The Associated Press |
The Pitt Men's basketball team has already clinched their worst overall win percentage in the Jeff Capel era. Even with a win tomorrow against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, they will still finish with their worst overall win percentage in the past four seasons. However, a win tomorrow, and some help, would secure the Panthers’ best seed in the ACC tournament since Jamie Dixon coached the team.
Pitt is currently tied for 11th in the ACC with
Louisville and Boston College. If they
win tomorrow, and Louisville and Boston College both lose, Pitt will be the 11th
seed in the ACC tournament. However, if
Pitt loses, and Louisville and Boston College both win, the Panthers would fall
to 13th. If there is a tie between two or all three of these teams, it gets a
little complicated.
If teams have the same conference record at the end of the
season, the first tie breaker is their head-to-head matchups against each
other. However, if the teams played
twice, and split the season series, there is a formula used. It is the teams’ records against the
top-ranked team in the conference, and if those are the same, it continues down
through the standings until a team gains an advantage.
Pitt split their two-game series against both Louisville and Boston College this season. Pitt, Louisville, and Boston College all lost to Duke this season, the clinched No. 1 seed in the ACC. Therefore, it would move the tie breaker on to the 2nd seed.
Right now,
North Carolina and Notre Dame are tied.
However, North Carolina lost to Notre Dame in their single game against
each other this season. So if both win
or both lose tomorrow, Notre Dame has the head-to-head tie breaker. Notre Dame plays against Pitt tomorrow, while
North Carolina plays against Duke, in Coach K’s last ever game at Cameron
Indoors. Tickets are going for over $5k and there will not be a louder venue in the next 20 years than what Cameron Indoors will be tomorrow. It’d take nothing short of a
miracle for the Tar Heels to win that game.
If North Carolina does win, and Notre Dame loses to Pitt,
Pitt has the tie breaker against both Louisville and Boston College in that
case. Pitt is the only one of those
three to have beaten the Tar Heels during the regular season. However, if Notre Dame takes that 2nd
spot, it gets dicey, especially if it’s because both the Irish and the Tar
Heels suffered losses. Notre Dame split
their season series against Boston College, as would be the case if they lose
to Pitt tomorrow. However, Louisville lost
both of their games against Notre Dame.
So Pitt would edge out Louisville, but not Boston College.
So if Louisville loses, but Pitt and Boston College both
win, and North Carolina is the 3rd seed, Pitt would have that tie
breaker as the only team of the two to beat the Tar Heels.
Fortunately, Miami loses in a tie breaker to both North
Carolina and Notre Dame, even if the Hurricanes win tomorrow, so the scenarios
outlined above should be the only ones we need to consider. Also, Wake Forest has already completed their
season so they have no way of gaining that 14th win that would put
them in contention for the 2nd seed.
However, Clemson could play a role in all of this as well, if
all three of Boston College, Louisville, and Pitt win, but that opens up a
whole new can of worms.
Regardless, Pitt’s best shot tomorrow is to just win baby,
win. Beating Notre Dame wouldn’t just
give them some momentum going into the ACC Tournament, but it’s their only shot
at gaining that 11th seed. If
Pitt did achieve that 11th seed, they would get to play one of
Georgia Tech or NC State in the first round.
Despite losing to Georgia Tech, I still believe the Panthers are better
than both of those teams.
It’s a far cry from the days of discussing #1 seeds in the
NCAA Tournament for the Panthers, but these are the scenarios we have to work with
now. Also, every conference tournament
winner gets an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament, so there’s always that
chance.