia (5-4), and North Carolina (9-4) with winning records. Miami is the only team out of the top eight in the league with a Quad 4 loss, which certainly hurts the Hurricanes this year.

In The Field Of 68’s Power Rankings, the ACC ranked 6th out of 7 conferences, sitting behind the Big 12, the SEC, the Big Ten, the Big East, and the Mountain West. The ACC currently has eight teams ranked in the top-70 of the NCAA’s NET rankings, while the Big 12 has 11, the Big East has nine, the SEC has nine, the Big Ten has eight, and the Mountain West has six.

“Our league is really good, the teams in this league are really good, the players, the coaches,” Capel continued. “It’s way more than North Carolina and Duke. Last year, the narrative was that Duke or Carolina aren’t how they normally are. Well, they played the other day, and both teams were in the top ten. Duke and Carolina are Duke and Carolina. They’re both really, really good. But so is NC State, so is Virginia, so is the rest of our league. It’s frustrating. It’s frustrating. If you look at the number of teams that we have that are in the top 75 in the NET, just, all of those things.”

“I wish I had an answer for you, but unfortunately I do not,” Capel continued. “I’m not a bracketology expert, I’m not a number expert, a NET expert. I know what my eyes see. It’s frustrating that a lot of people sit behind a computer and look at numbers and that’s the metrics they come up with. Maybe some of these other teams in other conferences have figured out how to game the system and how to manipulate the numbers. I just know, when we get to the NCAA Tournament — the teams that get there — we win. We win at a very, very high level. Our league does. We played last year a team from the Big 12 that was really good, and we beat them pretty handedly, and we barely got into the tournament from what the numbers say. We played a team from the SEC that was a pretty good team, we beat them. We beat both of those teams without our starting center last year.”

The Panthers defeated Mississippi State to kick off the tournament in the First Four. The Bulldogs went 21-12 in the regular season that year and just 8-10 in conference play. Pitt entered the tournament with a 22-11 record and went 14-6 in ACC play. Then, No. 11 Pitt took on No. 6 Iowa State in the Round of 64. The Cyclones entered the game with a NET ranking of No. 20, while Pitt was ranked No. 67 in NET leading into the matchup in Greensboro. Pitt won the game 59-41 and advanced to the Round of 32.

“You look at what Miami did in the tournament,” Capel said. “I mean, so, we get there, we perform, we do well, but every year, it’s like this same thing over and over. Maybe we need one of the coaches to call some of these bracketology experts out. I mean, I don’t know. I really don’t know. I wish I had an answer.”

The Mountain West also had a Final Four team last year with San Diego State making a run to the National Championship game.