Despite losing three starters and its best player to the NBA, the Pitt men’s basketball team… Despite losing three starters and its best player to the NBA, the Pitt men’s basketball team opens its season ranked No. 20 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ poll.

The Panthers are opening the season ranked in the top 25 for the fifth consecutive year, and for the ninth time in the program’s history.

North Carolina was voted the top team in the nation just barely ahead of former Pitt coach Ben Howland’s UCLA Bruins and Memphis.

Pitt is one of five Big East teams ranked in the poll, which was released late last week.

Georgetown, which was voted by the conference coaches as the co-favorite to win the Big East regular season title, is the highest, ranked at No. 5. The Hoyas return four starters and added a heralded recruiting class in the offseason.

The Louisville Cardinals, also voted co-favorite to win the conference, is right behind at No. 6.

The Big East coaches voted Pitt to finish fourth in the conference, also behind Marquette, which was ranked No. 12 in the poll.

The Panthers were picked to win the conference last year, and were ranked fifth in the Coaches’ poll and fourth in the Associated Press poll in the preseason. The AP will release its preseason poll on Nov. 5.

The slight drop in this year’s rankings and projections could be the result of losing third-team All-American center Aaron Gray and starters Levon Kendall and Antonio Graves.

Still, the Panthers return six of nine players that contributed last year, including point guard Levance Fields, who was picked by the Big East coaches for the conference’s preseason honorable mention team.

Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon also brought in a talented recruiting class that was ranked by several recruiting services in the top 25.

But Darnell Dodson, part of that class, recently transferred to Miami Dade Community College because of issues concerning the NCAA’s Clearinghouse guidelines.