It has been a couple decades since Pitt the waning days of the college basketball season wondering if they did/will/can do enough to make the NCAA Tournament. It has been rather straight forward for Pitt. Either they were clearly good enough that the issue was seeding. Or the Panthers were simply bad and not in the conversation. As such, the understanding of the bubble can be a bit confusing.

So, to simplify things, I’m going to put a little primer on Pitt’s situation. It’s not all encompassing, but it hits the key point.

Quick disclaimer, I hate “bubble talk” while the season is ongoing. That major media outlets start talking about in January is right up there with mock-drafts months before the event. It has become more pervasive on-line, however, for one simple reason. People not only click on the stuff. They engage and argue passionately — albeit, meaninglessly — about it. They get ridiculously fired up for no reason.

Talking about the bubble once the season ends, before, during and especially after the conference tournaments. I’m all in.

With my disdain in mind, it is time to start.

1. Any talk of Pitt and their place on the bubble deals with right this minute. Not by the end of the season. Not after the ACC Tournament. It is all about what they have done to this point. Once you start saying things like, “…but, what happens if…” you are going into speculation and all the variables start to kick in that lead to the arguments

2. You are biased.Even if you watch a ton of college basketball, you have almost certainly watched Pitt the most frequently. You are much more familiar with their work than other teams. Especially other teams about in the same position Pitt finds themselves. Quickly looking at another school’s resume does not make you knowledgeable of their status.

[As a corollary to this, don’t cherry pick your numbers to confirm your biases. I am aware of my own issues with this. I love tempo-free stats. Especially the work on KenPom.com. In past years, Pitt has been a darling of that rating. Even moreso at points than the RPI. That has led me to citing it more often than RPI. This year, though, Pitt is getting destroyed in the KenPom and most tempo-free computer/stat ratings because of the defensive issues. The RPI, however, has been much kinder to Pitt. So I have found myself looking at that a little closer and even citing it because it makes Pitt look better.]

3. Ignore what announcers say about bubble teams during the game. If there is an SEC game on ESPN, you can bet the announcers will puff bubble SEC teams (Georgia, LSU, maybe even Florida and Alabama).  Big 10? Michigan State is now a lock. In an ACC broadcast, all of the sudden Pitt looks like it is surging into the field with NC State. Why? Because in preparation for the conference game, they get tons of talking points, data out of context and information. Not just from the schools on the court — which may not include said bubble teams — but the conference itself. Conference flacks are vested not only in those teams playing at that moment but making the entire conference look really good and pushing their members forward.

4. It is not just the big wins, but also the bad losses. It cannot be stated how bad that loss to VT was for Pitt. It was losing-to-Rutgers bad. Sub-200 loss. Glaring, glaring loss. Couple it with the loss to Hawai’i — who had been looking almost respectable for most of the season, but is now free-falling — and it is the biggest reason Pitt is not discussing seed rather than place on the bubble.

Last year, while Pitt had no great wins during the regular season, they also lacked any bad losses that provided an excuse to leave them out of the dance.

Once you have those basics, it’s time to try and read the tea leaves with every game that matters.

5. Unless you have beaten the team trying to pull an upset, you have to root chalk. Teams that are already safely in the field just can keep rolling because it reduces the potential field of teams below.

When Kentucky goes to Georgia next Tuesday, every impulse will scream for the big upset. No, Georgia is a bubble team while Kentucky is a lock. Can’t root for the chaos and fun that would come from that upset. Probably the worst thing about being a fan of a team on the bubble in my view. Takes the fun out of those things.

Kansas State beating Kansas last night was good for Pitt. Very good as it likely pushed K-State back up in various ratings. Suddenly that K-State wins is back to being a win over an RPI/Ken-Pom/BPI top-100 team. There aren’t many of those.

Now when it is in conference games, it gets a little trickier. Louisville-GT last night saw the Yellow Jackets find yet another excruciating way to blow/lose a game. Pitt would have benefited more from a GT win since it would have ticked GT’s numbers up to make the win look better. Louisville losing would have been negligible for Pitt since their computer numbers wouldn’t move out of the top-25. Still would have been losses to a top-25 team.

6. Other bubble teams need to fail. Runs along the same lines of rooting for chalk. Here’s a list of just some of the teams that need bad losses or losing streaks: Cinci, Butler, OK St., St. John’s, Illinois, UCLA, Stanford, LSU and Georgia. When they lose, then Pitt looks better and rises by default.

7. No losing. It all becomes moot if Pitt loses any of their last four games. BC and WF would be bad losses. Miami would be a loss to another team on the bubble. Failing to finish at FSU for the season would just be another game that Pitt could not win on the road this year.

Even then, I think Pitt would need at least one win in the ACC Tourney to make the strongest case.

Snap judgments after every game. Every opponent’s game is just working yourself up for no reason. There’s still 2 weeks until the conference tournaments.

Oh, and if Virginia Tech could pull off the miracle win against Duke or UVa, that would probably help.