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Pitt Opens Season in Top-40 of KenPom Rankings

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Jeff Capel's Pitt Panthers will host Division-II Point Park University for an exhibition basketball game this Tuesday.

Ken Pomeroy has become one of the most recognizable names in the college basketball world.

Pomeroy’s ratings are almost always a topic of conversation throughout the basketball season along with the NCAA’s NET rankings. On Monday, Pomeroy released his preseason ratings.

Pitt came in at No. 38 in the country and No. 4 in the ACC.

This is how the ACC stacks up in his rankings.

1. Duke (No. 2 overall)

2. North Carolina (No. 14 overall)

3. Clemson (No. 24 overall)

4. Pitt (No. 38 overall)

5. Wake Forest (No. 44 overall)

6. NC State (No. 52 overall)

7. Miami (No. 55 overall)

8. Louisville (No. 64 overall)

9. Syracuse (No. 68 overall)

10. Notre Dame (No. 69 overall)

11. Georgia Tech (No. 70 overall)

12. SMU (No. 74 overall)

13. Virginia (No. 78 overall)

14. Florida State (No. 90 overall)

15. Virginia Tech (No. 92 overall)

16. Stanford (No. 99 overall)

17. Boston College (No. 113 overall)

18. Cal (No. 135 overall)

Pomeroy’s system has Pitt’s offensive rating ranked No. 32 overall and its defensive rating No. 50 overall.

See Pomeroy’s rankings here.

Pitt is looking to earn its third-straight 20-win season under Capel. The Panthers return Lowe, Ishmael Leggett, Zack Austin, and the Diaz Graham twins, among others, while also bringing in Corhen, Damian Dunn, Amsal Delalic, Brandin Cummings, and Amdy Ndiaye.

“We are a program, where I think the identity of our program is that we all have a chip on our shoulders,” Capel told reporters, including PSN’s Mitchell Northam. “We all feel like we have something to prove. None of the guys on my team were recruited by other ACC teams. None of them. They all have felt like they can play at this level, I think they all realized this is the best conference, and so we recruited them, we believed in them. So they all feel like they have something to prove. Because of that, because of our belief in them, our staff, and how the city has embraced them, there is a level of gratefulness and appreciation that they have, and a love that they have. I think it’s one of the factors that we were able to retain the guys that we kept. They all could have gone to different places, they could’ve chose to do something different. But they wanted to be back here, I think, because of those things and their belief in what we’re doing and how we’re helping them become better.”

Sandy Schall, Coldwell Banker
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tjpitt
tjpitt
29 days ago

Without seeing this team on the court, it’s a little hard for me to judge where we are or where we’ll be at season end. I think Ken has us a little low on the national side and maybe a spot or two too high in the ACC. Let’s see how it goes. H2P !

RonDon
RonDon
29 days ago
Reply to  tjpitt

I think that’s fair for any team really. Most teams have an influx of transfers or freshmen. I don’t think he will be, but Flagg could be not as good as advertised. UNC has a RJ Davis playing there for a century, some other good guys returning and a great, but less stellar class than Duke. It makes sense, but they could be better than Duke, who knows. I don’t think Pitt will be at that level, but hypothetically the transfers fit nicely, Lowe takes another big step, and Kante looks great along w. other guys having nice growth, I… Read more »

tjpitt
tjpitt
29 days ago

one thing that is kind of interesting is how many national spots there are between ACC team rankings … UNC is twelve behind Duke, then Clemson is 10 behind the Heels and we are 14 behind the Tigers. I suppose that Duke, and to a lessor extent UNC, are going to dominate ACC play. Go Pitt !

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