Pitt-ACC Basketball

[pittman71]

does anyone think Pitt is just outclassed in the ACC? That maybe they are still recruiting the same type of players they have all along, just that now they are playing better competition night in and night out and they appear to be worse off?

Watching this NC State/Duke game and the athletes and quickness that both teams possess, and comparing them to Pitt's athletes, and there just is no comparison. Pitt can't keep up, not with this current roster. The only way they can win is by overachieving.

 

[whirlybird optio]

Do you really think the ACC is as good as the Big East was?

The Big East that sent 11 of 16 to the ncaa's, 3 #1 seeds in the same season etc??

I don't. We have a dysfunctional roster and a lousy staff, but those are of our doing. This Pitt team would be just as bad in the big East from the late 2000s.

 

[GrowthHormone]

Originally posted by pittman71:
does anyone think Pitt is just outclassed in the ACC?

Categorically, no. This conference is not better than the BE was.

 

[Bethlehemjohn]

No

This league isn't as tough as a few of the seasons in the BE and in particular the one where we were a 1 seed. We just have missed on some guys while trying to recruit a different kind of player that would maybe get us to the next level. This backfired because now we have no heart, leadership and toughness.

 

[TIGER-PAUL]

No, actually after seeing alot of the ACC closer, the pre raid BE was better imo.
Pitt is a middling 36-36 in conf play last 4 years.

 

[UPitt '89]

Not at all..

This year's Pitt team went 8-10 in the ACC.

A very similar Pitt team went 5-13 in the BE in 2012, which was a better conference than the current ACC.



Put this year's Pitt team in the 2011 Big East, and they're probably not even sniffing NIT.

 

[braves2121]

I have thought about this a lot. I think ultimately the ACC is the more difficult conference. Now that being said of course it fluctuates from year to year and comparing this year in the ACC against the best conference of all time is not apples to apples.

But let's think about it. If you assign a power rating to each school and line up the two conferences from strongest to weakest member, the ACC comes out ahead. I'm not talking about current teams, but overall program strength and the potential of each school.

At the top of the ACC, you have two five-star programs in Duke and Carolina. The Big East had nothing at that level. UConn is the best of the bunch from that league and i'd say they are in the next best category, maybe 4.5 stars. Then you have Syracuse and Louisville which are in both leagues, so that's a wash.

The Big East had Georgetown and Villanova which I think are better than the next group of the ACC. That's what the Big East had - a strong consistent upper-middle tier of which Pitt belonged. The ACC's middle tier is Pitt, UVA, NC State, then you get to Notre Dame (wash) and Wake Forest and Georgia Tech. The Big East mid-tier of Marquette, WVU, and Cincinnati along with Pitt and ND could top that some years.

But the bottom is where the ACC comes out the best, in my opinion. The ACC has Florida St, Miami, Boston College, Clemson, and Virginia Tech. These are all football schools with lots of money. They can compete in recruiting, coaching salaries, travel expenses, the like. They ultimately have much higher upsides as a program that non-football schools from the Big East like Seton Hall, Providence, Depaul, St Johns. And the weak Big East football schools like USF and Rutgers are the bottom of the line.

so I think at the end of the day, the ACC will be more difficult and competitive for Pitt due to the top-quality programs ahead of us, and the much better funded football schools that will normally be below us but are much more likely to be competitive with lots of cash to spend. It's a new world going forward with these TV contracts, and we aren't in the competitive advantage we used to be.