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13th Place finish for Pitt in ACC Basketball Predictions

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Chescat

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Jul 5, 2001
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Media members of the ACC predicted a 13th place finish for Pitt. It has us as only
ahead of Boston College(14) and Wake Forrest (15). IMO that prediction is a bit low.
I do believe we can finish a little closer to the middle of the league. How much
closer to the middle can we really climb? Not sure, but it ain't gonna be easy.
Part of the problem is we're in the ACC, the top league in the country. Capel
is improving our talent level, and our depth. Unfortunately so are the
other teams in the league. The same predicting group listed the top ACC
incoming freshmen....we had no one listed. Same thing with the first and
second team all stars. We won 6 league games last year. Improving that
number to 10 would be a real achievement. I thought the 6 we won last
year was an overachievement.

We're getting there IMO, but slowly. How much better can Capel realistically
recruit? Given where we were, and where we are now, the fact remains
we're up against the Dukes, UNC's, UVA's and others.
Our ACC schedule is damn tough, and we have fewer non league cupcakes
this year. Improving the overall season record will be a challenge this year.
Despite this appearing to be a negative post, my feeling is we're better this year,
and can improve on our ACC standing. I like what Capel is doing and believe
we're on an upswing program wise.
 
Chescat said:
Media members of the ACC predicted a 13th place finish for Pitt. It has us as only
ahead of Boston College(14) and Wake Forrest (15). IMO that prediction is a bit low.
I do believe we can finish a little closer to the middle of the league. How much
closer to the middle can we really climb? Not sure, but it ain't gonna be easy.
Part of the problem is we're in the ACC, the top league in the country. Capel
is improving our talent level, and our depth. Unfortunately so are the
other teams in the league. The same predicting group listed the top ACC
incoming freshmen....we had no one listed. Same thing with the first and
second team all stars. We won 6 league games last year. Improving that
number to 10 would be a real achievement. I thought the 6 we won last
year was an overachievement.

We're getting there IMO, but slowly. How much better can Capel realistically
recruit? Given where we were, and where we are now, the fact remains
we're up against the Dukes, UNC's, UVA's and others.
Our ACC schedule is damn tough, and we have fewer non league cupcakes
this year. Improving the overall season record will be a challenge this year.
Despite this appearing to be a negative post, my feeling is we're better this year,
and can improve on our ACC standing. I like what Capel is doing and believe
we're on an upswing program wise.
Click to expand...
12-13th seems about right
 
Chescat said:
Media members of the ACC predicted a 13th place finish for Pitt. It has us as only
ahead of Boston College(14) and Wake Forrest (15). IMO that prediction is a bit low.
I do believe we can finish a little closer to the middle of the league. How much
closer to the middle can we really climb? Not sure, but it ain't gonna be easy.
Part of the problem is we're in the ACC, the top league in the country. Capel
is improving our talent level, and our depth. Unfortunately so are the
other teams in the league. The same predicting group listed the top ACC
incoming freshmen....we had no one listed. Same thing with the first and
second team all stars. We won 6 league games last year. Improving that
number to 10 would be a real achievement. I thought the 6 we won last
year was an overachievement.

We're getting there IMO, but slowly. How much better can Capel realistically
recruit? Given where we were, and where we are now, the fact remains
we're up against the Dukes, UNC's, UVA's and others.
Our ACC schedule is damn tough, and we have fewer non league cupcakes
this year. Improving the overall season record will be a challenge this year.
Despite this appearing to be a negative post, my feeling is we're better this year,
and can improve on our ACC standing. I like what Capel is doing and believe
we're on an upswing program wise.
Click to expand...

Top league in the country? It was really bad last year which was part of the reason I thought Capel's first team was better. Now, the league could be a lot better this year. We'll see.
 
Sean Miller Fan said:
Top league in the country? It was really bad last year which was part of the reason I thought Capel's first team was better. Now, the league could be a lot better this year. We'll see.
Click to expand...

Good point and I agree. However, I was speaking generally. Over the years,
my feeling is the ACC has been the top league in America.
 
Chescat said:
Good point and I agree. However, I was speaking generally. Over the years,
my feeling is the ACC has been the top league in America.
Click to expand...

Its been ONE of the top leagues. It hasn't been anything remotely close to the old Big East. Overall, I have been very disappointed that its JUST one of the top leagues with the Big Ten, Big 12, and new Big East.
 
Ok, I"ll go with your point.....rather than argue, we can agree that the ACC is
"one of the top leagues." However the point of the thread was more about
despite Capel bringing improvement to the program, it's damn hard to move
up out of the basement level to the mid level of this league.
 
Last edited:
BballinsiderfromPitt said:
12-13th seems about right
Click to expand...

I agree 12-13 does "seem about right. Finishing higher would be
another "over achievement" for Pitt IMO. We have better and
improving talent, however in a league like the ACC it's very
difficult to just leap frog over those programs ahead of us.
 
Being a "numbers" guy, I ran Pitt vs the ACC average Sagarin ratings for the past two seasons. That exercise predicted (not unexpectedly) between a 3-17 and a 5-15 record (two tossup games in the bunch) which is an ACC record that probably equates to that #12 or #13 finish we are predicted to have.

That prediction assumes we make no improvement relative to the rest of the league and are about the same (relatively) as we were the past two seasons.

That being said, I am a bit more optimistic than what the numbers say, simply because our better size and depth should make us at least better in defensive rebounding (a real weakness the past two seasons)--increasing our per game possessions while decreasing our opponnets per game possessions. What we added may not be a whole lot better on paper than what some other teams added but we had a much greater need to be addressed than most other ACC teams, IMHO.

So, IMO, the added height and length should, or could, translate to an improved W-L record. Assuming so for the present time , I am going to be optimistic and predict we finish with 7 to 9 ACC wins and around #10. Whatever is to actually be, we will begin to find out soon enough.
 
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I saw a publication that had Georgia Tech #6. Same publication had Pitt #14. Also Notre Dame is picked one the bottom third of the conference in most magazines and coaches / media polls. They lost three really good players so not sure what they have coming back. Somebody has to fill up the bottom third. It’s a brutal league to jump into the middle third let alone the top third.
 
bayardstreet said:
I saw a publication that had Georgia Tech #6. Same publication had Pitt #14. Also Notre Dame is picked one the bottom third of the conference in most magazines and coaches / media polls. They lost three really good players so not sure what they have coming back. Somebody has to fill up the bottom third. It’s a brutal league to jump into the middle third let alone the top third.
Click to expand...
GT finishing 6th or higher wouldn’t surprise me one bit. They have one of the most talented rosters in the league. If josh can get his head out of his ass they could sneak into top 4.
 
Expected a jump from Capel year 1 to 2, but last year reset itself back to year 1 I guess. Expecting to see it this year. Need Sibande though.
 
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Sean Miller Fan said:
I disagree 100% with this. The ACC is extremely top-heavy and there's really no great teams from 5 down so it shouldn't be that hard to move to the middle.
Click to expand...

When you're behind those teams for three years in a row, and your
recruiting improves, but doesn't out-recruit those ahead of you,
IMO it's then not only hard, but VERY hard to move up.
Now, can we move up a few slots from 13 to maybe 10-12? I think it's possible;
to 7, 8, 9? I'd be happy if we do.....but to me it's doubtful.

The difference in your comments and mine.....mine are opinions.
Your comments are also opinions, but in your mind they're facts.
AND THAT is a fact.
 
My feelings are they will be better than that. , but it’s all speculation until we see what the newcomers bring to the table .
 
Chescat said:
When you're behind those teams for three years in a row, and your
recruiting improves, but doesn't out-recruit those ahead of you,
IMO it's then not only hard, but VERY hard to move up.
Now, can we move up a few slots from 13 to maybe 10-12? I think it's possible;
to 7, 8, 9? I'd be happy if we do.....but to me it's doubtful.

The difference in your comments and mine.....mine are opinions.
Your comments are also opinions, but in your mind they're facts.
AND THAT is a fact.
Click to expand...

Don‘t entirely disagree in theory. But, if someone slightly above you lands a freshman or two slightly higher rated than your freshmen but their freshmen ride the pine because they are not better (as freshmen) than the returning players ahead of them while your freshmen don’t ride the pine because they are better than your returning players who theoretically would be ahead of them—-then you can still be relatively more improved overall than the team that slightly outrecruited you on paper. IMHO, just making the argument that there can be more to the team improvement equation than just who recruited the better freshman class on paper. Just an opinion that may or may not prove applicable to Pitt for this coming season.
 
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Have St Francis, Gardner-Webb and Northwestern. Need 2 more OOC games. West Virginia and Robert Morris aren’t playing us. Duquesne maybe? Who else is possible?
 
DC_Area_Panther said:
Don‘t entirely disagree in theory. But, if someone slightly above you lands a freshman or two slightly higher rated than your freshmen but their freshmen ride the pine because they are not better (as freshmen) than the returning players ahead of them while your freshmen don’t ride the pine because they are better than your returning players who theoretically would be ahead of them—-then you can still be relatively more improved overall than the team that slightly outrecruited you on paper. IMHO, just making the argument that there can be more to the team improvement equation than just who recruited the better freshman class on paper. Just an opinion that may or may not prove applicable to Pitt for this coming season.
Click to expand...

I would mostly with your explanation, especially with those teams
"slightly ahead." Over time however, those better recruiting classes
add up and obviously make a difference on the court. The top teams
in the league are for the most part on a different level because of
the four and five star recruits they're getting year after year.

As I see it, we're not that far away from the middle of the league
even though we're picked 13th this year. We're still relatively young
and good as our recruits are this year, they will need to develop.
 
Chescat said:
When you're behind those teams for three years in a row, and your
recruiting improves, but doesn't out-recruit those ahead of you,
IMO it's then not only hard, but VERY hard to move up.
Click to expand...

If you cant out-recruit GT, Miami, ND, and VT, you have issues
 
Sean Miller Fan said:
If you cant out-recruit GT, Miami, ND, and VT, you have issues
Click to expand...
Outside of ND, all of those places have unique sells with as good of facilities as ours if not better. I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of them out recruit us at any point. They also have great assistants at VT, Miami and GT.

you realize Miami and GT have the 14th and 17th best classes in the country right now. I can’t see us ever recruiting that high.
 
BballinsiderfromPitt said:
Outside of ND, all of those places have unique sells with as good of facilities as ours if not better. I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of them out recruit us at any point. They also have great assistants at VT, Miami and GT.

you realize Miami and GT have the 14th and 17th best classes in the country right now. I can’t see us ever recruiting that high.
Click to expand...

And if we cant out-recruit those places, we might as well give it up because we will be doomed forever in the basement of the ACC.
 
Sean Miller Fan said:
And if we cant out-recruit those places, we might as well give it up because we will be doomed forever in the basement of the ACC.
Click to expand...
Or, we can have elite coaching. I’m not disagreeing with you. It’s why I wanted to keep Dixon here. He seems to have passed his prime but at least he gave the hope of being able to outcoach most teams.
 
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BballinsiderfromPitt said:
Or, we can have elite coaching. I’m not disagreeing with you. It’s why I wanted to keep Dixon here. He seems to have passed his prime but at least he gave the hope of being able to outcoach most teams.
Click to expand...

Basically, yes. You better either be able to out-recruit ACC also-rans like Miami, Clemson, ND, VT, NC St, etc or you better outcoach them if you can't. No one is asking Pitt to overtake Duke, UNC, and UVa. But moving to the middle of the ACC really shouldn't be difficult.
 
Chescat said:
I would mostly with your explanation, especially with those teams
"slightly ahead." Over time however, those better recruiting classes
add up and obviously make a difference on the court. The top teams
in the league are for the most part on a different level because of
the four and five star recruits they're getting year after year.

As I see it, we're not that far away from the middle of the league
even though we're picked 13th this year. We're still relatively young
and good as our recruits are this year, they will need to develop.
Click to expand...

Yes. Agree with you on this. My "argument" is really only relevant in the near term (this season and maybe the following one) where we have just filled an enormous hole on our roster. In the longer term, overall recruiting becomes of greater importance.

One thing that is missing in the negative aspects of this thread is that some. IMHO, are underrating our recruit class relative to the league overall. It seems to me it is more of a middle of the pack class than a bottom 1/3 class as some seem to imply.

Overall, to me it looks like the type of class in overall quality typical of what Dixon used to bring in when we were consistently near the top of the Big East, so if this class quality becomes typical of classes brought in over multiple years and if Capel can coach them up (some doubt his coaching, I know) I don't see why we can't eventually morph into a solid upper-middle of the pack team and an NCAA tourney regular in the future without landing the one-and-dones that the Dukes and UNC s can land.

Just trying to remain on the optimistic side of realism.
 
DC_Area_Panther said:
Yes. Agree with you on this. My "argument" is really only relevant in the near term (this season and maybe the following one) where we have just filled an enormous hole on our roster. In the longer term, overall recruiting becomes of greater importance.

One thing that is missing in the negative aspects of this thread is that some. IMHO, are underrating our recruit class relative to the league overall. It seems to me it is more of a middle of the pack class than a bottom 1/3 class as some seem to imply.

Overall, to me it looks like the type of class in overall quality typical of what Dixon used to bring in when we were consistently near the top of the Big East, so if this class quality becomes typical of classes brought in over multiple years and if Capel can coach them up (some doubt his coaching, I know) I don't see why we can't eventually morph into a solid upper-middle of the pack team and an NCAA tourney regular in the future without landing the one-and-dones that the Dukes and UNC s can land.

Just trying to remain on the optimistic side of realism.
Click to expand...
The class was ranked middle of the pack based on being a bigger class. It was probably around the 10th-12th best based on quality
 
DC_Area_Panther said:
Yes. Agree with you on this. My "argument" is really only relevant in the near term (this season and maybe the following one) where we have just filled an enormous hole on our roster. In the longer term, overall recruiting becomes of greater importance.

One thing that is missing in the negative aspects of this thread is that some. IMHO, are underrating our recruit class relative to the league overall. It seems to me it is more of a middle of the pack class than a bottom 1/3 class as some seem to imply.

Overall, to me it looks like the type of class in overall quality typical of what Dixon used to bring in when we were consistently near the top of the Big East, so if this class quality becomes typical of classes brought in over multiple years and if Capel can coach them up (some doubt his coaching, I know) I don't see why we can't eventually morph into a solid upper-middle of the pack team and an NCAA tourney regular in the future without landing the one-and-dones that the Dukes and UNC s can land.

Just trying to remain on the optimistic side of realism.
Click to expand...

Capel is recruiting like Dixon I, better than Dixon II but he's not nearly the coach that Dixon was. This also begs the question as to why Capel, inheriting an 0-18 team can land classes similar to Dixon who was selling #1 seeds. In saying this, though, Capel has to recruit better than this because he isnt an elite coach.
 
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Sean Miller Fan said:
Capel is recruiting like Dixon I, better than Dixon II but he's not nearly the coach that Dixon was. This also begs the question as to why Capel, inheriting an 0-18 team can land classes similar to Dixon who was selling #1 seeds. In saying this, though, Capel has to recruit better than this because he isnt an elite coach.
Click to expand...
He’s selling the ACC, an updated Pete that’s almost on par with the rest of the league whereas it was way behind under Dixon, a 4 million dollar renovation being done to the basketball dorm Dixon could never get approved that was approved right before COVID hit, more money for just about everything.
 
BballinsiderfromPitt said:
Outside of ND, all of those places have unique sells with as good of facilities as ours if not better. I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of them out recruit us at any point. They also have great assistants at VT, Miami and GT.

you realize Miami and GT have the 14th and 17th best classes in the country right now. I can’t see us ever recruiting that high.
Click to expand...
Miami plays in a gym , but they do have are other advantages .
 
BballinsiderfromPitt said:
He’s selling the ACC, an updated Pete that’s almost on par with the rest of the league whereas it was way behind under Dixon, a 4 million dollar renovation being done to the basketball dorm Dixon could never get approved that was approved right before COVID hit, more money for just about everything.
Click to expand...

This thread has twisted left and right. The original premise was that it's VERY
hard to move upwards when the teams ahead of you are out-recruiting you.
It also stated that this year's team is probably better that 13th, and could
move toward the middle of the league. This year maybe 12 or 11.
IMO Pitts incoming class is middle of the league in talent, but it's young and
will take time to develop. One very good class doesn't get us to the middle
of the ACC immediately. It will get there with a few more recruiting classes
like this one, and hopefully with some classes even better than this one.
I do believe it's realistic to see and expect Pitt to be at least as good as
those middle ACC teams. Can we eventually get to the upper level? of course,
but not right now. Pitt's progress seems to be steady and slow.
 
Sean Miller Fan said:
Basically, yes. You better either be able to out-recruit ACC also-rans like Miami, Clemson, ND, VT, NC St, etc or you better outcoach them if you can't. No one is asking Pitt to overtake Duke, UNC, and UVa. But moving to the middle of the ACC really shouldn't be difficult.
Click to expand...

I basically agree with this. As far as it "shouldn't be difficult" to get to the
middle of the ACC....well it ain't exactly a cakewalk given where we we were
just three seasons ago. The right coach can do it. I like Capel, but as we're
seeing, he can't do an overnight fix.
It isn't like football where a coach has to recruit large numbers. As we all know,
in basketball the right two or three players can bring an immediate uptick. IMO
this year's class is a big jump upwards in talent. Are there any program changers?
Not one of them is listed in the top ten recruits in the ACC. Last year, Champaigne
didn't make the Frosh all league team (IMO he should have been selected). We
have a ways to go. I feel Capel is getting us there, slowly. Just my two cents.
 
Good assistants and player development were two big reasons why Dixon had so much success during his heyday here. He was a good coach, but those two things were lacking at the end of his tenure at Pitt.
 
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BballinsiderfromPitt said:
I wish Heather and her pockets were his AD.
Click to expand...

Yup. Look how quickly his recruiting improved once he got some financial support at TCU. He's never going to knock it out of the park and land top 10 classes regularly. But with support he could recruit right around the top 25 regularly.
 
One thing that I believe that some of us have missed regarding Dixon's Pitt success was that it was mostly done before the NCAAs "freedom of movement" emphasis kicked in. Before then it was much easier to defend teams with better offensive talent than you had an reduce their talent advantage. No longer. I never liked the change because I saw it (and still do) as creating an advantage for those programs that recruit the best talent--one that they really didn't need to have to succeed while hurting the next tier down.
 
Chescat said:
This thread has twisted left and right. The original premise was that it's VERY
hard to move upwards when the teams ahead of you are out-recruiting you.
It also stated that this year's team is probably better that 13th, and could
move toward the middle of the league. This year maybe 12 or 11.
IMO Pitts incoming class is middle of the league in talent, but it's young and
will take time to develop. One very good class doesn't get us to the middle
of the ACC immediately. It will get there with a few more recruiting classes
like this one, and hopefully with some classes even better than this one.
I do believe it's realistic to see and expect Pitt to be at least as good as
those middle ACC teams. Can we eventually get to the upper level? of course,
but not right now. Pitt's progress seems to be steady and slow.
Click to expand...

I am no longer convinced the argument is valid that we were out recruited by the teams above us but just looked better because we had a large class. I went back to 24/7 and ranked the recruit classes by the average 24/7 rating of their top two recruits. This is what I found.

(1) UNC 0.9951
(2) Duke 0.9941
(3) Virginia 0.9888
(4) Miami 0.9774
(5) Clemson 0.9700
(6) VA Tech 0.9602
(7) NC St 0.9542
(8) Pitt 0.9530
(9) Syracuse 0.9491
(10)Louisville 0.9471
(11) Fla St 0.9465
(12) B.C. 0.9029
(13) GA Tech 0.8894
(14) N. Dame 0.8876
(15) Wake For 0.8630

Bottom Line--Pitt at #8 based on only its top 2 recruits is pretty much the same as Pitt's #7 based on all 5 of its recruits and I doubt it would change much if I used the average of the top 3 recruits.

We pretty much landed a middle of the pack class however you slice it, IMHO, while filling our greatest needs--height, length and depth and clearly out-recruited teams #12 to #15.
 
DC_Area_Panther said:
I am no longer convinced the argument is valid that we were out recruited by the teams above us but just looked better because we had a large class. I went back to 24/7 and ranked the recruit classes by the average 24/7 rating of their top two recruits. This is what I found.

(1) UNC 0.9951
(2) Duke 0.9941
(3) Virginia 0.9888
(4) Miami 0.9774
(5) Clemson 0.9700
(6) VA Tech 0.9602
(7) NC St 0.9542
(8) Pitt 0.9530
(9) Syracuse 0.9491
(10)Louisville 0.9471
(11) Fla St 0.9465
(12) B.C. 0.9029
(13) GA Tech 0.8894
(14) N. Dame 0.8876
(15) Wake For 0.8630

Bottom Line--Pitt at #8 based on only its top 2 recruits is pretty much the same as Pitt's #7 based on all 5 of its recruits and I doubt it would change much if I used the average of the top 3 recruits.

We pretty much landed a middle of the pack class however you slice it, IMHO, while filling our greatest needs--height, length and depth and clearly out-recruited teams #12 to #15.
Click to expand...
YOure not taking into account several factors. Teams like Georgia Tech, cuse and Florida state all have clearly better rosters than us already. Louisville has a better roster AND the depth of their classes have been better. I’m sorry but when our best recruit is the 17th best incoming prospect in the ACC it doesn’t really give the wow factor just because this board really likes him. And then our 2nd best recruit should be a junior in HS is and ranked high based on potential. He certainly won’t be a factor this year.
 
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