Virginia Tech’s Resume Makes an NCAA Tournament Berth a Lock

Buzz Williams is on the verge of taking the Hokies to their second consecutive NCAA Tournament. (Photo by Ivan Morozov)

Virginia Tech is a stone cold lock for the 2018 NCAA Tournament.  They have too many quality wins and their computer numbers are too good for them to miss the field this year, even with their poor non-conference strength of schedule.  Even Buzz Williams admitted on the postgame radio show last night that it was a done deal, and that’s not like him.

Virginia Tech’s current resume is very strong.

Record: 21-9
Conference: 10-7
RPI: No. 47
SOS: No. 74
In-Conference SOS: No. 1 (out of 15 ACC teams)
Non-Conference SOS: No. 327
BPI: No. 27
SOR: No. 22
Ken Pomeroy: No. 31
Jeff Sagarin: No. 37
KPI: No. 29
Quadrant One: 5-5
Quadrant Two: 4-3
Quadrant Three: 3-1
Quadrant Four: 9-0

The only thing that is wrong with that resume is the number of Quadrant Four games, which in turn mean Tech’s non-conference strength of schedule is terrible.  Some of that isn’t the Hokies’ fault.  Tech was given Iowa (No. 165) in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, and the Hawkeyes turned out to be bad.  There was nothing VT could do about that.  They were also automatically given Detroit Mercy (No. 306) and Houston Baptist (No. 336) as part of the 2K Classic field, and those games were in Blacksburg.  There wasn’t much they could do about that either, except sign up for a different tournament.

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