I’m not going to waste time getting to my point of this column.
The fact that we wake up this morning still wondering if Pitt will get a bid into the NCAA Tournament is laughable.
Furthermore, Pitt even being labeled as a ‘Bubble Team’ is equally as bad and an indictment of its flawed selection process.
I don’t need to know how many Quad One/Two/Three wins Pitt holds. Don’t care what their offensive efficiency is or about a couple games they played four months ago. If you think Pitt is even close to being the same team they were four months ago, or that they should be penalized for West Virginia being pathetic this season or feel that the ACC is an average conference then your part of the problem in college basketball.
Pitt isn’t and shouldn’t be viewed as a ‘Bubble Team’ anymore and shouldn’t have been prior to their beat down of Wake Forest on Thursday.
Pitt has 22 wins, 13 of which came in a major conference. Those 13 ACC wins are more important than anything and should trump anything that happened in November. The ‘experts’ can talk all they want about Drake, Indiana State and teams in the Mountain West, but they’re not winning 13 games in the ACC.
The so-called strength of the Mountain West is a complete media fabrication and of the metrics that have ruined March Madness.
This isn’t just my opinion; the proof is in the pudding. If you exclude San Diego State, the mighty Mountain West Conference is 0-11 in NCAA Tournament games since 2019. Moral of the story is that Nevada, Utah State, Boise State, UNLV, New Mexico and Colorado State are good teams but aren’t the juggernauts they’re made out to be and in no way should that conference be receiving 4, 5 and 6 teams on a yearly basis. Start winning some games that matter and maybe my opinion will change. In other words, in last year’s tournament, Pitt won more games than the other Mountain West teams combined (minus San Diego State) over the last 5 years.
Despite the BS narrative that the ACC is down, if the top teams in the Mountain West were in the ACC, they wouldn’t be finishing with 20+ wins.
Second point about Pitt that isn’t getting discussed at all and that’s because this is something that the all-important computers can’t measure.
Jeff Capel lost four very important members from last season’s tournament team and replaced them with transfers and freshman. It takes a few weeks or maybe a month for a group of players to gel and develop chemistry together. Plus, Jaland Lowe’s insertion into the starting lineup coincided with the Panthers winning 12 of their last 15 games. Bottom line is that this isn’t even close to being the team that started the season and over the last 3 months, Pitt has gotten really good and have played liked one of the Top 25 teams in the country.
If the committee just uses their eyes and looks at the results, they’d be discussing what seed Pitt should be instead of whether or not they deserve to receive a bid.
The 3rd factor that should carry some weight is Pitt’s amount of road wins. Winning away from home isn’t easy for anyone, yet Pitt has done it as well as anyone in the country.
MOST ROAD WINS THIS SEASON:
9 Road Wins: St. Mary’s (weak conference), Indiana State (weak conference)
8 Road Wins: UConn, Tennessee, North Carolina, Creighton, Gonzaga, Utah State, Nevada
7 Road Wins: Pitt, Boise State, Kentucky, Marquette, Duke, Arizona, Purdue, Houston
The good thing for Pitt isn’t that they still have a say in their tournament future. If they’re able to upset top-seed North Carolina, even someone like Joe Lunardi should move right to the right side of the tournament bubble. But with Lunardi, that’s not a guarantee.
Speaking of Lunardi. I know that everyone lives and breathes on every projection he puts out, but since everyone is so into metrics and computer rankings these days, here’s something to consider.
The website Bracketmatrix.com keeps track and ranks the media members that puts out Bracketology.
Here is the last 5-Year Bracket Matrix Bracketology Rankings:
1) Bracketometry
2) 1-3-1 Sports
3) Jake Liker’s Bracktology
4) YAGO Brackets
5) Crazy Sports Duke
6) Bauertology
7) March Madness 2023
8) D Ratings
9) Bracksketblogs
10) Scott’s Bracketology
98) ESPN Bracketology- Joe Lunardi
Take that for what it’s worth.
My gut tells me that at this moment, despite all the evidence that I’ve listed and from what anyone’s that paying attention and not looking at a spread sheet should be able to see, Pitt isn’t currently in line to get a bid.
If that’s the way it ends up unfolding that will be a shame because this team worked hard to get themselves in this position and their hard work will have been ignored.
Because of a screwed-up system and a group of men that will ignore common sense, the country will likely miss out on a chance to see a really good team, a great young backcourt and one of the most exciting players in the country.
Duquesne and Nick Santos didn’t help Pitt yesterday
agree with everything you wrote and could add a couple points but I don’t write as well so….agree to agree 🙂
They beat Dayton, so them winning & Dayton losing didn’t mean anything in regard to Pitt, since Pitt played neither of them.
But A-10 was likley a one bid conference, figuring Dayton would win the conf. tournament. Now Dayton is likely an at large, so that would take away an at large spot,.
I get it, and agree with the conference strength vs other, and Pitt’s last half of the season, etc., but bracketometry and 1-3-1 (I just checked them) still have Pitt out (barely, but out). No person or group of persons can put the eye test on every D1 team so metrics will be relied upon to get on to the committee’s radar, like a filtration system. It would be nice if the committee weren’t made up of administrators who have full time jobs. You have to have the metrics to be in the conversation, then let the eye test or… Read more »
Well stated…and reasoned.
I know it can be difficult for us, fans, to look at the situation dispassionately.
Metrics can also be: Garbage in, garbage out. And NET metrics is pure GARBAGE !
And in this case, NET metrics can NOT be relied on. At all. (see my post below on Grand Canyon who is still 55 in NET).
fair enough. I’m no NET apologist. See my comments below on SOS. but, it’s the current system and Pitt’s in the hunt.
Excellent commentary. Good news: CBS Sports’ bracket this morning has Pitt as a #11 seed. Pitt is clearly tournament worthy.
Does anyone think that Montana State, Norfolk State, Grambling, McNeese, Longwood,Quinnipiac, Sam Houston, Stetson,Oakland, South Dakota State, Morehead State, Charleston and Princeton are better than Pitt? Are they all one of the best 66 (or whatever the # is) teams? Well, they’re all in the tournament. The Automatic Qualifier system, designed to produce a Cinderella moment every 500 years is the biggest joke of all.
The whole point to the ACC was that it was a great basketball conference. If it can’t maintain that at least, it really will dissolve or devolve with the largest schools leaving.
Well that’s the point of this, lessen the ACC so it’s absorbed by the others. The media did their constant bashing to the PAC 12 as well. And look what happened to them.
This is like the housing 2008 housing crisis; the Mountain West figured out how to schedule in order to beat the system. They’re buying a house with no credit.
Congrats to the MWC for their genius in scheduling, and shame on the system for having the 4th place regular season, and now semi-finalist ACC team, on the bubble.
I for one am looking forward to betting against all the overrated Mountain West teams that make the tournament.
Lol
3 weeks ago, the NCAA posted this:
https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2022-12-05/college-basketballs-net-rankings-explained
The NET has been in place since 2019. At that time, the state of Pitt MBB was such that few fans were likely paying attention. But, the folks in Pitt’s athletic dept. should have been, and scheduling accordingly.
Looking at this and the bit about strength of schedule. It says it modernized the out of conference strength of schedule… and says “The strength of schedule is based on rating every game on a team’s schedule for how hard it would be for an NCAA tournament-caliber team to win.” Using Pitt’s entire year, their NET is currently 40. If they played a harder non-conference schedule it would be higher, shame on their scheduling for sure… cough cough city game cough cough. Going back to an earlier post of mine from last week, I asked if a non conference strength of… Read more »
Coaching staffs at Power Conferences have great discretion in non-con scheduling. I think the NET’s intent is to penalize those who purposefully schedule dregs, in an effort to pad Ws.
A neutral site game against Duquesne would have been better than a home blow-out of SUNY-Binghamton.
Conference schedules are out of the coaches control.
If that’s truly the intent I have no argument
Well said.
Funny I blogged about the sham of the NET a month or so ago. When Grand Canyon (???) had a higher NET than Pitt. As did Indiana State, which is bad enough. But Grand Canyon….who plays teams like California Baptist(?), Utah Tech(?) and Utah Valley(?), Tarlton State(?), not only once but play them twice. Any system that had Grand Canyon ahead of Pitt or some of the other ACC teams is outright ludicrous.
Lunardi is like everything else ESPN does. Sports politics motivated. Number 98 of bracket experts. He should be laughed at, just like ESPN and their talking heads.
All of you blathering about Lunardi do realize that he has no affiliation with the committee don’t you? Lol