Pitt absent from early top 25 lists

Preseason top 25 rankings, the kind released within hours of a championship game’s final horn, are inherently useless, something even the outlets publishing them acknowledge with modifiers like ”Way-too-early”. They exist because people read them in droves, but they provide little in the way of insight and substance, especially when, at that point, there’s no firm idea of what players (or, in some cases, coaches) are returning.

Once a few weeks pass, however, a clearer picture emerges. This year, with the new rules in place for players entering the NBA draft, that moment of clarity took until late May to arrive. Now -— barring injuries, late commitments or some sort Baylor-esque catastrophe that throws an entire program into chaos -— the teams as they stand now are the ones that will take the court in early November when the season begins. And those early rankings have been updated to reflect that.

So where does that leave Pitt? Even with the uncertainty of a coaching change, the Panthers bring back six of their seven leading scorers from last season. Realistically, it’s a squad that could or should be on the precipice of these early rankings, if not included in them. The early results, though, indicate otherwise, as Pitt was not listed among the top 20-25 teams by several major outlets.

ESPN: Not ranked or included in honorable mention

Yahoo!: Not ranked, but included in ’others worthy of consideration’

CBS Sports: Not ranked

NBC Sports: Not ranked or included in ’others considered’

SB Nation: Not ranked or included in ’next five’

The Big Lead: Not ranked

ESPN Bracketology: Not included in the field

None of this is too damning or worth getting too worked up about, though I’m really surprised that Pitt — which returns all but one important contributor from a team that made last year’s NCAA tournament as a 10 seed — didn’t make Joe Lunardi’s early tournament field (if that does come to fruition, I can’t imagine the heat Kevin Stallings, already a pretty unpopular hire, would be facing).

These lists make one thing clear to me, though — the season really just needs to get here.

Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG