Correct me if I'm wrong here.
1 Auburn (Duke)
9 Kentucky (Clemson)
24 Michigan (Wake)
28 WVU (Pitt)
29 Pedos (Clem)
35 Ohio St (Pitt)
37 Dayton (UNC)
54 San Francisco (Clem)
58 LSU (Pitt)
58 LSU (SMU)
65 Villanova (UVa)
78 Washington St (SMU)
Only 9 wins over P4 teams (counting Wake's win over a really bad Minnesota team)? The SEC won 14 in 2 days in the ACC/SEC Challenge.
Thank you. Some other numbers to consider:
Pitt has 3 of these quality non-conference wins, including a road win at Ohio State, a double figure win on a neutral court over an SEC team, LSU, which has 3 non-conference wins over Power 4 schools, and a 24 point home win over a WVU team that beat Gonzaga and Arizona on a neutral court. That all sounds pretty good, and I suggest you include it in your ongoing summaries and updates
The SEC has had a remarkable non-conference season and the ACC does seem somewhat down. It could be transitory or indicative of changes that are happening in college athletics. I suspect somewhere in the middle. But given the ACC's remarkable success in the tournament, year after year, including 8 national champions by then-ACC members in the past 25 tournaments, and most recently with 3 teams in the Elite 8 last year while the other 30+ conferences had 5, the ACC gets the benefit of the doubt with me until proven otherwise over a reasonable period of time.
The Big East is certainly a power conference in basketball too, with 10 national champions by then conference members in the past 25 tournaments, compared to 3 for the SEC and 1 for the Big 10, so Power 5 is more accurate.
Then current and still current members of the Big East and ACC have won 9 of the last 11 national championships. Then current members of the Big East won 6 of these, more than all the other conferences combined. The SEC has won zero. So I might pump the brakes a bit on the SEC domination narrative.
I also do not expect the SEC to dominate the tournament the way they have dominated the non-conference. I expect they will do well, in part because they will have a lot of bids and good seeds, and deservedly so, and because, as you have pointed out, they have upgraded coaching. But NCAA games are called differently and the SEC advantage in raw athleticism, which they have had for decades, is important but not quite as important, in the tournament.
I have not looked at conference by conference performance. But I expect to see what I always see. Too many bids and favorable seeds given to the Big Ten. Perhaps some year they will earn them.
Hopefully, Pitt will be judged on its own merits. The lower ratings of the ACC teams will put a little more pressure on Pitt to do well in conference, both to get in and, if they do, for seeding. But the ratings are not that low and road games are tough in any league. The Mississippi State margin may hurt a bit but the LSU win undercuts the narrative that Pitt cannot play with SEC teams. It would be nice if the teams we beat would stop having key injuries and roster issues and do reasonably well in their conferences.
All that said, Pitt had an excellent non-conference season, assuming they can win today. They just need to get healthy and stay healthy and play to their ability and they should be OK.
Best regards and Happy Holidays to all.
