Pitt receives 1st NCAA Tournament bid since 2016, will meet Mississippi State in First Four

Jamarius Burton talked about how Pitt’s players are “grateful and blessed” to be a part of the NCAA Tournament.

He also noted that his and his teammates’ reaction ranged from “joy to hunger” when they heard the news that Pitt (22-11) will play the SEC’s Mississippi State (21-12) on Tuesday in one of four First Four games.

You know, happy to be invited but with a point to prove.

Nelly Cummings, Greg Elliott ready to “make a point.” pic.twitter.com/qiTSEc3NCG

— Jerry DiPaola (@JDiPaola_Trib) March 12, 2023

The First Four, hosted by Dayton, offers eight teams the opportunity to be part of the 64-team field. A victory will send the 11th-seeded Panthers to Greensboro, N.C. — site of the just-completed ACC Tournament — on Friday to play No. 6 Iowa State (19-13) of the Big 12 in a Midwest Regional first-round game.

Pitt is seeded lower than three teams it defeated: No. 4 Virginia, No. 5 Miami and No. 7 Northwestern. Plus, in the case of 11th-seeded N.C. State (a team Pitt beat Dec. 2), the Panthers are forced to play an extra game while the Wolfpack go directly into the tournament.

That situation might provide fuel for Pitt’s players who felt disrespected way back in October when Pitt was picked to finish 14th in the 15-team ACC.

“That’s something we talked about as a group,” point guard Nelly Cummings said. “We want to definitely go out and make a point in that first game because we felt like we should have got a higher seed.”

Yet, Pitt’s season of rebirth still included losses to teams such as Michigan, by 31 points, and Florida State (at home), Virginia Tech and Notre Dame. None of those four teams are in the tournament, and the latter three have losing records in the ACC. Notre Dame, in fact, won only two other conference games.

Miami avenged that loss to Pitt in the final regular-season game, and the Panthers also lost to eventual ACC Tournament champion Duke, 96-69, in its most recent game last Thursday. Pitt has lost four of its past seven games.

“We haven’t defended well in about a month,” coach Jeff Capel said.

But he isn’t sure what metric was used to decide seedings and berths.

“They say margin of victory is not supposed to be part of the criteria,” he said. “Maybe it is. I wish they would have weighed the Northwestern win a little bit more, if that’s part of the metric.”

Pitt defeated Northwestern, 87-58, on the road in November.

Capel also noted that Pitt has four Quad 1 victories (by the NCAA Net rankings’ metric), 15 against ACC opponents and the wins against Virginia and Miami at home.

“I think we did enough to be in this tournament,” Capel said. “Could we have been seeded higher? Possibly. But you have to talk to the people on the committee with that.”

In the end, though, Capel said being seeded 11th and having to play an extra game is “fine.”

He knows — better than anyone — that Pitt was winless in the ACC in 2018 and hasn’t been to the tournament since 2016. No matter the seedings or the circumstances, Pitt’s body of work clearly stands out among the previous six Pitt teams.

“We’re just excited and honored to be a part of it,” Capel said. “It’s awesome. I’m just happy for these guys. They’ve worked. They fought. We’ve won, and I think it’s something that’s earned. For this group to be the group to get back to the Big Dance is a pretty, pretty cool doggone thing. You embrace the opportunity.

“There are a lot of coaches and players right now that would give anything to have heard their name.”

That said, it’s time to get to work. Pitt’s players and coaches spent a good part of Sunday night studying Mississippi State video and stats.

The task at hand will include little time to prepare for a team that had a similar path as Pitt’s in its conference tournament: beating Florida in overtime and losing to the eventual champion Alabama, 72-49.

The Bulldogs won 11 of their 21 games before Christmas, but finished 8-10 in the SEC regular season.

Pitt senior guard Greg Elliott, who said he spends a lot of time studying college basketball, said the Panthers must find a way to neutralize Mississippi State’s 6-foot-11, 245-pound forward Tolu Smith, who averages 15.8 points and 8.5 rebounds.

“He is going to cause havoc on the offensive glass,” Elliott said.