Some will tell you that bracketology is an art, others will tell you that it is a crapshoot. I belong in the latter group, and as such have decided to take a stab at predicting where Virginia will fall on Selection Sunday.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the first and probably only edition of… Packline-ology!
But first, a quick glance at where the so-called experts place the Hoos in their most recent brackets. Bracket Matrix — a site that compiles 134 brackets into one extensive matrix — currently has Virginia as the final team on the four-line. That’s encouraging, though the credibility of that number goes down when taking into account that a fair few of those brackets have not been updated recently.
So let’s also take a quick peek at where some of the foremost sports media outlets put the Hoos. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has them as a four seed, CBS’s Jerry Palm a five, and NCAA.com’s Andy Katz a seven. Lunardi’s four is about as far up as you will find UVA, Katz’s seven the furthest down.
Most Virginia fans will probably tell you that their team is certainly not playing like a four or five seed, and hell, maybe not even like a seven seed. That would imply that only 27 other programs are currently playing better, and I don’t think it’s very controversial to label that statement false.
And yet, brackets are not built on the events of a few weeks. Perhaps the members of the committee place some emphasis on recent play, but at the end of the day they are there to evaluate the season as a whole.
Another thing to consider is that the ACC is very much in a down year. Of the six power conferences, the ACC stands only above the Pac-12 and the Big East, and even then there is little to choose from between ACC and Big East.
With those things in mind, and after careful deliberation, I’ve come to the conclusion that Virginia is presently a five seed. That said, I would place them as the final five seed, behind the likes of Purdue, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State but ahead of USC, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
But let’s pump the brakes real quick. I mentioned right off the bat that bracketology is a crapshoot, and with games still to play this is by no means a definitive assessment.
The Hoos can still grow their stock with a win over Louisville and a couple of ACCT victories. They can also damage it by losing to the Cardinals and crashing out of the tournament.
Either way, the upcoming period is a crucial one regarding where Virginia falls on the bracket.
ACC Tournament seeding
Forecasting NCAA Tournament seeds may be a difficult practice, but doing the same for the ACC Tournament is a considerably easier undertaking. It becomes even less challenging at this point of the season, when multiple spots are already locked in and each team only has one game to play.
Virginia and Florida State have already secured the top two spots, but there is plenty of movement to be made elsewhere.
Let’s operate under the assumption that the Noles fill the top spot and the Hoos the second. For that to be reversed FSU would have to lose to Notre Dame and Virginia would have to beat Louisville. It’s a pretty safe bet that both of those things won’t happen.
With that in mind, as the two seed Virginia will get the double-bye and face the 7/10/15 seed in the quarterfinals. The seven spot is down to either Clemson or North Carolina, which is important because it means Virginia will avoid Georgia Tech, who is by some margin the hottest team in the conference. As for 10 and 15, there are so many teams to fill those spots it’s not even worth discussing.
There remain myriad possibilities for the following rounds, ones which will start to take shape with an ACC doubleheader on Friday. Those games will solidify some of the lower seeds, and the rest of the bracket will be finalized the next day.
But Virginia is already locked into a top-two seed, and the focus of Saturday’s game now shifts to building momentum for the tournaments that will follow.
Image – Virginia Athletics