These single elimination (or close) tournaments are needed for scheduling in college sports. However, by their very nature, in sports like baseball, hockey, basketball they cause too much uncertainty in determining the best teams. All these sports, if a better outcome in deciding a winner was wanted; they would be a series of games like the pros have in their playoffs.
In this case it worked out well for Pitt and they advanced to the ACC semis. It was a great team effort to be proud of but one that might not have been possible in a multi-game playoff against teams with stronger overall rosters.