Breaking down UVA basketball’s current NCAA Tournament chances
The Virginia Cavaliers would make the NCAA Tournament if the season ended today, but recent results — three double-digit losses in their last four games, including a 34-point defeat to Virginia Tech — have the ‘Hoos scrambling to right the ship and ensure they end up on the right side of the bubble come Selection Sunday.
Here’s our breakdown of where Virginia’s résumé stands at the moment and what the Cavaliers can do over their final three regular-season games to solidify their at-large odds:
Where the Cavaliers stand right now
If today were Selection Sunday, Virginia would almost certainly make the tournament. UVA is currently listed in 99 of the 100 brackets featured at Bracket Matrix as of this morning, with most evaluators slotting the ‘Hoos as either a 9-seed or a 10-seed; that ranking would not only keep the ‘Hoos in the field but also ensure they don’t have to compete in one of the first round play-in games for the lowest ranked at-large bids.
Because Virginia’s win-loss record — 20-8 overall and 11-6 in conference play — is still stellar compared to most tournament hopefuls, purely résumé-based metrics tend to favor the ‘Hoos compared to predictive metrics like KenPom. The predictive metrics, which evaluate how good a team is going forward instead of how well they’ve played so far, lend quite a bit of weight to margin of victory, a category where UVA has struggled this year. All eight of their losses have been by double digits; put another way, the Cavaliers are 9-0 in games decided by fewer than 10 points.
This unusual tendency to get blown out means there’s a pretty significant discrepancy between how descriptive and predictive metrics view the ‘Hoos. The best descriptive metric, Wins Above Bubble, places the ‘Hoos 39th nationally and 1.3 wins above the bubble. Virginia ranks 51st in BartTorvik, 64th in EvanMiya and 66th in KenPom (three different eponymous flavors of predictive ratings). The NET falls somewhere in the middle, ranking UVA 49th; historically, the NET is the rating which has mattered most to the committee.
Quadrant records also matter quite a bit come Selection Sunday, and UVA’s holds up well. Any evaluation metric looking solely at wins and losses favors Virginia this year. The Cavaliers are 3-4 in Quad 1 games, 3-3 against Quad 2, and a combined 14-1 in Quads 3 and 4 with their only blemish a blowout loss at Notre Dame. Thank goodness Virginia held on for a two-point win over Northeastern; that game turning into a Quad 4 home loss legitimately could have made the difference come Selection Sunday.
UVA’s execution down the stretch in big games has been vital to their impressive records, especially against good teams — their combined 6-7 record against Quads 1 and 2 will hold up well in a side-by-side comparison with other bubble teams, which will either be successful teams from small conferences with very few Quad 1 and Quad 2 games on their schedule or middling squads from major conferences with bad records against top teams.
Hopefully it doesn’t matter too much to the selection committee that UVA’s three Quad 1 wins came by a combined six points, while their four losses came by a combined 87. Historically, teams haven’t suffered when evaluating quadrant-by-quadrant records because of unimpressive margins of victory; that penalty is already factored into the predictive metrics and the NET, so it wouldn’t make much sense for the committee to further hold it against teams.
How will the regular season’s conclusion affect UVA?
Virginia will play three more games between now and the end of the regular season:
- Away at Boston College (Quad 2) on Wednesday, Feb. 28
- Away at Duke (Quad 1) on Saturday, March 2
- Home vs. Georgia Tech (Quad 3) on Saturday, March 9
The trip to Boston College is projected to be essentially a toss-up — BartTorvik has UVA favored by less than a point, while KenPom favors the Eagles by one point. However, a loss would be a total letdown for the ‘Hoos. Boston College has only one win over a team in the top half of the ACC standings, and that’s a narrow home victory over a Syracuse team which the ‘Hoos demolished by 22. On paper, UVA matches up well with the Eagles, but that’s on paper — and last season the ‘Hoos traveled to Boston College late in the year for a letdown 15-point blowout loss.
The other two games are more straightforward. No one could reasonably forecast Virginia to win at Cameron, and everyone should expect the ‘Hoos to finish strong at JPJ and beat a bad Georgia Tech squad on Senior Night.
Assuming those two games go as expected, the Boston College matchup carries quite a bit of weight for tournament projections. Using BartTorvik’s TourneyCast tool (which runs pessimistic on UVA’s tournament hopes compared to public consensus), Virginia’s chances of making the tournament are 62 percent with wins over Boston College and GT and a loss to Duke, but fall to 35 percent with a loss to the Eagles.
Winning out in the regular season would give UVA their best marquee win — on the road at Cameron Indoor — and all but assure a tournament bid. Even losing in their first game of the ACC Tournament wouldn’t jeopardize the Cavaliers at that point. Losing out would have the opposite effect, giving the ‘Hoos just an 8 percent chance to make the tournament and really damaging their résumé (11-9 in conference play would all but doom their chances).
