After just barely missing the NCAA Tournament last season, Virginia Tech Women's Basketball is set to return to March Madness this season in Megan Duffy's second season at the helm of the Hokies.
For much of the first half of the season, VT was projected right around the bubble but as ACC play progressed, the Hokies got better and better and slow separated from the bubble. It started when the Hokies won seven-straight games, a run that lasted most of January into the very beginning of February. That span included three wins over teams projected inside the field pretty much across the board in Syracuse, Virginia, and Clemson.
Tech then create some separation in mid-February with a sweep on the West Coast trip of Stanford and California before a regular season ending victory of UVA pushed VT out of the Last Four Byes and into the 8-9 game range in most bracket projections.
So what seed are the Hokies likely to land and what teams might they face in the first round of this year's NCAA Tournament?
Here's a rundown on where Virginia Tech stands in the latest Bracketology projections.
- ESPN: 9 seed vs Tennessee in Storrs, CT (1 seed UCONN)
- CBS Sports: 9 seed vs Illinois in Columba, SC (1 seed South Carolina)
- USA Today: 9 seed vs Tennessee in Storrs, CT (1 seed UCONN)
- Her Hoop Stats: 8 seed vs USC in Austin, TX (1 seed Texas)
- The IX: 8 seed vs Colorado in Los Angeles, CA (1 seed UCLA)
- College Sports Madness: 8 seed vs Colorado in Storrs, CT (1 seed UCONN)
As you can see, pretty much every projection has Virginia Tech in the 8-9 seed range for the opening round.
One of the biggest reasons why the Hokies are in the 8-9 range is their WAB ranking of 34th. It also helps that Virginia Tech has three Q1 road wins, with it being notable that unlike the men, Quadrant 1 only includes the top 45 in the NET for road games. Add in the fact that the Hokies only have one loss outside the top two quadrants (which is much more selective than the MBB quadrants) and zero losses to teams outside the top 60 of the NET. That is definitely helping the Hokies.
On the other side of things, VT is ranked 41st in the NET with a SOS of 56 and non-conference SOS of 227. Add in the fact that VT doesn't have a win against a team ranked higher than 36th in the NET and it's easy to see why Tech's seeding ceiling is the 8-9 range.
One of the challenges with women's basketball compared to the men's game is that women's game doesn't have nearly the same clarity about the primary metrics that the committee is using to evaluate beyond quadrant records, SOS, and WAB. That lack of clarity is something that makes it harder to understand how the committee will evaluate the teams.
However, looking at the resume, this looks like a team that is more in the 9-10 seed range than the 8-9 seed range. If they do land an 8 seed, their ACC finish with a conference record of 12-6 might be something that boosts them given the league's reputation. The odds of VT being a 10 instead of a 9 doesn't seem too high especially given Tech's 4-0 record against two other teams who could end up in that 9-10 or even 11 seed range: Syracuse, Clemson, and Virginia.
As of now, I would predict Virginia Tech to earn a 9 seed entering Selection Sunday. Regardless, they will have a great opportunity to go beyond the first round, though a very tough matchup will loom in the second round should they get there.
