Column: Pitt on the ‘bubble’ with four games left

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Maryland head coach Mark Turgeon called Pitt a “top-five” team after the Panthers defeated his Terrapins in College Park, Md., a month ago. At the time, his point seemed sound.

Pitt had lost only twice when Pitt played Maryland on Jan. 25: first by five points at then-No. 2 Syracuse and a second time by one on a shot with seconds remaining at Madison Square Garden to a Cincinnati team that rose as high as seventh in the nation’s rankings. 

The losses kept coming, and a month to the date of that victory against the Terrapins, the Panthers are mired in a three-game losing streak. To boot, they’ve won just twice in the past month and are 4-6 in their last 10 games.

Don’t forget that two of those wins came against Miami and Virginia Tech, with the Panthers needing overtime to avoid an upset in Coral Gables, Fla., and two overtime periods to defeat the league’s worst team at home.

Now the Panthers (20-7, 8-6 ACC) have fallen into a tie for fifth place with Clemson and are just 1.5 games ahead of ninth-place Florida State. 

The team Turgeon and other coaches hailed as one of the nation’s best or most underrated teams received zero votes in the AP Top 25 poll after the Panthers lost to Florida State Sunday — Pitt’s worst loss of the season. 

With just four games remaining in Pitt’s season, it’s time to make judgments based off what has been seen and not heard. Whether it’s head coach Jamie Dixon not making “excuses” for his team’s recent play or the masses extolling Pitt’s virtues because the Panthers’ only losses came against ranked teams until Sunday, put those ideas to rest. 

Because right now, Pitt is on the bubble. 

ESPN.com bracketology expert Joe Lunardi projects Pitt as a No. 10 seed in this year’s Big Dance, but not even that is a guarantee, because according to Eamonn Brennan, purveyor of ESPN.com’s “Bubble Watch,” Pitt resides in the category of a team with “work left to do.”

Brennan wrote that before Pitt’s loss Sunday, which began the team’s run into the final stretch of the regular season.

The Panthers followed up an eight-day break with a dud against Florida State, a team that had lost seven of its last 10 games before the Seminoles arrived in Pittsburgh.

Beginning with Florida State, the Panthers are now in an eight-day stretch in which they play four games — at Boston College Wednesday, at Notre Dame Saturday, their final home contest next Monday against North Carolina State and at Clemson the following Saturday. 

Boston College (7-20, 3-11 ACC) and Notre Dame (14-14, 5-10 ACC) reside near the bottom of the conference, but the Golden Eagles accomplished something Pitt couldn’t do in two tries by defeating Syracuse. Let’s also not forget that the Fighting Irish always seem to play their best game of the season against the Panthers. Meanwhile, NC State (17-10, 7-7 ACC) is just a game behind the Panthers in the league standings. 

The Panthers have four chances to play off the bubble with no margin for error. A loss in any of their final four games would be a bad one and enough to knock the Panthers into heavy contention for a seed in the National Invitation Tournament, as opposed to an invitation to partake in March Madness. 

In the 11th hour of their first season as ACC members, the Panthers are reeling — and they have four games to stop the bleeding. 

Write to Nate at sports@pittnews.com.