Pitt's Pre-Season Hoops Rankings

[DC_Area_Panther]

Here are a few pre-season rankings I found for Pitt:

Pomeroy---#84--#13 ACC
Sagarin----#101---#14 ACC
CollegeSportsMadness---Unranked---Below #144 somewhere
TR Nexus---#103---#13 ACC
SBNation---Unranked---Below #60 somewhere
WarrenNolan---#193---#13 ACC

Hoping that as much a negative surprise we have had in football that we have an offsetting surprise in basketball---Proving all thsese ratings to be way too pessimistic.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

Ran the Sagarin pre-season ratings vs the Pitt schedule. On a game by game basis the result would be—-

6-5 OOC + 3-17 ACC = 9-22 before ACC Tournament

I really don’t believe it will be anything close to that bad. I am thinking it might not be worse than 8-3 OOC + 8-12 ACC = 16-15 overall.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

I really don’t believe it will be anything close to that bad.

The Sagrin ratings don't think it will be that bad either.

If you play five games that the ratings say you have a 40% chance to win, it is not predicting you to go 0-5, it's predicting that you will go 2-3.

Going through and simply adding up all the games with a greater than 50% chance to win and a less than 50% chance to win really isn't very instructive at all. Add up all the individual probabilities from the individual games and you will find out what those ratings are actually predicting us to go.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

I understand how it really works—was just projecting a worst case scenario.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

was just projecting a worst case scenario.

That also is not the worst case scenario.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

As an example, Team Rankings has us 163. They have our range of records anywhere from 4-26 (0.3% chance) to 26-4 (0.1% chance).

They have our most likely record 12-18, but there is only a 10.8% chance that is what we will end up.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

We all hope that we can return to making the NCAA tourney. Finishing in about the top 50 is approximately what it would take (considering auto-bid conferences taking some spots in the tourney).

To do that this years team would need to be (based on Sagarin ratings) about 10 points better in average scoring margin than last years team and about 6 points better in average scoring margin than its Sagarin pre-season rating for the coming season.

Can they score 10 more points per game and not give up more points to their opponents than last year? Or, can they score less than 10 more and be stingier enough on defense to achieve an average 10 point per game better scoring margin?

Does anyone believe so?

 

[iMissTheOldDayss]

Lol, this team is not even close to what it was going to be without Dior, as much of a head case the kid is, he would’ve put us over the top

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Lol, this team is not even close to what it was going to be without Dior, as much of a head case the kid is, he would’ve put us over the top

Dior, if he was as good or better than expected, gave the team a chance to be that surprise team. Like a Miami from last year. Or Iowa State. Without him, its going to be tougher but I still believe this team is capable of putting together a bubble type season.

 

[JD1976]

I’m shocked by the optimism about the season on this board — optimism as in posts that this could be a bubble team. I hope I’m wrong, but Capel is still the coach and the guy hasn’t proven he can put a cohesive, winning team on the floor. I don’t see any better than 12-13 wins with 5 or 6 coming in the ACC.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

That also is not the worst case scenario.

Here are a few pre-season rankings I found for Pitt:

Pomeroy---#84--#13 ACC
Sagarin----#101---#14 ACC
CollegeSportsMadness---Unranked---Below #144 somewhere
TR Nexus---#103---#13 ACC
SBNation---Unranked---Below #60 somewhere
WarrenNolan---#193---#13 ACC

Hoping that as much a negative surprise we have had in football that we have an offsetting surprise in basketball---Proving all thsese ratings to be way too pessimistic.

ESPN now has its "gamecast' predictions for the coming season up.

In the OOC they have 6 games where they have Pitt given a greater than 50% chance of winning and 4 where they have Pitt given a less than 50% chance of winning. [Note: They don't have an expectation for the second game of the Legends Classic since it could either be Arizona State or VCU depending on the outcomes of their game 1 and Pitt's game 1 vs Michigan.]

For ACC games they have 8 games where they have Pitt given a greater than 50% chance of winning and 12 where they have Pitt given a less than 50% chance of winning.

In this specific case, summing all the ESPN game by game probabilities also suggests essentially the same numbers of wins---about 7-8 OOC (6.902 w/o Legends game #2) and about 8 ACC (8.459).

This suggests a possible scenario of something like 7-4 OOC + 8-12 ACC = 15-16 or 8-3 OOC + 8-12 ACC =16-15. Given the likelihood of winning some games they would be expected to lose and losing some they would be expected to win--overall this looks like one of various possible season's outcome that seems a reasonable guess at this point in time.

 

[gary2]

I’m shocked by the optimism about the season on this board — optimism as in posts that this could be a bubble team. I hope I’m wrong, but Capel is still the coach and the guy hasn’t proven he can put a cohesive, winning team on the floor. I don’t see any better than 12-13 wins with 5 or 6 coming in the ACC.

Optimism if Hugley plays from the start and plays like Hugley.

No Hugley, don't bother watching.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

Optimism if Hugley plays from the start and plays like Hugley.

No Hugley, don't bother watching.

Can probably win Tenn Martin and some others OOC w/o Hugley but you are right concerning West Virginia, Legends Classic, Northwestern and Vanderbilt OOC games and virtually all ACC games. Not much hope in these w/o Hugley and a healthy Hugley, at that.

 

[HailToPitt1985]

Really, how good is wvu?

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

Well, probably not very good this year. Nevertheless, ESPN has that game as one of the OOCs where Pitt has slightly less than a 50% shot at winning and that probably assumes Hugley is playing.

 

[Drew1208]

Really, how good is wvu?

Tre Mitchell might be hurt