Saturday was a bad day for Virginia Tech. As the Hokies sat in Blacksburg and watched on their televisions, many a bubble team pulled off upsets in their conference tournaments, and while things looked good for Tech on Saturday morning, 24 hours later things are iffy to say the least.

Time to take a quick look at yesterday’s action and see how it impacted Virginia Tech. Unfortunately, it was almost all negative.

First, let’s look at the Big Ten, where the Hokies got mixed results. Illinois, another bubble team, led most of the way against #7 Ohio State before a furious Buckeye rally won the game 88-81 in double overtime. Illinois would have certainly been in with the win over Ohio State, but now things are very questionable.

Illinois went 19-14, with a 10-8 record in the Big Ten. Their RPI is #74, their strength of schedule is #35, and they went 5-8 against top 50 teams, with four bad losses on the season. Though their schedule was tough, the Illini didn’t get to 20 wins, their RPI is low, and they have four losses to teams ranked outside the top 100. Illinois is probably on the wrong side of the bubble right now, but they are still a contender.

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