Virginia Tech Selected For 2017 NCAA Tournament

The Hokies are headed to the NCAA Tournament. (Ivan Morozov)
The Hokies are headed to the NCAA Tournament. (Ivan Morozov)

There was no drama for Virginia Tech this time around.  CBS opened their Selection Show by revealing the brackets in the East Region, and the Hokies saw their name called in the second game that was announced.  Tech is the #9 seed in the East, and they’ll be facing #8 seed Wisconsin in Buffalo, NY on Thursday.  The winner will mostly likely get #1 seed and defending National Champion Villanova, the top overall seed of the NCAA Tournament.

This is the first NCAA Tournament appearance for all current players in the Virginia Tech program.  Buzz Williams, a veteran of the Big Dance from his days at Marquette, is very happy for his team.

“To be able to be a part of anything that’s first, I think is always special,” Williams said.

This is Virginia Tech’s first appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 2007, and only the ninth appearance in school history.

Tech will take on #8 seed Wisconsin, who played for the National Championship two years ago against Duke.  The Badgers finished the season 25-9 with a 71-56 loss to the Michigan Wolverines in this afternoon’s Big Ten Championship Game.  They are ranked #24 in the country by the AP Poll, and #23 by the Coaches Poll.

“I was actually just watching [Wisconsin] play because they were in the Big Ten Championship against Michigan,” senior forward Zach LeDay said. “It’s crazy how everything came full circle and we ended up playing them.”

The game will tip at approximately 9:40pm on Thursday night, and it will be televised by CBS. 

If Tech manages to get past the Badgers, they’ll likely face #1 overall seed Villanova on Saturday.  The Wildcats won the National Championship last season under Jay Wright, and they are 31-3 this season.  They’ll face either New Orleans or Mount St. Mary’s in their opening round game, depending on which of those #16 seeds wins the play-in game on Tuesday night.

A total of nine ACC teams were selected for the NCAA Tournament.  Syracuse, who was considered to be one of the last four teams in the field, was left out by the Selection Committee.

We’ll have much more on Virginia Tech’s NCAA Tournament appearance later tonight and early in the week.

NCAA_Bracket

 

6 Responses You are logged in as Test

  1. Amazing the progression Coach Williams has done in 3 years at VT. Annual win during ACC tournament then NIT bid & win, now NCAA bid in Year three. Amazing the progress Coach Williams has made from the dumpster fire he inherited. Win against the Badgers on Thursday will be and excellent pelt on the Bowman Media center.

    Let’s Go…Hokies!!!
    Beat the Heck out of the Badgers!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    1. I hope we win to further validate our selection…. Then if we can give Nova a good run that just goes even farther toward national respectability.

  2. Hoping someone can educate me / correct where I’ve got this wrong….
    Nova is #1 overall. So they get the lowest #8 in Whisky, right? Lowest #8 gets highest #9 being us/VT, right?
    …so in my simplistic view we’re #33 overall. I guess that seems about right, especially without Chris Clarke?
    We’ve gotta beat Wisconsin to get that exposure against Villanova! Go Hokies!

    1. It doesn’t work that way. I believe they seed the top 16 teams now and they end up the 1 through 4 seeds but outside of a few cases, teams get placed based on geography as opposed to the strongest or weakest seed compared to that bracket. Wisconsin and VT could be the strongest or the weakest 8 and 9 seeds respectively in the tournament.

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