If ever there was a year when Pittsburgh sports fans could have really used their teams as a pleasant distraction from the misery of the world around them, it was 2020.
Unfortunately, the teams didn’t really cooperate. The Steelers’ playoff loss Sunday night was the capstone to a six-month, post-pandemic odyssey in which nearly every local team served up some level of historic disappointment.
The Steelers, of course, turned an 11-0 start into a 1-5 finish, cemented by the defeat at the hands of a Cleveland team that hadn’t made the playoffs since 2002, hadn’t won on the road in the postseason since 1969 and entered the contest ravaged by COVID-19 exposure.
The Penguins limped through the early portions of the new year, then meekly bowed out of the qualifying round of the playoffs in just four games at the hands of the 24th-seeded Montreal Canadiens.
The Pirates finished with baseball’s worst record, failing to win even a third of their games.
The Pitt football team, a veteran group with high expectations for 2020, flopped quickly and finished a mediocre 6-5 before passing on a bowl game. The basketball team closed its campaign with eight losses in its final nine games and had no shot at March Madness before it was canceled because of the pandemic.
At Penn State, the basketball team was poised for its first NCAA Tournament berth in nearly a decade and only its second of the new millennium until the event was unceremoniously nixed. Then coach Pat Chambers resigned amid an internal report into his conduct, sending the program back into familiar turmoil. The football team started 0-5 and, like its rival, opted out of the postseason.
Robert Morris and Duquesne hoops produced about the only bright spots, with the Colonials winning the NEC and the Dukes posting their best record since the 1970s, but they too were denied resolution in postseason tournaments.
Between them, the teams produced just one postseason victory — the Penguins’ win in Game 2 of their series with the Canadiens. (Pitt also won a game in the ACC tournament, if you’d like to count it.)
Pretty bad, huh? Bad enough that it got the Post-Gazette staff wondering, has it ever been worse than this? That’s for you to decide, but here’s a look back at contenders for the title of worst Pittsburgh sports years since the Penguins started play in 1967-68.
2012
A sneaky entry sandwiched between some happy periods. The Steelers missed the playoffs at 8-8, just two years after a Super Bowl appearance. The Pirates, despite leading the division as late as July, collapsed in the second half for a second straight year to finish with their 20th consecutive losing campaign. And the Penguins turned a great regular season into a humiliating postseason series defeat at the hands of rival Philadelphia in which Marc-Andre Fleury gave up an unbelievable number of goals. Pitt had a miserable year, too. The football team finished 6-7 under first-year coach Paul Chryst and was subjected to its third-straight trip to the BBVA Compass Bowl. The hoops team missed March Madness for the first time in 10 years. And at Penn State, the football team finished an unremarkable-if-admirable 8-4 in its first season since Joe Paterno’s firing, while the basketball team scuffled after the stars of its 2011 tournament team graduated.
2003
The Steelers made three AFC title games in five years from 2001-2005. In between, a Tommy Maddox-led bunch stunk it up just enough that the franchise was able to select Ben Roethlisberger at No. 11 overall in the following year’s draft. Their 6-10 record was among their worst in decades. The Penguins finished 23-47-8-4 in their final pre-Sidney Crosby season as the NHL careened toward a yearlong lockout. The Pirates, propped up by journeymen including Matt Stairs and Reggie Sanders, finished only 12 games under .500 amid their 20-year skid. Pitt football squandered a top-10 ranking to finish 8-5, even as receiver Larry Fitzgerald finished as a Heisman Trophy finalist. Penn State football had its worst season in decades at 3-9, and the hoops team finished 7-21 en route to firing coach Jerry Dunn, who’d led the Nittany Lions to the Sweet 16 only two years prior. Pitt basketball, however, managed to salvage one gleaming highlight, peaking at No. 2 in the polls and winning the Big East title en route to a second consecutive regional semifinal appearance.
1988
It wasn’t outright awful. The Pirates turned in a solid-by-modern-standards 85-75 record. The Penguins, led by a young Mario Lemieux, posted their best mark in more than a decade. And Pitt hoops was quite competitive, finishing at No. 8 in the polls after a second-round loss in the NCAA Tournament. The Steelers were pretty bad, though, at 5-11. And like this year, neither Pitt nor Penn State played in a bowl game. Pitt’s first-round March Madness victory was the only postseason victory from the lot of them, making this year a decent parallel for 2020 — some good if you look for it, but little final success of any distinction.
1985
It’s hard to imagine how it could have gone much worse for the pro teams. The Steelers had the “best” finish of the three at 7-9. The Pirates, meanwhile, had their fourth-worst season ever with 104 losses amid the infamous Pittsburgh drug trials. And the Penguins were just as bad at 24-51-5 in Lemieux’s rookie year. In the college ranks, Penn State football was great at 11-1 with an Orange Bowl victory and the Pitt hoops team made the NCAA Tournament, though the football team was a thoroughly mediocre 5-5-1.
1968
The Penguins’ debut season was predictably expansion-y, with the new franchise posting a losing record. But even if you give them a pass for being newbies, it was a lousy year around town. The Steelers were a dreadful 2-11. The Pirates narrowly posted a losing record. And Pitt football found itself at its modern nadir with a 1-9 mark for the third time in as many years. None of the basketball teams were any good either, as Duquesne was still a year away from a top-10 finish. Only Penn State football was any good with a perfect 11-0 record that included an Orange Bowl victory.
Dishonorable mentions
2019, 1999, 1998 — Three different seasons with the same basic outcome. Solid seasons from the Penguins with earlier-than-expected playoff exits. Decent years by Penn State football. Varying degrees of struggles from everyone else.
2006 — No playoffs for any of the pro teams. Pitt basketball reached the Sweet 16 and Penn State football was solid at 9-4.
Adam Bittner: abittner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @fugimaster24.
First Published: January 12, 2021, 12:00 p.m.
