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ACC Baseball Tourney standings with one week to go!

California Panther

Head Coach
Gold Member
Jul 5, 2001
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1,839
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Yet another groundhog day for Pitt, they fell behind NCSU 11-0, battled back, but lost 14-6 (extra point attempt blocked).

Georgia Tech beat Duke in the 9th stopping Duke's clinching tourney spot attempt.

UNC blasted VT 20-0!

..........if the season ended today, Pitt would NOT be in the ACC Tourney. We are 1 game behind VT for the last "IN" (12th) spot.

6 teams are still battling to avoid the bottom 2 spots, which DO NOT make the tourney, Pitt is now one of those last 2!

Pitt has lost 13 of its last 15 ACC games, but still we are only 1 game from 12th and making the tourney for the first time ever.

.407 Duke 11-16 (Pitt has tie-breaker vs Duke)--at #3 21-6 UNC next weekend
.370 Notre Dame 10-17 (ND has tie-breaker vs Pitt)--at 8-19 BC next weekend
.370 Ga Tech 10-17 (GT has tie-breaker vs Pitt)--vs #13 16-11 UVA next weekend
.333 Va Tech 9-18 (Pitt has tie-breaker vs VT)--at 13-13 Miami next weekend
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.296 PITT 8-19 (has never made ACC tourney)--at #21 17-10 Wake Forest next weekend
.296 BC 8-19 (no Pitt-BC games this year)--vs 10-17 ND next weekend
 
There is now a better chance that we will finish in last than make the tournament. If Pitt actually cared about baseball that would be the end of Joe Jordano's managerial career, but since Pitt doesn't really care about baseball it probably won't.
 
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There is now a better chance that we will finish in last than make the tournament. If Pitt actually cared about baseball that would be the end of Joe Jordano's managerial career, but since Pitt doesn't really care about baseball it probably won't.
Some of his decisions don't make a lot of baseball sense? I know he is very short-handed on talent this year and has tried to play "small ball" and manufacture runs to try to stay in games with more talented teams.

But in Saturday's games, NCSU scored in the 1st to lead 1-0, then in the Pitt first, we led off with a man on, he bunted him to 2nd, then he stole 3rd, we got that run in, but then later in the inning with men on 1st and 2nd, he tried a double steal and of course the man was gunned down at 3rd. A sac bunt and 2 attempted steals of THIRD (1 worked) in one inning? Just seemed like strange calls, give your guys a chance to swing the bat and get a hit to score.

But our pitching made NCSU look like the 1927 Yankees Murderer's Row, so did it really even matter?
 
There is now a better chance that we will finish in last than make the tournament. If Pitt actually cared about baseball that would be the end of Joe Jordano's managerial career, but since Pitt doesn't really care about baseball it probably won't.

You would have to think VT can take at least 1 from Miami meaning Pitt probably needs to take 2 of 3 from Wake. Not a great chance of that happening.

The disappointing thing is that with the new format and the random nature of baseball outcomes, Pitt winning 4 to make the NCAAT would be exponentially easier than Pitt bball winning 5 in 5. Not to say they could do it, but in the sport of baseball, you always have a chance.
 
Some of his decisions don't make a lot of baseball sense? I know he is very short-handed on talent this year and has tried to play "small ball" and manufacture runs to try to stay in games with more talented teams.

A couple of things. First of all, he is going to have some of his pitchers arms fall off. In the Georgia Tech series he had Sam Mersing pitch two innings in each of the three games of the series. Earlier in the year against Miami he had Mersing come on and pitch 5-2/3 innings in the first game of a Saturday doubleheader and then brought him back to pitch another inning on Sunday. If an MLB manager did that with one of his pitchers the national outcry about the potential destruction of that guy's career would be deafening. Most college managers manage the game as if they simply don't care if they ruin a guy's arm, but bringing a guy back to pitch the day after he threw 5-2/3 innings is borderline criminal.

Secondly, I watched some of the games last weekend at Georgia Tech. Sunday night game, top of the first, the Georgia Tech batter walks the first two Pitt hitters on 8 pitches. So you've got your number three hitter coming up against a pitcher who is obviously having trouble finding the plate. A guy who was on a hot streak to the point where he had his conference batting average up over .300, which was a 50-ish point jump over about two weeks. The first pitch is a ball. The second pitch the hitter (Alex Amos) squares around to bunt and takes a strike. The color commentator is befuddled. All he can surmise is that Amos must have gotten the take sign and squared around on his own with no intention to bunt. Because he says that bunting in this situation would be really stupid and that no one could possible called for a bunt there. I literally laughed out loud, thinking that these guys have obviously never watched a Joe Jordano managed game before. On the next pitch, Amos squares around again and tries to bunt. He hits it foul, putting himself into a 1-2 hole. He hits the next pitch right to the shortstop for a double play.

Now obviously if you are hitting away there you just might hit into a double play. But the thing that was so telling is that the game commentator found the notion that a manager would call for a bunt there completely ridiculous (and for the record, it was), and yet Pitt does that sort of thing all the time. Top of the first inning, first two guys get on base, and he has the best hitter on the team trying to sacrifice bunt. It's almost as if sometimes he doesn't want to win.
 
Some of his decisions don't make a lot of baseball sense? I know he is very short-handed on talent this year and has tried to play "small ball" and manufacture runs to try to stay in games with more talented teams.

A couple of things. First of all, he is going to have some of his pitchers arms fall off. In the Georgia Tech series he had Sam Mersing pitch two innings in each of the three games of the series. Earlier in the year against Miami he had Mersing come on and pitch 5-2/3 innings in the first game of a Saturday doubleheader and then brought him back to pitch another inning on Sunday. If an MLB manager did that with one of his pitchers the national outcry about the potential destruction of that guy's career would be deafening. Most college managers manage the game as if they simply don't care if they ruin a guy's arm, but bringing a guy back to pitch the day after he threw 5-2/3 innings is borderline criminal.

Secondly, I watched some of the games last weekend at Georgia Tech. Sunday night game, top of the first, the Georgia Tech batter walks the first two Pitt hitters on 8 pitches. So you've got your number three hitter coming up against a pitcher who is obviously having trouble finding the plate. A guy who was on a hot streak to the point where he had his conference batting average up over .300, which was a 50-ish point jump over about two weeks. The first pitch is a ball. The second pitch the hitter (Alex Amos) squares around to bunt and takes a strike. The color commentator is befuddled. All he can surmise is that Amos must have gotten the take sign and squared around on his own with no intention to bunt. Because he says that bunting in this situation would be really stupid and that no one could possible called for a bunt there. I literally laughed out loud, thinking that these guys have obviously never watched a Joe Jordano managed game before. On the next pitch, Amos squares around again and tries to bunt. He hits it foul, putting himself into a 1-2 hole. He hits the next pitch right to the shortstop for a double play.

Now obviously if you are hitting away there you just might hit into a double play. But the thing that was so telling is that the game commentator found the notion that a manager would call for a bunt there completely ridiculous (and for the record, it was), and yet Pitt does that sort of thing all the time. Top of the first inning, first two guys get on base, and he has the best hitter on the team trying to sacrifice bunt. It's almost as if sometimes he doesn't want to win.

I am sure your points are valid but more than anything, Pitt is getting "out-talented" in the ACC. We still have upper-tier Big East talent, which translates to an ACC bottom feeder.
 
I am sure your points are valid but more than anything, Pitt is getting "out-talented" in the ACC. We still have upper-tier Big East talent, which translates to an ACC bottom feeder.


If you've watched this team play this season and you've seen them play in the past you would know that the talent level is not the same. This is probably the least talented Pitt team in a long time.

By the way, upper tier Big East talent was ranked something like 15th in the country last week.
 
I am sure your points are valid but more than anything, Pitt is getting "out-talented" in the ACC. We still have upper-tier Big East talent, which translates to an ACC bottom feeder.


If you've watched this team play this season and you've seen them play in the past you would know that the talent level is not the same. This is probably the least talented Pitt team in a long time.

By the way, upper tier Big East talent was ranked something like 15th in the country last week.

I don't watch them as much as you but I'd say some of Pitt's BE teams were better than their ACC teams. I agree this is a team that isnt very talented. However, without knowing anything about BE baseball this year or who is ranked #15, that league is so bad, I'd guess even THIS Pitt team would be "upper tier" in that league which is why I said that.
 
However, without knowing anything about BE baseball this year or who is ranked #15, that league is so bad, I'd guess even THIS Pitt team would be "upper tier" in that league which is why I said that.


If you go by RPI (and you know how I feel about that for basketball) then Pitt is almost exactly a middle of the road Big East team this year. St. John's, Seton Hall and Xavier have better RPIs, Creighton, Georgetown and Villanova have worse RPIs, and Pitt and Butler are within a couple spots of each other.

However if you add in the schools that were in the Big East with us who are now elsewhere, we don't even come close to stacking up. South Florida, UConn, Cincinnati and the Hoopies all have much, much better RPIs than Pitt does. If you put the Big East conference as it was when we left back together we would be much, much closer to the bottom than the top.


Current baseball RPIs of the teams that were in the Big East before it imploded:

Louisville - 3
USF - 19
Hoopies - 20
St. John's - 29
UConn - 43
Seton Hall - 77
Cincinnati - 82
Notre Dame - 97
Pitt - 134
Georgetown - 202
Villanova - 256

If you want to go back a little further you can add:

Miami - 61
BC - 87
Virginia Tech - 113

That's 9th out of 11 or 12th out of 14, depending on how you want to look at it. It's pretty clear that Pitt baseball is not keeping up with the best teams in either the current Big East, the former Big East, or the Big East from before that.
 
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However, without knowing anything about BE baseball this year or who is ranked #15, that league is so bad, I'd guess even THIS Pitt team would be "upper tier" in that league which is why I said that.


If you go by RPI (and you know how I feel about that for basketball) then Pitt is almost exactly a middle of the road Big East team this year. St. John's, Seton Hall and Xavier have better RPIs, Creighton, Georgetown and Villanova have worse RPIs, and Pitt and Butler are within a couple spots of each other.

However if you add in the schools that were in the Big East with us who are now elsewhere, we don't even come close to stacking up. South Florida, UConn, Cincinnati and the Hoopies all have much, much better RPIs than Pitt does. If you put the Big East conference as it was when we left back together we would be much, much closer to the bottom than the top.


Current baseball RPIs of the teams that were in the Big East before it imploded:

Louisville - 3
USF - 19
Hoopies - 20
St. John's - 29
UConn - 43
Seton Hall - 77
Cincinnati - 82
Notre Dame - 97
Pitt - 134
Georgetown - 202
Villanova - 256

If you want to go back a little further you can add:

Miami - 61
BC - 87
Virginia Tech - 113

That's 9th out of 11 or 12th out of 14, depending on how you want to look at it. It's pretty clear that Pitt baseball is not keeping up with the best teams in either the current Big East, the former Big East, or the Big East from before that.

Its pretty clear that besides a guy like Zeuch, Pitt baseball has not elevated its recruiting at all in the ACC. This is why I say I dont think Jordano's coaching is to blame. Its the recruiting.....or maybe more of the weather and the lack of resources devoted to the program.
 
Its pretty clear that besides a guy like Zeuch, Pitt baseball has not elevated its recruiting at all in the ACC. This is why I say I dont think Jordano's coaching is to blame. Its the recruiting.....or maybe more of the weather and the lack of resources devoted to the program.
It's the weather. My daughter is an athlete in the Big South, and their facilities put ours to shame. Combined with the weather, If Pitt were my only ACC offer, Id play baseball there over Pitt. No question.
 
Its pretty clear that besides a guy like Zeuch, Pitt baseball has not elevated its recruiting at all in the ACC. This is why I say I dont think Jordano's coaching is to blame. Its the recruiting.....or maybe more of the weather and the lack of resources devoted to the program.


And yet West Virginia, who plays in the same weather has been a ranked team most of the season (and is almost always better than us by a good margin). St. John's is and has been much better than us. UConn is and has been much better than us. Seton Hall is and has been much better than us. Notre Dame has always been better than us, usually by a significant margin, and now even in a very down year for them they still manage to be better than us. Hell, even BC, who has basically been a joke in baseball most of the time is now as good or better than us.

The weather is the reason that Pitt is not as good as LSU or Cal-Fullerton or Clemson. The weather has nothing what so ever to do with the fact that Pitt is worse than St. John's and UConn and the Hoopies. It's an excuse. An excuse for a poor coach who is coasting. I mean people are all over Kevin Stallings for not recruiting hard enough (as if any of them know how hard he is recruiting), but Pitt has a baseball coach who can't even figure out which of his players are eligible for and likely to be drafted in the MLB draft. If that isn't a sign of a guy who is coasting I don't think such a thing exists.
 
Its pretty clear that besides a guy like Zeuch, Pitt baseball has not elevated its recruiting at all in the ACC. This is why I say I dont think Jordano's coaching is to blame. Its the recruiting.....or maybe more of the weather and the lack of resources devoted to the program.


And yet West Virginia, who plays in the same weather has been a ranked team most of the season (and is almost always better than us by a good margin). St. John's is and has been much better than us. UConn is and has been much better than us. Seton Hall is and has been much better than us. Notre Dame has always been better than us, usually by a significant margin, and now even in a very down year for them they still manage to be better than us. Hell, even BC, who has basically been a joke in baseball most of the time is now as good or better than us.

The weather is the reason that Pitt is not as good as LSU or Cal-Fullerton or Clemson. The weather has nothing what so ever to do with the fact that Pitt is worse than St. John's and UConn and the Hoopies. It's an excuse. An excuse for a poor coach who is coasting. I mean people are all over Kevin Stallings for not recruiting hard enough (as if any of them know how hard he is recruiting), but Pitt has a baseball coach who can't even figure out which of his players are eligible for and likely to be drafted in the MLB draft. If that isn't a sign of a guy who is coasting I don't think such a thing exists.

Yea, I agree. Nobody is asking Pitt baseball to be Clemson. But it would be nice if we could be WVU or UConn.
 
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