Virginia will kick off their title defense with a matchup against 13th-seeded Ohio, the game set to tip at 7:15 PM EST Saturday on truTV. It will take place inside Indiana University’s Assembly Hall, a venue that a Virginia team has never played at. The Hoos will be without one player after a positive COVID-19 test knocked them out of the ACC Tournament. Speculation is rife that Morsell is the unlucky one, and further comments by Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim have given some credence to that idea. Whatever the case, the positive test significantly altered Virginia’s schedule for the tournament. The Hoos will have a team practice Friday morning, and then travel to the Hoosier state, where they will have to test again before driving to Bloomington for a practice Saturday before the 7:15 tip. These disturbances could serve to put Virginia at a slight competitive disadvantage. Tony Bennett will have to pull his team together in what limited time he has, because the Hoos have drawn a dangerous Ohio squad in the first round.

The NCAA Tournament is back, and Virginia will enter it as the 4-seed in the West Region. The region is headlined by number-one overall seed Gonzaga, but the Hoos will have to traverse a dangerous field of opponents before they can even think about the Zags. The past week has been marked with increasing concern over Virginia’s COVID-19 problems. Saturday night they passed the first checkpoint, however, as they were declared eligible for the NCAA Tournament. The Hoos are by no means out of the woods though. At least one player will not be traveling to Indianapolis, and the trip itself has been delayed until Friday by COVID protocols. We’ll hold off on making picks until later in the week, but for now here’s a quick rundown of every team in Virginia’s quadrant of the bracket.

On Friday morning, the college basketball world was hit with a bombshell: a player within the Virginia program had tested positive for COVID-19, ending the Cavaliers’ ACC Tournament run and placing their NCAA Tournament status in serious jeopardy. This news came just a day after a similar occurrence within the Duke program, a staff member testing positive and effectively ending their season. But there is one big difference between the two situations. For Duke, the ACC Tournament was a last gasp, a desperate ploy to steal an automatic bid and make the big dance. For Virginia, the ACC Tournament was an important part of the season, but the Hoos had already locked up an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Now that is in serious danger. So let’s take a look at what’s going on, and the protocols that could decide whether the Hoos get to go Indy.

Reece Beekman’s last made three came on February 10th during an away game at Georgia Tech. He came into Virginia’s quarterfinal matchup with Syracuse having gone six games in a row without hitting a shot from beyond the arc. And it looked very much like another game would be added to that tally. That is, until he caught the ball on the wing with two seconds left and the game knotted at 69. The ball left his hands with under a second left to play, the buzzer sounding just as it hit the top of its parabola. The bench stood up, the players looked on, and Beekman held his pose as the ball approached the net. And then it dropped. And the bench erupted. And Tony Bennett gave a small but powerful air-punch. And Beekman led his teammates on a sprint around the court as UVA fans rejoiced and celebrated their unlikely hero….

Virginia will take on eighth-seeded Syracuse in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals, the Orange having defeated ninth-seeded NC State in the second round. It will be the second matchup between the two teams this season, Virginia blowing Syracuse out 81-58 at John Paul Jones Arena the first time around. But Jim Boeheim’s squad has undergone significant improvement since then, and with plenty on the line for both sides this promises to be a tightly contested battle.

After winning the ACC regular season title, Virginia will look to repeat the feat with a tournament championship. The Hoos will carry the number one seed into Greensboro, having edged out Florida State on Saturday. The ACC Tournament starts Tuesday afternoon at 2, but Virginia will not take the court until Thursday at noon. Let’s take a look at Virginia’s path to a second tournament title in three tries.

Virginia never trailed in their regular season finale against Louisville, grabbing the lead just three seconds in and holding onto it for the duration of the game. The Hoos came into the game with a chance for an improbable ACC title, and didn’t let it slip by as they won their 10th regular season crown ever and fifth under Tony Bennett. The rock-solid performance they mustered is even more surprising when given their recent play. Coming into the game, the Hoos had dropped three out of four, the lone victory over Miami doing little to instill confidence. But that narrative was flipped on its head with what was perhaps Virginia’s most important win of the season. The Hoos will now carry the number one seed into Greensboro for the ACC Tournament, having pulled themselves out of the quagmire that they were bogged down in for the last few weeks. Here are three takeaways from the victory.

After defeating Miami at home on Monday, Virginia will travel to Louisville to conclude their regular season. The Hoos had lost three in a row before facing Miami, but they stopped the bleeding against the Hurricanes and will now look to build off the victory. They will get a chance to do so in the KFC Yum! Center, a place that holds many happy memories for the visiting Wahoos. The Yum! Center was the site of that incredible 2019 Elite Eight victory, and is also the place where De’Andre Hunter banked in a three to win at the buzzer just weeks before. The Cardinals were the last team Virginia faced last season, and a year later they will meet again with postseason implications on the line.

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!