Part of me thinks I should wait until the end of the regular season for this, but there is some time now. When the season schedule was announced I was very upset with the non-con. I noted the RPI from Pitt’s opponents averaged out to about 184.91. Time to look at how the RPI of the non-con teams looks. This is based on the RPI configured on Feb. 13, and so games (like South Carolina over Kentucky) are not factored into it.
Opponent — 2005 RPI – 2004 RPI
Howard ——- 314 ——– 321
Robt. Morris — 206 ——– 217
Loyola-MD —- 308 ——- 322
St. Francis-PA – 174 ——- 249
Duquesne —— 287 ——- 162
Memphis ——- 109 ——- 32
Penn St. ——– 225 ——- 189
Coppin St. —— 117 ——– 234
Richmond —— 120 ——— 47
S. Carolina —— 76 ———- 45
Bucknell ——– 70 ——— 216
—————————————–
AVG. RPI —- 182.36 —– 184.91
While the Average RPI is slightly better than projected from last year, the overall meaning of the numbers is worse. Unless South Carolina gets exceptionally hot and makes a run in the SEC Tournament, Pitt will have a non-con schedule where they did not face a single top-50 RPI opponent. And barring some upsets in the conference tournaments, Pitt will at best have only South Carolina to point to in the NCAA tournament as a non-con team they played and beat.
You can make the counter argument that no one knew that Memphis and Richmond would tumble so far. Or that PSU or Duquesne would be that much worse, but that just further exposed the problems with this non-con strategy. There was no wiggle room on the schedule for the few “name” opponents to be that bad.
Why go on about it? After all, Pitt is clearly going to the NCAA Tournament, and barring an absolute collapse should finish with no more than 5 conference losses heading into the BE Tournament. It’s the seeding. Pitt will once more take a big hit when the selection committee starts seeding teams. They will look at the non-con schedule and penalize Pitt for it. Unless Pitt wins the BE Tournament, Pitt will be a #4 seed with some luck. More likely, they will end up a #5 or even a #6 seed.
The excuse — “well we had a not of new players to work in” — just doesn’t wash and is self-perpetuating. A good program is always going to have that. Last year, it was replacing Brandon Knight and Ontario Lett. This year, Page and Brown. Next year, it will be Troutman and Taft. Krauser, the year after that, and so on.
Pitt’s RPI is now at #51. It will obviously be heading north when the Syracuse win is factored into it, and hopefully at least 3 more after that. Including the ‘Cuse game, the RPI of Pitt’s last 6 opponents is 29. Very necessary to win the majority of these games. Especially when you consider that the RPI of Pitt’s first 10 BE games averaged out to 93.3.
If AD Jeff Long and Coach Dixon aren’t already working on next year’s non-con schedule and opponents, they should be.
