Take out KenPom, and Virginia is a solid at-large NCAA Tournament team, likely a 10 seed, so not even last four byes, much less last four in.
But KenPom is there, it’s used as part of the tournament selection process, and its algorithm hates the ‘Hoos.
Virginia’s average rating in the other five computer metrics is 43.0; KenPom has Virginia ranked 70th.
It’s all the blowout losses – all nine have been by double-digits.
I was in Cameron yesterday for the 73-48 butt-whuppin’ Duke handed Virginia on Saturday. It’s loud in there (mostly the DJ between timeouts), but I wanted to yell down to Tony Bennett – hey, don’t take the starters out, we could use some cheap points here at the end against their subs.
Leonard Hamilton, I remember, played an endgame that way in a blowout loss in JPJ back in 2019, leaving his starters in against UVA’s walk-ons to turn a 29-point loss into a 13-point loss with a 160 run in the final 2:19, and at the time, I couldn’t figure out what he was doing.
The predictive-measure computer rankings like KenPom take final margins into account.
It ain’t right, but it’s the way it is.
| Metric | Previous Rank | Rank Today | Change |
| SOR | 35 | 35 | 0 |
| ELO | 33 | 42 | -9 |
| KPI | 35 | 35 | 0 |
| NET | 46 | 49 | -3 |
| BPI | 46 | 54 | -8 |
| KenPom | 64 | 70 | -6 |
| Average | 42.7 | 47.2 | -4.5 |
The ACC really sh-t the bed on Saturday. Virginia getting blown out by Duke, and Wake Forest losing at Virginia Tech, took two teams that had solid cases for at-large berths back down to the cutline.
And Pitt, sure, is edging its way up toward the cutline, but they can’t afford a slip, either, with a week to go in the regular season, and then the ACC Tournament.
| School | Average Rating | Projected Seed Line |
| UNC | 8.3 | 2 |
| Duke | 9.9 | 2/3 |
| Clemson | 25 | 6 |
| Wake Forest | 43.3 | 10/11 |
| Virginia | 47.2 | bubble |
| Pitt | 48.7 | bubble |
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Chris Graham
