Pitt's path to the NCAA Tournament
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
- Start date
UNLV’s best wins are over Dayton, Minnesota, and Washington St. All 3 of those teams are having what could be called disappointing seasons and those wins aren’t nearly as impressive as they look. UNLV is well coached and certainly improved, but 37th is quite the stretch in my opinion. I would not be surprised if they lose at home to San Francisco tomorrow.
I’m curious what this debate is about anymore.
I just read through this thread, entertaining no doubt. But having it fresh in my mind, I’d say the debate was whether Pitt was battle tested. You replied early on that they weren’t. And then Wanstash21 and Joe took the debate to another long ongoing level with an occasional volley from BB insider and others.
I’m going with Wanstash21 as the winner of this debate, he’s shown that Pitt’s schedule has them battle tested at this point, particularly for mid-level ACC competition. Also agree with him that this OOC schedule is more battle tested than the typical Dixon OOC ever was.
My comment was completely tongue in cheek.
Nonetheless- I’ll stick to my belief that this schedule isn’t all that hard. Some schedules under Dixon were harder, and some were easier.
Hey, my comment wasn’t completely but partly tongue in cheek.
Nonetheless, I’ll stick with my observation that Wanstash21 win this debate hands down about Pitt’s schedule being battle-tested. And I’d say there’s a difference between battle tested and how hard a schedule is. Pitt’s schedule has been battle-tested for what I think is most relevant, preparation against mid-level ACC competition, which this year covers a sizable majority of the conference.
Getting back to the OP of this thread.
Pitt is now 70th even Nationally on Pomeroy, 74th on Torvik with 2 current Quad 1 wins. Offense is now pushing top 50 in efficiency Nationally. Defense around 80th. This is not great but finally respectable territory. For now.
Next 4 game stretch is the biggest of Capel's career at Pitt. Need 2 of 4, but 3 of 4 helps erase the bad early losses to VCU and Vandy.
Next 4 games.
At Cuse
North Carolina
Virginia
Clemson
The first 2 are imo the most critical. We can beat both, the spread will be close to even both games, and North Carolina looks ripe for more losses.
Virginia is a chance to pick up a huge quad 1 win, but will be the toughest or 2nd toughest.
Clemson always brings its A+++ game against Pitt and constantly blows Pitt away in embarrassing fashion. They always cant miss, we always cant make against them. Perhaps this is the year we finally get them. We have lost 9 straight games to Clemson, and have been destroyed in most of those games. Until we can prove we can at least put up some type of fight against them, I would take the spread with a grain of salt in this game. On paper we should be favored to lose until proven otherwise.
Pitt is now 70th even Nationally on Pomeroy, 74th on Torvik with 2 current Quad 1 wins. Offense is now pushing top 50 in efficiency Nationally. Defense around 80th. This is not great but finally respectable territory. For now.
Next 4 game stretch is the biggest of Capel's career at Pitt. Need 2 of 4, but 3 of 4 helps erase the bad early losses to VCU and Vandy.
Next 4 games.
At Cuse
North Carolina
Virginia
Clemson
The first 2 are imo the most critical. We can beat both, the spread will be close to even both games, and North Carolina looks ripe for more losses.
Virginia is a chance to pick up a huge quad 1 win, but will be the toughest or 2nd toughest.
Clemson always brings its A+++ game against Pitt and constantly blows Pitt away in embarrassing fashion. They always cant miss, we always cant make against them. Perhaps this is the year we finally get them. We have lost 9 straight games to Clemson, and have been destroyed in most of those games. Until we can prove we can at least put up some type of fight against them, I would take the spread with a grain of salt in this game. On paper we should be favored to lose until proven otherwise.
We have to win at Syracuse and find a way to finally beat Clemson. If we found a way to steal one against either UNC or Virginia that would take unbelievable coaching and team performance.
3 out of those 4 highly unlikely, 2 out of 4 is doable imo.
3 out of those 4 highly unlikely, 2 out of 4 is doable imo.
Early line forecast per Torvik
Syracuse + .5
North Carolina -+1.5
Virginia- +2.5
Clemson- -5.5
These are horrible lines, we would all be rich if we could bet into these numbers.
PSU 12-6 (3-4) in conference so far.. with idk, maybe 1 good win?
Big10 has 10 teams in according to ESPN latest bracketology.. ACC has 7. We know the Big10 is better than the ACC.. PSU has lost 3 of last 4 and got beat by a very average Wisconsin last night.
Jeff Capel 8 more wins to make the tournament.
Depends who they’re against. PSU still in better shape. Can’t start crowing til we take care of business against all the bad teams.
I'm not crowing at all.. still gotta win 8.. saying PSU is in better shape though? I can't get behind that.
They have a better NET, KenPom and more opportunities to win quad 1 games left. They could finish 10th and still get in. Perception of the big ten puts them in better shape.
Such is life in the ACC
PSU will have more opportunities to build a better resume. The problem is that eventually they’re going to need to actually win one of these road games. The advanced stats are better than the resume right now.
Maybe it’s just me but I really don’t care about any of these numbers or projections. I guess it’s entertaining. I am just focused only on winning one and at a time. If we do enough of those we should be in good shape. If we win those and don’t make it then we can only blame ourselves doe some of our early non conference losses. Either way I am taking it game by game.
At one point WVU was a quad 1 loss. Then they are struggling to win in B12. Michigan also out right now. Those were at the time potential tourney teams. Go figure we crush Nw who is now looking decent, vcu on top of A-10 and vandy with some good sporadic wins. It really helps they avoided the quad 4 losses this year (still not out of woods yet), but that helps.
NET
Pitt - 57 (3 quad 1 wins)
PSU - 52 (1 quad 1 win)
Pitt is in the tourney in every updated bracketology. PSU is either bubble or out right now. Better shape? how? tougher games doesn't mean they're in better shape. More opportunity? sure... but I'm still not buying that notion.. they still have to take care of business in the BIG10 and beat better teams.. while Pitt already has some solid resume building wins + has a much easier schedule the rest of the way.
definitively saying PSU is in better shape because of the opportunity head doesn't make sense... it only makes sense if they win those games, and right now, I'm not sure you can bank on that.
lol dude you just made two posts on the pay board about Vandy losing and how that hurts us and then "Next 3 games" outlining how important they are.. I don't mean to pick on you, but come on.
Its funny seeing how wrong and anti Pitt Bballinsider has been in this thread
I love when people will dig up things I say in these posts pre Hugley sitting out when I diagnosed him as the singular problem long before anyone else did (maybe 1 or 2 others were in agreement af the time) then the information changed with the problem removing itself. It isn’t some GOTCHA moment you think. I’ve said for 3-4 years Hugley wouldn’t be a winning player here and wallaaaa
Anyways beat the Cards please
Anyways beat the Cards please
Read the post I just made. Didn’t see your post previously or I would’ve @ you. I own up when I’m wrong, however, I wasn’t here. With Hugley this team is way behind where we are now. Information changed.
And Pitt could lose tonight or another “gimme game” and it could go the other way? I guess it’s the chicken or the egg.
I’d rather have the opportunity to have more chances to make a splash than before in a worse conference and let some eggheads decide if we’re good enough because we dropped 1 or 2 we shouldn’t have.
PSU could completely blow up or they could win half their games and get in. Who knows. To say I can’t bank on anything is stating the obvious or else I’d be in Vegas today making the bets on them
I don’t know. I’d rather have my good wins locked in and actually W’s in the ledger versus having them as potential wins on the future schedule.
Their NET wont really be looked at but due to the strength of the B10, they probably only need to go 8-10
Yeah, I meant future not this season. Which you obviously knew.
Pitt is better this season. PSU is set up to be a possible tournament team long term
I'll take tournament team now over "possible tournament team long term" .. especially since Capel built this team in like 2 months.
I will also take tournament team now.
PSU prob blew it for this year with that bad Loss yesterday. I’d take Shrew and their staff over ours for building a program any day though. What they’ve done at a place like PSU where hoops is an afterthought is amazing. It’s why they’ll have to break the bank to keep him this off-season
You're giving him too much credit. Capel took over a completely dead program. There's no argument to be had there. Capel took over a program in much worse shape than PSU was when Shrewsberry took over. You think Pitt hoops is a priority over football? PSU football will always be the driver, just like Pitt football will always be the driver. The move to the ACC was 1000% for football.. it just happened to look good for hoops too.
Year 1
Capel 14-19 (3-15)
Shrewsberry 14-17 (7-13)
Year 2
Capel 16-17 (6-14)
Shrewsberry 14-9 (5-7) **we'll see how he finishes
Capel built a tournament team in 2 months. He built it around his star center that didn't even play, and still has a top 5 ACC team. 5 star guard not playing. Junior forward not playing. Again, built this team in like 2 months. 25th ranked 2023 class with more slots to fill.
Shrewsberry is losing Pickett and Lundy after this year. Maybe he works some Capel magic in the portal.. but I'll bet you this will be the year that's looked back on and "what if" for them.. they have two solid players, and this might be his best chance to make an NCAAT at PSU.
You can argue that you'd rather have Micah, I just think that's insane. Capel has done arguably the best coaching job in America this year. He has a 14th ranked ACC team 0.5 games out of first place in February. Took over a program that had literally ZERO wins the year before.
You know there's no building programs anymore. Everyone af PSU is going to transfer just like at every other program. These are year to year AAU teams now. Shrewsbury has done a really good job but Capel has been better this year so far.
Pitt 18-7 (11-3) NET 51
PSU 14-11 (5-9) NET 67
long story short, PSU stinks... go figure. I see at least 3 more losses on the docket.. NIT definitely in question at this point. I still like Micah.. I just think PSU needs to make more of an effort to emphasize hoops. However, he's no Jeff Capel.
PSU 14-11 (5-9) NET 67
long story short, PSU stinks... go figure. I see at least 3 more losses on the docket.. NIT definitely in question at this point. I still like Micah.. I just think PSU needs to make more of an effort to emphasize hoops. However, he's no Jeff Capel.
They’ve certainly fallen apart down the stretch like some of Capel’s earlier Pitt teams did. They legitimately might be one of the worst defensive teams in college basketball right now.
I read their new AD was complaining a bit about the BJ Center, said something like it wasnt built for basketball (it wasn't) and they are strongly considering pushing the court all the way to one side of the "hockey rink" and putting a curtain behind the other basket. So basically curtaining off that 1/3 of the arena. I've been saying they should do that for years.
Correct, he hasn’t been an absolute disaster until year 5 after flaming out as the worst coach in Oklahoma history (prior to Moser that is).
Penn State is a dead end job that has killed coaches careers. He’s 14-11 and probably gonna have a winning record at Penn Freaking State in year 2. There’s a reason he was being mentioned for Notre Dame and Capel was not. He’s a much much better coach.
For THIS year, Capel is a good coach. The previous 4 years, he was terrible. I'll give him the credit he deserves for this year and building this team with mature players with grit, integrity and cohesiveness. He has turned it around for this year. But the jury is still out on what he does in the future. I am a strong believer in trends. One year does not a trend make. Now if he can at least do this well or better for the next 3 or 4 years, then we can start calling him a good coach and program builder.
As it stands right now for next year, he has a couple of players from this year's squad, if they decide to stay, and some recruits that aren't here yet and haven't played one minute for Pitt. Until they do, they're irrelevant.
