Bracketologist Evaluates Pitt's NCAA Tournament Chances

The Pitt Panthers have an outside chance of making the NCAA Tournament according to one bracketologist.

PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers have come storming back after a brutal start to ACC play, winning five of their last six games to pull back to .500 in conference over the past three weeks. 

As a result, the Panthers have found themselves back on the edge of the NCAA Tournament bubble but they still have a long way to go before they can be seriously considered for a bid, according to Fox Sports bracketologist Mike DeCourcy. They did themselves few favors before the turn of the new year, but a slim path to the Big Dance does exist, however. 

"They’re still sitting an average of 83 in record metrics," DeCoursey wrote on Twitter. "The [Missouri] loss and [Syracuse] sweep really hurt. When they made it last year, it was an average of 54 in that category. I think they need two of the three big road games to push this far enough."

The "three big road games" he references all come in February. The first and most difficult one - a trip to Charlottesville to face the red-hot Virginia Cavaliers - comes up next week after the Panthers take six days off. Virginia owns the longest winning streak in the ACC at seven games and has won 23 straight in John Paul Jones Arena. The Cavaliers currently sit second in the league standings behind North Carolina. 

Pitt will return home to face Louisville the following weekend and then turn around and play Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to face Wake Forest. The Panthers defeated the Demon Deacons at home last week but taking them down on the road - where they have yet to lose this season - will be another tall order. 

Another home game against Virginia Tech is all that stands between Pitt and their last big game of the season - a road trip to Clemson, who beat the Panthers by nine at the Petersen Events Center in late December. 

Pitt is a different team now than they were when ACC play began and they've given themselves life late. But after a slow start to the 2023-24 season, they'll need to pull out a Herculean effort down the stretch of the regular season if they want to make the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year. 

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