Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports
Life on the bubble — don’t you kind of miss it?
Getting text alerts for Joe Lunardi tweets. Checking the Bracket Project Matrix website multiple times throughout the day. Tracking scores from far-flung leagues around the country. Learning the mascots of the #1 seeds in mid-major conference tournaments..
Ahh...life on the Bubble. I’ve actually kind of missed it. It really puts a lot of the Madness into March.
That’s why I’m here to “celebrate” the Virginia Cavaliers’ return to the Bubble with “Bubble Banter.” It’s Streaking The Lawn’s newest weekly feature.
Readers of our “Bowl Watch” series in the fall will be familiar with the concept: I’ll lay out Virginia’s remaining schedule and make a ham-fisted attempt to project whether or not the Hoos will make this year’s NCAA tournament. I’ll use schedule categories, GIFs, bad jokes, the whole deal.
Let’s get to it.
A little history:
Longtime Cavalier fans know that the Virginia basketball program has spent plenty of time on the Bubble over the years.
Who can forget 2000, when Virginia lost a make-or-break ACC Tournament game to NC State and got relegated to the NIT?
And who can forget 2002, when Virginia lost a make-or-break ACC Tournament game to NC State and got relegated to the NIT?
And finally...who can forget 2013, when Virginia lost a make-or-break ACC Tournament game to…[checks notes]...NC State...and got relegated to the NIT?
Of course, Virginia hasn’t had to worry about the Bubble in recent years. The Wahoos have been an NCAA tournament mainstay the last six seasons and have enjoyed high seeds each time. UVA even exorcised some demons last year: beating NC State in a make-or-break ACC Tournament game (for the Wuffies) and sending Raleigh’s favorite high school team to the NIT.
So how’d we get here:
In a shocking turn of events for some (Whiny? Entitled?) Wahoo fans, our beloved Cavaliers find themselves in the midst of a rebuilding year. Through 22 games, UVA sits at 15-7 overall and 7-5 in the ACC. They have unsightly losses to Boston College and South Carolina. And they lack impressive wins: only the season-opener at Syracuse and the home triumph over Florida State are considered Quad 1 wins at this point.
Those numbers, my friends, are Bubblicious. Big League chew material. Bazooka Joe, even.
The good news is Virginia still has (at least) 9 more games to play before Selection Sunday and the schedule is fairly manageable. Tony Bennett’s squad is playing its best ball of the season, winning four of its last six and nearly knocking off No. 5 Louisville on the road this past Saturday.
In other words, there’s plenty of story left to tell.
What do the Bracketologists Say?
Bracketology has become a cottage industry in recent years. What was once left to guys like Joe Lunardi and Jerry Palm has now become the playground of sports nerds everywhere. Seriously...according to the Bracket Project Matrix, there are 92 (92!) sites offering bracket projections this year. That’s almost as high as the number of burpees Brian Leung can do without quitting.
As of Monday morning, 71 of 92 brackets had Virginia in the field. The caveat is that those brackets, on average, had Virginia as the VERY LAST team in the field.
So that’s where we sit: if the tournament started today, we would expect to see the Hoos in by the slimmest of margins. They’d likely be on a plane to Dayton for the First Four play-in game.
Schedule Analysis:
During football season, I organized UVA’s schedule into five categories based on level of difficulty. I’ll do the same here:
- Must-Wins: Boston College (February 19)
- Favorables: Notre Dame (February 11)
- Toss-Ups: at UNC (February 15), at Pitt (February 22), at Virginia Tech (February 26), at Miami (March 4)
- Unfavorables: Duke (February 29), Louisville (March 7)
- Long-Shots: N/A
Given UVA’s inconsistency this year, there isn’t a single game left on the schedule I’d count as an easy win. On the flip side, there also isn’t a single game left on the schedule that looks like a definite loss.
I’m confident in saying that Virginia will make the tournament if it runs the table. I’m also confident in saying that the Hoos will go dancing if they go 7-1 down the stretch. For me, things start to get dicey at 6-2 if one of those six isn’t a home win against Duke or Louisville. Anything less than 6-2, and I think Selection Sunday could be rather unpleasant.
What to Watch:
Virginia has two important games this week: at home against Notre Dame on Tuesday and on the road against North Carolina on Saturday. Make no mistake: the Hoos need to win both of them. If they falter in either one, we’ll likely start to see them trending out of most bracket projections.
Of course, Virginia’s performance is only half the story. The other bubble teams across the country will also have a say in who makes the NCAA Tournament and who doesn’t. Other teams to keep an eye on this week include VCU, Georgetown, Memphis, Stanford, Florida, Oklahoma, and Mississippi State.
We’ll have a better sense of where the Hoos sit this time next week. Until then, keep the faith!