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2023-24 Pitt athletics season officially at an end

CrazyPaco

CrazyPaco

Athletic Director
Jul 5, 2001
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With all Pitt competitors at the NCAA Track & Field championship having finshed yesterday, here's a look back at the records of Pitt's 19 varsity sports with, if applicable, overall (and ACC) conference record, conference tournament/championship finish, and national finishes:

Baseball:
26-28 (10-20); ACC Coastal 7th of 7 (last); ACC tourney 1st round loss (12th seed; 12 of 14 teams make); no post-season

Basketball (men's):
22-11 (12-8); ACC regular season 4th of 15; ACC tourney Semifinals (4th seed); no post-season

Basketball (women's):
8-24 (2-16); ACC regular season 14th (tied last) of 15; ACC tourney 1st round loss (15th seed; last overall); no post-season

Cross Country (men's):
ACC Championship 9th of 15, NCAA Regional 7th (1 individual national qualifier)

Cross Country (women's):
ACC Championship 12th of 15, NCAA Regional 7th

Football:
3-9 (2-6); ACC 12th (tied) of 14; no post-season

Gymnastics (women's):
6-8 (1-4); ACC regular season 3rd of 4; ACC Championship 3rd (tied last); no team post-season (2 individual NCAA regional qualifiers)

Lacrosse (women's):
5-13 (0-9); ACC 10th (last) of 10; ACC tourney 1st round loss (10 seed); no post-season

Soccer (men's):
6-7-4 (2-3-3); ACC Coastal 5th of 6; ACC tourney 1st round loss (8 seed of 12 total teams); NCAA first round loss

Soccer (women's):
17-6-1 (6-3-1); ACC regular season 5th of 14; ACC tourney Semifinals (5th seed); NCAA Elite 8

Softball:
17-32 (6-18); ACC regular season 12th (tied last) of 13; ACC tournament did not qualify; no post-season

Swimming & Diving (men's):
3-5, ACC Championship 7th of 11; NCAA Championship 24th (tied)

Swimming & Diving (women's):
2-6, ACC Championship 10th of 11; NCAA Champoinship did not score

Track & Field, Indoor (men's):
ACC Championship 12th of 15, no post-season

Track & Field, Indoor (women's):
ACC Championship 10th of 15; NCAA Championship did not score

Track & Field, Outdoor (men's):
ACC Championship 8th of 15, NCAA Championship did not score

Track & Field, Outdoor (women's):
ACC Championship 10th (tied) of 15; NCAA Championship did not score

Volleyball (women's):
29-5 (16-2), ACC regular season 1st (tied) of 15; NCAA Final Four

Wrestling:
10-8 (2-3), ACC regular season 4th of 6; ACC Championship 4th of 6; NCAA Championship 26th (tied)
 
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For those keeping score, that is:

1 of 19 teams with a conference championship
5 of 19 teams with NCAA tourney appearances, team scoring at NCAA championships, or other national post-season appearance
4 of 13 teams with over .500 overall win/loss records
3 of 11 teams with over .500 records in sports with ACC regular season schedules

Let's hope there isn't a repeat of this.
 
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Wow, talk about “feast or famine” for this year. Poor year overall while having two teams make the Final Four and Elite Eight…
 
CrazyPaco said:
For those keeping score, that is:

1 of 19 teams with a conference championship
5 of 19 teams with NCAA tourney appearances, team scoring at NCAA championships, or other national post-season appearance
4 of 13 teams with over .500 overall win/loss records
3 of 11 teams with over .500 records in sports with ACC regular season schedules

Let's hope there isn't a repeat of this.
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4 of those deal with Track&Field and we don’t even have our own track. Does Cross Country have any sort of facility?
 
TheSpecialSauce said:
4 of those deal with Track&Field and we don’t even have our own track. Does Cross Country have any sort of facility?
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Schenley Park probably counts as a facility lol

But I think they also do a lot of workouts at the field house, the Cost Center, and they have an arrangement with CMU to use their outdoor track - they might also use the Schenley Park track, too.

Cross Country will benefit as much as anyone by the indoor track facility when it’s finally built.
 
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Zeldas Open Roof said:
not a huge soccer fan but i was under the impression we had a strong mens soccer program.
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We do. This year was just a transition year with the roster, and the record is a combo of the ACC being best conference in college soccer by a significant margin, and Vidovich consistently building one of the strongest non-conference schedules in the country.
 
Paco thanks for the Sunday morning kick in the stones ;)

So many places to go with this, but I am surprised/disappointed with how bad softball has been under Lyke. Since she is a former D1 softball player, I had hoped she had some exceptional coaching candidates in her back pocket.

Some people will point to geography/weather as an excuse for it being hard to win at softball at Pitt, but just this year schools in Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Miami OH, etc are among the best in the county. And it happens every year. Not to mention jabroni schools like Texas St and Louisiana (not LSU, the Cajuns) are ranked, you would think someone could sell Pitt academics over the sunny weather those schools offer to at least some good players, most softball players will need a real job after college.

And I'm not even talking about Top 25 softball team, though that seems very doable, I just mean top half of ACC, make the NCAA tourney sometimes...we were already doing that a bit when had that coach who left for Louisville like 8 years ago.
 
No need to can some of these coaches (i.e. baseball) as these sports probably don't get funded by pitt in the near future
 
Pitt_Boss said:
Paco thanks for the Sunday morning kick in the stones ;)

So many places to go with this, but I am surprised/disappointed with how bad softball has been under Lyke. Since she is a former D1 softball player, I had hoped she had some exceptional coaching candidates in her back pocket.

Some people will point to geography/weather as an excuse for it being hard to win at softball at Pitt, but just this year schools in Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Miami OH, etc are among the best in the county. And it happens every year. Not to mention jabroni schools like Texas St and Louisiana (not LSU, the Cajuns) are ranked, you would think someone could sell Pitt academics over the sunny weather those schools offer to at least some good players, most softball players will need a real job after college.

And I'm not even talking about Top 25 softball team, though that seems very doable, I just mean top half of ACC, make the NCAA tourney sometimes...we were already doing that a bit when had that coach who left for Louisville like 8 years ago.
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In Pitt's history, there as been a pattern of detrimental meddling in the sports of the athletic director's youth: just in the past 30 years Pederson with football; Barnes with basketball, Lyke with softball.

Holly Aprile had Pitt softball in the NCAAs and around the top of the ACC and had a strong recruiting pipeline to California, and pushing her out might have been Lykes' biggest mistake.

However, the current coach, Jenny Allard, was a very good hire on paper for the state of this program but she inherited an absolute dumpster fire. This was only year one. They started to jell a little bit at the end of the season but she is going to need a lot of time to just obtain mediocrity.
 
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pittchagg said:
We do. This year was just a transition year with the roster, and the record is a combo of the ACC being best conference in college soccer by a significant margin, and Vidovich consistently building one of the strongest non-conference schedules in the country.
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There's a reason men's soccer got into the NCAAs with a 6-6-4 (2-3-3) record.

Since Jay Vidovich was hired in 2015, Pitt men's soccer has now had five straight NCAA appearances from 2019 through 2023 with 3 Elite 8s and two College Cups (final 4s) and a regular season ACC regular season title in 2020.

The real debate is which program is greater? Volleyball or men's soccer. One could argue, based on the strength of the ACC and the state program when inheriting it, Vidovich has done the most impressive job.

And here comes Randy Waldrum....

Basically, get football righted, and fall sports are in good shape, winter sports need work, and spring sports are an unmitigated disaster.
 
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CrazyPaco said:
Holly Aprile had Pitt softball in the NCAAs and around the top of the ACC and had a strong recruiting pipeline to California, and pushing her out might have been Lykes' biggest mistake.
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And yet Louisville, who was supposed to be making a push in softball when they hired Aprile, has only finished above .500 in conference one time with her as their coach. And this year they were barely better than Pitt.

Sometimes when moves like this happen it turns out to be good for both parties. This is one of those times when it looks like it has turned out to be bad for both parties.
 
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Joe the Panther Fan said:
And yet Louisville, who was supposed to be making a push in softball when they hired Aprile, has only finished above .500 in conference one time with her as their coach. And this year they were barely better than Pitt.

Sometimes when moves like this happen it turns out to be good for both parties. This is one of those times when it looks like it has turned out to be bad for both parties.
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She had built Pitt's program from nothing, had it the NCAA regional finals in 2015, cracked the national rankings for the first time in program history in 2017, won the ACC Coastal in 2018 and was one bottom of the seventh walk off homer from eventual national champion FSU from winning the ACC championship in 2018 (and then was completely screwed out of the NCAAs in a way that would make Capel blush). Then she was pushed out for a cronyism hire.

Aprile had things established and growing, only had 1 losing season (her first) out of 5 total and a record of .537 (.425 in the ACC). Since she left, Pitt's program has been an unmitigated disaster (.359 overall and .259 in the ACC). Everything she had built has been completely destroyed. At Louisville she's hasn't taken them to major levels but has been to two NCAA regionals and finished in the top half of the ACC three of 6 years and, even with this season's very down year, has a combined record of .564 (.466 in ACC). At this point, Pitt could only dream of such results.
 
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Softball is only going to get harder for Pitt with Cal and Stanford joining the league.

I am not sure about Pitt's new coach (Allard). She is pushing 60 soon & I can't imagine has any name value with younger kids....and comes to Pitt from a place where it was both easier to recruit and easier to win. It's not tough to convince softball players to go to Harvard. Maybe she wasn't getting kids that were considering Oklahoma or Alabama, but in that next talent tier down, Harvard is a very attractive offer. And then she only had to compete with other Ivy League schools to make the tourney, which she did a fair amount of times but didn't totally dominate the conference. It's a lot different beating Duke, Florida St, Clemson, etc than beating Yale and Columbia.
 
Have we made progress? It's hard to see. Capel and his team were cheated out of a bid. Baseball seems to be worse than under Pederson/Nordenberg. Let's see how Narduzzi does...another losing season and Heather may actually have to work a day.
 
PittMiamiRivalry said:
Have we made progress? It's hard to see. Capel and his team were cheated out of a bid. Baseball seems to be worse than under Pederson/Nordenberg. Let's see how Narduzzi does...another losing season and Heather may actually have to work a day.
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Not sure that is true for baseball. Pitt's in a much, much more difficult league and has been on the bubble a couple times and just hasn't broken through. This year was a big step back, no doubt.
 
Serious question. Has Pitt baseball ever been good? Not relatively speaking but legit respectable?
 
HailtoPitt said:
Why does Pitt even have Track and Field?
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  • Because it is one of Pitt's oldest and most successful sports.
  • Because only 30.6 scholarships are needed to fully fund 6 different varsity teams which all count for NCAA minimum...without these 6 Pitt would not field enough sports to be D1... and Title IX.
  • Because it is otherwise cheap to operate as they all share the same primary coaching staff and have limited numbers of competitions with no round robin schedules.
  • Because all 15 existing members of the ACC field all 6 of these teams.
A complete lack of an indoor track and field facility in Western Pennsylvania means that Pitt could actually generate revenue by hosting indoor college, high school, and club meets in its future new facility...if they build it and manage it correctly.
 
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They made unbelievable gains in soccer and volleyball. But this is horrible overall. The ACC was big jump up Olympic wise, but its been 10+ years...
 
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TIGER-PAUL said:
They made unbelievable gains in soccer and volleyball. But this is horrible overall. The ACC was big jump up Olympic wise, but its been 10+ years...
Click to expand...

We’ve had decades of little to no support in Olympic sports. So it’s a long journey to even catch up imo.

Honestly the most disappointing to me is wrestling. Should be better. Hopefully victory heights helps
 
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TheSpecialSauce said:
1994 - Won BE regular season
1995 - Won BE tournament and made the NCAA tournament
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2013 was also a fun a year.

41 overall wins, rivalry wins over Penn State (in State College) & WVU (in Morgantown), swept Notre Dame when they were ranked in the top 20, seven weeks ranked in top 25 (reaching as high as #16 before bombing out late in a Louisville sweep), two on roster who'd go on to play in the majors (Wotherspoon/Harvey) & a few other guys who got drafted (Soto/Mildren).
 
ThePanthers said:
We’ve had decades of little to no support in Olympic sports. So it’s a long journey to even catch up imo.

Honestly the most disappointing to me is wrestling. Should be better. Hopefully victory heights helps
Click to expand...

agree, so much talent in the area but so many went elsewhere. Same with Women's BB, although that talent pool has seemed to dry up recently.
 
ThePanthers said:
We’ve had decades of little to no support in Olympic sports. So it’s a long journey to even catch up imo.

Honestly the most disappointing to me is wrestling. Should be better. Hopefully victory heights helps
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Victory Heights will help a little, but Pitt does not have the NIL or more importantly the RTC funding to make a huge step in wrestling.
 
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pafootballguy said:
Victory Heights will help a little, but Pitt does not have the NIL or more importantly the RTC funding to make a huge step in wrestling.
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I can accept that like PSU spends more on wrestling than we do. It's tough to believe we can't match the resources of South Dakota State, Lehigh, Northern Iowa, Little Rock, and Campbell....who all finished ranked higher than Pitt.

That being said, Pitt finished ranked #23 in the final polls #26 in the post-season, so we have a Top 25 wrestling program. That sounds good on paper, even if there are only like 80 schools that offer wrestling. I am sure most of our Board of Trustees has no idea how many NCAA D1 wrestling programs, they are just like "oh, wrestling seems to be fine, Top 25 program".
 
Pitt_Boss said:
I can accept that like PSU spends more on wrestling than we do. It's tough to believe we can't match the resources of South Dakota State, Lehigh, Northern Iowa, Little Rock, and Campbell....who all finished ranked higher than Pitt.

That being said, Pitt finished ranked #23 in the final polls #26 in the post-season, so we have a Top 25 wrestling program. That sounds good on paper, even if there are only like 80 schools that offer wrestling. I am sure most of our Board of Trustees has no idea how many NCAA D1 wrestling programs, they are just like "oh, wrestling seems to be fine, Top 25 program".
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Pitt should be better but many people believe they should be a lot better based on location alone without any understanding of the finances and how wrestling works. RTC funding like NIL comes from individual donors and not the school so it can be tough to raise money unless you have some whales who are either former wrestlers (Penn State) or just love wrestling (Iowa, Ohio State, Okie State) or you have a passionate fanbase who pay the bills.

They should be better than Little Rock, but they are a very trendy program right now, and their success probably isn't sustainable. Lehigh is coached by Pat Santoro, one of the best in the business, and could have been Pitt's HC. Northern Iowa has a very passionate fanbase.
 
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pafootballguy said:
Pitt should be better but many people believe they should be a lot better based on location alone without any understanding of the finances and how wrestling works. RTC funding like NIL comes from individual donors and not the school so it can be tough to raise money unless you have some whales who are either former wrestlers (Penn State) or just love wrestling (Iowa, Ohio State, Okie State) or you have a passionate fanbase who pay the bills.

They should be better than Little Rock, but they are a very trendy program right now, and their success probably isn't sustainable. Lehigh is coached by Pat Santoro, one of the best in the business, and could have been Pitt's HC. Northern Iowa has a very passionate fanbase.
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What kills me is seeing schools like NCSU and Virginia Tech ahead of Pitt in wrestling.
 
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CrazyPaco said:
What kills me is seeing schools like NCSU and Virginia Tech ahead of Pitt in wrestling.
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And speaking of NCSU this year:

Football finished 9-4 and ranked 21st
Men's Basketball won the ACC and it and the women's team both in the Final 4
Baseball team is in the College World Series
Women's XC team won its 3rd National Championship in a row
Men's Swimming & Diving won the ACC, were 5th at NCAAs, and Women were 9th at NCAAs
Wrestling team won the ACC and finished 11th at NCAAs with 3 AAs
Gymnastics won the ACC and made the NCAAs
 
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