Will Virginia Make the NCAA Tournament? Selection Sunday Bracketology Update

Could the NC State loss and some unlucky breaks with bid-stealing result in UVA missing the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years?

Selection Sunday has arrived. For the first time in at least a decade, Virginia finds itself as one of the nervous Bubble teams on this fateful decision day, unsure of its postseason fate and sweating out the final hours until the official 68-team bracket for the NCAA Tournament is revealed. 

Although the Cavaliers could do nothing further on the court to improve or damage their NCAA Tournament positioning after their heartbreaking loss to NC State in the ACC semifinals on Friday night, plenty has happened on other courts around the country and across the Division I men's basketball landscape to impact UVA's odds. And unfortunately for Tony Bennett and company, the winds have shifted in the wrong direction. 

At the start of the week, it seemed Virginia was in a "win and you're in situation", which meant that UVA's overtime victory over Boston College in the ACC quarterfinals should have all but cemented an at-large bid. But that line of thinking relied on the assumption that at least some of the other teams on the Bubble would lose earlier than Virginia in their respective conference tournaments and that the Bubble would not significantly shrink in size due to bid-stealing. If you're at all unfamiliar with the concept of bid-stealing, not to worry, there have been four such examples in the last few days that we'll get into later when we explain how those bid thieves are likely to push Virginia out of the tournament. 

But for now, let's stick with the Bubble. The teams right around the cut line of the projected field performed remarkably well in their conference tournaments this week, which meant that there continued to be too many qualified teams for too few spots in the tournament. Virginia therefore did not indisputably secure an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament with the win over Boston College, but could have taken a big step towards doing so with a victory over NC State in the semifinals. And thus, the Cavaliers' brutal loss to the Wolfpack in which they blew a six-point lead with less than minute left in regulation, gave up a borderline miraculous buzzer-beating three to Michael O'Connell to send the game into overtime, and ultimately fell 73-65, became all the more devastating. 

But the true cost of Virginia's loss to the No. 10 seed NC State was not fully revealed until Saturday night, when the Wolfpack completed the impossible feat, winning five-straight games in five-straight days and knocking off No. 1 seed North Carolina to claim their first ACC Tournament title since 1987 and secure the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. That is the definition of stolen bid, as even with these five wins this week, NC State still had little chance of earning an at-large bid. But now, the Wolfpack are going dancing as the ACC's automatic qualifier, removing an available bid from the outside margins of the field and shrinking the Bubble. 

This season has been an unlucky one for teams on the Bubble. In the last three days, there have been four instances of bid-stealing, including three on Saturday alone. It started with Dayton losing to Duquesne in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Tournament on Thursday. The Flyers will still get an at-large bid, while the A-10 AQ will go to either Duquesne or VCU, neither of whom had a chance for an at-large. Bid thief #1. 

Temple knocked off Florida Atlantic in the semifinals of the AAC Tournament. FAU will still get in with an at-large, while Temple will battle UAB on Sunday for the AAC's automatic bid. Bid thief #2. Then came NC State making history with its win over North Carolina in the ACC title game and Oregon taking down Colorado to win the Pac-12. Neither the Wolfpack nor the Ducks were projected to make the NCAA Tournament at the beginning of the week and of course, their conferences will still be represented with multiple at-large bids. Bid thieves #3 and #4. 

The outcome of four stolen bids is that the Bubble shifts down, with teams that were previously safely in the tournament dropping closer to dangerous territory near the cut line, and teams that were right on the margin, like Virginia, possibly dropping completely out of the tournament at the last second. 

But that's where it becomes a guessing game, as Bracketologists like Joe Lunardi try to predict how the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, a 12-member panel of athletic directors and conference commissioners, will order the teams on the Bubble based on historical data and trends. In his most recent Bracketology update posted on X late on Saturday night, Lunardi moved Virginia out of his projected bracket and now has the Cavaliers as the second team out of the tournament. 

I give up... 😆 pic.twitter.com/kDnlELNb8I

— Joe Lunardi (@ESPNLunardi) March 17, 2024

If Lunardi is right, then Virginia will indeed miss the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three seasons. But it all comes down to how the Selection Committee weighs all the various factors -  strength of schedule, offensive and defensive efficiency, quality of wins and losses, scoring margin, etc. - and how they ultimately choose to rank the group of teams on the Bubble. There are a certainly a few factors working against the Cavaliers, like lopsided margins of defeat, a mediocre No. 55 NET ranking, and fewer Quad 1 wins than each of the teams listed in Lunardi's Last Four In. But Virginia also has a strong strength of record, no 'bad' losses (Quad 3 or 4), and a better simple win-loss record than some of the teams listed above them like Michigan State and TCU. 

With the way Championship Week has played out, including the ruinous four instances of bid-stealing, it seems inevitable that there will be multiple NCAA Tournament-deserving teams who miss out on the Big Dance. Will UVA be one of them? Virginia will learn its postseason fate on Sunday, as the the 2024 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament bracket will be revealed on Sunday at 6pm on CBS. 

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