Preseason Bracketology: ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has Pitt as Last Team In

Joe Lunardi has released his latest edition of preseason bracketology.

Lunardi, ESPN’s bracketologist, has released several bracket predictions throughout this summer and fall, and now his latest one is out. In that latest edition, Pitt is the last team in the field. The Panthers are joined by Rutgers, Louisville, and Dayton on the “Last Four In” line.

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi released his latest bracket prediction for 2024-25 men’s basketball. Teams such as Rutgers, Louisville, Dayton, and Pitt made the Last Four In section.

Lunardi included 10 SEC teams in his latest field, as well as nine Big Ten teams, nine Big 12 teams, seven ACC teams, five Big East teams, two West Coast Conference teams, and two Atlantic 10 teams.

Pitt hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since the 2022-23 season, in which it went all the way from the First Four to the Round of 32.

This offseason, the NCAA added two new metrics to consideration for the NCAA Tournament field.

The two metrics — Bart Torvik’s “T-Rank” and Wins Above Bubble — will be considered when the committee is weighing prospective NCAA Tournament teams.

“The committee has always valued different data points and metrics to assist with its evaluation process, and these two metrics have increasingly been referenced by members in recent years,” NCAA Senior VP of Basketball Dan Gavitt said in a press release. “Adding them to the team sheet ensures that all 12 members easily have access to this data. The Torvik rankings, along with BPI and KenPom, give the committee three predictive ratings, while the WAB, Strength of Record and KPI give them three results-based metrics, all of which, in addition to the NET, will be beneficial to the team evaluation process.”

The NCAA announced this addition to the selection committee’s team sheet at its summer meetings. It also announced that the 2026 Division II and III men’s basketball championships and the NIT semifinals and finals will take place in Indianapolis the same weekend as the Division I Final Four. Here is more information on the new metrics in consideration.

“The committee has always valued different data points and metrics to assist with its evaluation process, and these two metrics have increasingly been referenced by members in recent years,” Gavitt added. “Adding them to the team sheet ensures that all 12 members easily have access to this data. The Torvik rankings, along with BPI and KenPom, give the committee three predictive ratings, while the WAB, Strength of Record and KPI give them three results-based metrics, all of which, in addition to the NET, will be beneficial to the team evaluation process.”

For reference, Pitt’s 2022-23 team rated significantly lower than the average NCAA Tournament team in T-Rank, coming in at No. 72 in the country. However, the 2023-24 team — the one that did not make the tournament — finished the season at No. 30 overall. Saint John’s (No. 16), Pitt (No. 30), Villanova (No. 31), Wake Forest (No. 35), Seton Hall (No. 38), and Utah (No. 40) were the highest-ranked Torvik teams that did not earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

“The core of T-Rank is calculating offensive and defensive efficiency: points scored and points allowed per possession (“PPP” = points per possession, often rendered as points per 100 possessions),” Torvik said in a blog post explaining the stat. “Although coaches like Dean Smith and Bo Ryan have long relied on PPP, it really hit the big time when Ken Pomeroy popularized it about a decade ago.”