The unexplained love of Pittsburgh among Bracketologists

[Dano564]

Pittsburgh has been bouncing around the polls in the top 25 for much of the early part of the season.
Lately, they've started actually losing games and up until very recently, they've always been penciled in as a 6-8 seed.
Not until recently, with their RPI dropping like a rock floating through air, has some bracketologists even started to take an honest look at their resume, concentrating on the bubble teams that exist shuffling them up or down a couple spots with Pittsburgh still safe, with what I can assume is only a ACC bias keeping them as untouchable.

They now stand with an RPI of 52, and 79 of 85 bracketologist still have them in the tournament. That alone isn't shocking, it's also that many still have them as high as a 5 (5?!) seed, with several others around 7,8,9 as recently as two days ago.

They are 1-6 in the top 50. Their best win is vs #43 Stanford, a team purely on the bubble.

I'm a big fan of bracket matrix, but this seems to be a case of bracketologist following the herd for a long time vs evaluating the team against other bubble teams one resume against another.

 

[bemidjigopher]

Well good thing the committee doesn't just look at Lunardi and Palm's projections and call it a day. Also Clemson is beating Pitt right now

 

[Dano564]

Well good thing the committee doesn't just look at Lunardi and Palm's projections and call it a day. Also Clemson is beating Pitt right now

The last few days were the first time any of these 85 bracketologists decided to drop Pitt out.
Palm and Lunardi both like Pitt.
Yahoo's guy has usually been solid, not sure if it's the same guy this year, but he has Pitt as a 12.

 

[WanderingGopher]

If the selection committee actually watches the games all year, a team like Pitt (had no business winning today, a game that should have knocked them out) would not make it and a team like Minnesota would (several losses without their top player, several OT losses, including two on the road). Looking at paper resumes can be very misleading.

 

[howeda7]

I agree they haven't beat anybody. But if you play in the ACC and you win 22 games, you're probably getting in.

 

[PartoPitinosPosse]

SMU is another team that is considered an unquestionable lock to get in the tourney, yet the team has only 4 Top 100 wins, is 4-6 vs the Top 100, and has played fully 18 games vs teams rated 150+ in the rpi and actually lost 2 of those games. Their SOS is in the 3 digits.

In comparison the Gophers have only played 7 games vs that 150+ crowd and won all 7 of those games. Their SOS is Top 5, and they have 6 wins vs the Top 100, and 9 if you look at the Sagarin Ratings(and only 1 bad loss as well).

 

[SelectionSunday]

SMU

SMU is another team that is considered an unquestionable lock to get in the tourney, yet the team has only 4 Top 100 wins, is 4-6 vs the Top 100, and has played fully 18 games vs teams rated 150+ in the rpi and actually lost 2 of those games. Their SOS is in the 3 digits.

In comparison the Gophers have only played 7 games vs that 150+ crowd and won all 7 of those games. Their SOS is Top 5, and they have 6 wins vs the Top 100, and 9 if you look at the Sagarin Ratings(and only 1 bad loss as well).

SMU's nonconference SOS is #289. That's a number (anything in the 200s) that usually gets you sent to the NIT if you're sitting squarely on the bubble on Selection Sunday.

Pitt's nonconference SOS (#224) is in dicey territory, as well.