https://www.si.com/college/2020/06/25/acc-basketball-power-rankings-duke-virginia-unc
Nice little article for us Pitt fans to get angry about.
Nice little article for us Pitt fans to get angry about.
Acc basketball Ranking
- Thread starter Drew1208
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Very interesting. Picked #13 only ahead of BC and Wake. Reviewer sees McGowens going doing more harm than good; poor shooting not fixed; and freshmen only possibly helping slighty. No mention of additions of Horton and Sibande, either.
Wheras I am not one expecting more than a winning season and maybe the NIT, IMHO, we should still be at least somewhat higher ahead of Notre Dame and Virginia Tech, at a minimum. Then again, I expect our shooting to be significantly improved.
Wheras I am not one expecting more than a winning season and maybe the NIT, IMHO, we should still be at least somewhat higher ahead of Notre Dame and Virginia Tech, at a minimum. Then again, I expect our shooting to be significantly improved.
Yeah
Weird they think losing our best overall player is a net negative ?
They dont know that Mcgowens left because he knew from practice he was being beaten out of minutes at the off guard and wasnt ahead of XJ at point. In addition, they way under rate the value of our incoming freshman class, IMHO.
If they aren’t proven wrong next season many on here will be calling for Capel to be canned or at least be on the hot seat. Unfortunately, too many on here believe we are a lock for the NCAAs which would only make the hypothetical situation of being unhappy with Capel even worse if we wound up 13th because that would mean we would have a W-L record no better than last season’s, at best, and not even smell an NIT bid.
I strongly doubt we finish below 0.500 which is what #13 would mean. Making the NCAAs, though—that is atill a very long shot, IMHO.
If they aren’t proven wrong next season many on here will be calling for Capel to be canned or at least be on the hot seat. Unfortunately, too many on here believe we are a lock for the NCAAs which would only make the hypothetical situation of being unhappy with Capel even worse if we wound up 13th because that would mean we would have a W-L record no better than last season’s, at best, and not even smell an NIT bid.
I strongly doubt we finish below 0.500 which is what #13 would mean. Making the NCAAs, though—that is atill a very long shot, IMHO.
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I’m kind of surprised at this too. I think most of us are thinking middle of the pack and we do have some strong additions coming in.
Well let’s use it as motivation!
Well let’s use it as motivation!
But ultimately Capel and Pitt have to prove it 1st. So i can't really hate on it too much.
If we finish 13th in year 3 of Capel I think we ALL should start being concerned about Capel's coaching ability.
Not really sure where the outrage is coming from. Pitt’s past two seasons haven’t exactly instilled confidence. All the team can do is prove them wrong.
One thing is for sure.....with the incoming players (including Horton and Sibande) it is hard to predict where we are as a team. If we can shoot better and get decent play our of the 5 position, we will be better.
You’re inventing a narrative regarding trey
X got benched for long stretches - trey never did
So stop with the silliness
A bit low. I’d at least have us over ND, but I suppose haggling over one spot isnt a big deal.
McGowens hurts in the sense that, while maddeningly inconsistent, we’ve seen him have the ability to go off against high end teams. We all want Horton to step in and not miss a beat but the smart bet is to be conservative, at least initially, when evaluating a kid who moves up a few notches in competition level when transferring. Are we significantly better with McGowens? Maybe we get a bit more respect and jump ND/VT but this is still a long game we’re playing. The telling sign will be the perception of the program next offseason, as we need to be solidly in the middle of the pack in terms of growth
McGowens hurts in the sense that, while maddeningly inconsistent, we’ve seen him have the ability to go off against high end teams. We all want Horton to step in and not miss a beat but the smart bet is to be conservative, at least initially, when evaluating a kid who moves up a few notches in competition level when transferring. Are we significantly better with McGowens? Maybe we get a bit more respect and jump ND/VT but this is still a long game we’re playing. The telling sign will be the perception of the program next offseason, as we need to be solidly in the middle of the pack in terms of growth
Whatever happened to the old adage, “you have to earn respect before you get respect”?
Absolutely true. We will know more once we are late in the OOC. If we arent shooting the 3-ball any better than last season and Brown is still getting the most minutes of any of our bigmen by that point we will know we are headed for a finish in the bottom third of the ACC again and with no post season play.
I have to believe at this point that we will be better than that, however.
Not sure how many ACC wins we will get but I can understand the SI reviewers reasoning since last season it was 6-14 with two of thise wins vs UNC having a total aberration season so it could look like we should have only been 4-16. Given that perspective we would be considered improved at 6-14 or 7-13 which would only equate to about a 16-17 overall win season like last year.
I have to believe at this point that we will be better than that, however.
Not sure how many ACC wins we will get but I can understand the SI reviewers reasoning since last season it was 6-14 with two of thise wins vs UNC having a total aberration season so it could look like we should have only been 4-16. Given that perspective we would be considered improved at 6-14 or 7-13 which would only equate to about a 16-17 overall win season like last year.
People are going to continue to pick us at the bottom until we actually prove we don’t belong at the bottom.
@DC_Area_Panther
National writers and national tv personalities are nothing but click bait and ratings catalysts. I stopped paying any attention to any of them 15 years ago. Anyone with a paid subscription to this site knows a heck of a lot more than some SI blogger/writer, and would also know that your posts on this issue are legitimate.
National writers and national tv personalities are nothing but click bait and ratings catalysts. I stopped paying any attention to any of them 15 years ago. Anyone with a paid subscription to this site knows a heck of a lot more than some SI blogger/writer, and would also know that your posts on this issue are legitimate.
Well thats what it means to PREDICT. If youve proven something than the horse has left the barn.
Sure. But nobody in this thread has used that legitimate knowledge to refute the post. It's just a bunch of people saying "WRONG!" Pitt has a lot to prove. I personally think losing McGowens is a big deal and that Pitt fans are putting too much faith in a huge slate of unproven players. So I don't see all that much wrong with the SI article.
McGowens publicly stated reason for leaving was his wanting to be a starting point guard rather than the off guard he played at Pitt. Couple that with Capel’s glowing public remarks about Horton and I am not inventing or imagining anything.
Well, of course, they do the opposite with crediting incoming freshman for other teams. And, yes, I know that is okay for Duke and UNC 5-stars but they also do it for other teams 4-stars (one example is Miami).
Take note I am not one believing our incoming recruits will be getting us better enough to make the NCAAs but only that they should make us enough better to push us to at least an over 0.500 W-L record overall (but not likely an over 0.500 ACC record). I believe they ought to get us into the 17-19 win range.
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Not sure we're better than ND. They have been killed by injuries the last two years. If I recall, four rotational players went down last year including a starter. Carmody from Mars hasn't played 15 games total in his 2 years there.
I would be more enthused or have higher expectations if the kids were on campus now, working out and building chemistry. A lot of new pieces and the sooner the roles are determined or earned, the better the we will be.
This was Trey Mcgowens full 20 game ACC conference stats against his teammates for the entire ACC conference schedule.
10.6ppg (4th on the team)
34% FG (8th on the team)
30% 3 point shooting (4th on the team)
73.5 free throw ( 4th on the team)
3.0 turnovers per game (dead last on the team)
1.9 steals per game (tied for first on the team)
4.2 steals per game (2nd on the team)
Offensive Power Rating: 85.7 (9th on team and 2nd to last in the rotation)
There were 122 total rotation players in the entire ACC conference last year. Trey Mcgowens offensive rating ranked 116th out of 122 total players. He was efficiently the 2nd worst starter in the entire ACC conference last year.
If you go back the last 20 seasons at Pitt, Mcgowens offensive rating of 85.7 ranks dead last.
To put into perspective just how bad Trey was during the ACC this year. The 2018 Pitt team coached by Kevin Stallings finished with an 0-19 conference record. An 85.7 ORTG offensive rating puts Mcgowens as the 10th most efficient player on the worst ACC team of all time in 2018.
Trey Mcgowens stats this year against the full ACC schedule can be summed up in one word- Offensive
He had zero chance to start next year over Horton and Im not sure he would start over Sibande. He would have been benched this year if this team had any depth what so ever. The last 2/3 of the conference schedule Ryan Murphy admitted he had vision problems and shouldnt even had been playing at all after his concussion. And Gerald Drumgoole was statistically the worst player in the ACC and didnt fully recover from the ankle injury. Onyebuchi, a walkon, was injured and was also almost dead last in the ACC in efficiency as well. We had zero guard depth and the guards we did have were ranked at the very bottom of the entire ACC conference.
The only other guard we had to possibly bench Mcgowens for was walkon Starzynski. We were forced to play Trey as we had no one to bench him for. Everyone else was injured including the walkons.
And its not just me saying it. Jeff Capel openly admitted he thought Mcgowens was leaning toward a transfer going all the back to December and indirectly stated "certain" players were not listening and were "checked" out. The notion of Trey Mcgowens being Pitt's best player last year is nothing short of crazy. It's actually comical. His shooting percentages for a shooting guard make Cam Wright look like the next Stephen Curry.
I have no argument with your take. When we start winning we will get more favorable write ups.
I kind of do. But I don’t see Pitt at 13. GT should be very solid. Despite the bad rap Pastner is a pretty good recruiter and coach.
OK ... I will restate -- until we do something other than finish last or next to last, no one outside of Pitt fans are going to PREDICT that we will do anything but finish near the bottom.
I'm hopeful that we will finish around 10-11, and I do think this is possible. But I can certainly understand why others looking at Pitt and the ACC don't see many good reasons to think we jump forward several spots.
Yes, that is what I think is likely—#10 or #11 if we can move above VA Tech and ND and possibly one other.
FWIW, I wouldn’t trade our player roster for either VA Tech’s or Notre Dane’s roster.
Johnson did get pulled a few times but you are greatly exaggerating benching time and frequency. The stats don't support frequent and long duration benchings. Johnson averaged 33.3 minutes PT per game; McGowens 33.8 minutes PT per game.
It's really hard to evaluate Trey because he was indeed one of the best players on the team and also one of the most damaging. He was possibly our best perimeter defender and transition player -- but also one of the major problems with a half court offense that could not solve a simple 2-3 zone. Beyond that I have no clue what did or didn't happen in the locker room.
I'm not glad he's gone. But I am more optimistic about the new line-up overall. I don't think that's contradictory.
I'm not glad he's gone. But I am more optimistic about the new line-up overall. I don't think that's contradictory.
Very much agree with your take. Nor would I necessarily disagree with @DC_Area_Panther ’s take about trading players with ND or Va Tech. But it’s hard for me to believe that we played up to the sum of our parts last year.
I don’t love to use the word “chemistry,” but we will simply need to learn if we can improve in that regard this coming year.
It was hard to watch our inability to execute at times last year. I can come up with reasons why that could improve without Trey in the mix, but only until we see how things shake out on the court will I know if this is just wishful thinking on my part.
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