Pitt Opponent Blasts Big 12 Bias in Rankings

The Pitt Panthers could miss out on the NCAA Tournament because metrics don't value their conference schedule highly.

PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers and Clemson Tigers are preparing for a marquee matchup with ACC Tournament and NCAA Tournament implications on the line at Littlejohn Coliseum tonight. 

Clemson head coach Brad Brownell was frustrated in the lead up to this matchup with Pitt because of how these two teams and their conference have been judged in NCAA Tournament conversations over the past two seasons. He believes the ACC isn't getting the benefit of the doubt like the Big XII, widely considered the best league in the sport, because they have been able to "manipulate" things like the NCAA NET Rankings.

“A couple of things that folks don’t understand, you can manipulate the NET," Brownell said Monday on WCCP The Roar in South Carolina. "And there’s a strength of schedule dynamic where the Big 12 has managed it with their scheduling. Their non-conference scheduling, they’re playing 300 level teams and winning by 40 and 50 points to increase their offensive and defensive efficiency numbers, which is a big part of the NET tool. So that’s why you see teams trying to win at the end of games by 30 or 40 points instead of putting in your walk-ons."

The Big XII has 10 teams ranked in the top 50 of the NET and the ACC has just six. Pitt checks in at No. 47 while Clemson sits at No. 23. ESPN's Joe Lunardi and Fox Sports' Mike DeCourcy both have nine Big XII teams in their latest NCAA Tournament projections compared to just five from the ACC. 

A weak out of conference schedule is one of the things that has hurt the Panthers as they try to mount a late-season push into the NCAA Tournament picture. Their strength of schedule is ranked 84th overall but the non-conference portion of their regular season opponents is ranked 342nd - the 20th worse in all of Division I - by KenPom. A similar problem plagued Clemson last season. 

“I really think it kept us out of the tournament last year and that’s not right,” Brownell said.

And with the ACC considered widely to be the fifth-best conference in Division I, even impressive wins against Duke, Wake Forest and Virginia do not make up the difference needed for Pitt. 

Brownell argued that the head-to-head results from this season prove that the ACC is just as good, if not better than the Big XII, with the only difference being how the Big XII has gamed the rankings systems with their schedules. 

“We played TCU, beat TCU, TCU’s doing well in the Big 12. And I remember preparing for the TCU game and telling my staff, ‘Look who they’ve played. They haven’t played anybody. Every game is Abilene Christian and Houston Baptist,’" Brownell said. "We’re getting ready to play them and we’ve already played a really hard schedule. But look at their NET. Their NET rankings get up and then when they beat each other up they don’t have bad losses.”

ACC teams went 9-3 in head-to-head matchups against the Big XII this season. 

“Our league has zero teams in the top 50 of the NET that have a non-conference strength of schedule 250 or higher. The Big 12 has six teams,” Brownell said. “Cincinnati is a great example. They had a bad week last week and lost two games. They’ve been in the field for a while now and they really haven’t beaten anybody. Their non-conference schedule is awful. TCU – awful, Iowa State – awful. So those guys have figured it out. Our league hasn’t.” 

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