I spent some time today looking at the ACC standings and thinking about how the tournament might play out. With 2-3 regular season games left for each team, a lot could still happen, but we can start to play out some scenarios. There are natural groupings in the current standings: the Top 6; 7-9; 10; 11-12; and 13-15.
Recall the format of the tournament. Seeds 10-15 have to play the dreaded Tuesday games. At this point, it is certain that Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, and Louisville will be playing, and all but certain that Virginia Tech and Florida State will be joining them. It’s likely that BC will be the 10 seed, but you cannot rule out them moving up to the 9 if they can win their last two games.
Seeds 5-9 make their first appearances on Wednesday. The current group of 9-8 teams, UNC, Syracuse, and Wake, will be in this group, unless BC bumps one of them. The 5 and 6 teams are NC State and Duke right now, but that could change. The most likely team to fall from the top 4 into this range is Clemson. The Tigers have tough road games left at NC State and at Virginia. If they lose both, they will likely find themselves as a 5 or 6 seed.
The top four seeds get the treasured double bye and don’t have to play until Thursday. It is certain that these teams will come from the current Top 6. The number one seed is very likely to be Miami. Their schedule is favorable to finish 16-4, and they have the tiebreaker over Virginia. Pitt has a chance if they can win out, which would include winning at Miami, which would give them a season sweep of the Hurricanes. There are also scenarios where Clemson winds up as the 1 seed if they win out and get some help. Virginia in general does not win tiebreaker scenarios, so the only way they wind up as the 1 is if they win out and finish first outright.
I don’t think it’s possible for State or Duke to be the 1 seed. Each of them could finish in a first place tie if they win out and Miami loses two games and a bunch of other things happen that aren’t going to happen. But even if they all do happen, State and Duke don’t win the tiebreakers that I can see.
Thinking about what would be the best seed for State, two things come to mind. One, you’d like to avoid Miami and Duke for as long as possible. The most difficult road would be Duke in the 4/5 game in the quarterfinals, then #1 Miami in the semis. And that’s entirely possible. You’d almost rather be the 6 seed, where it’s more likely that you would play Pitt and/or UVa in the quarters and semis. Of course you want to win every game, but Wolfpack fans shouldn’t be too disappointed if NC State beats Clemson, loses to Duke, and winds up as the 6. Although a downside to that is, you might wind up playing Virginia Tech, the scariest of the 10-15 teams, on Wednesday.
The second thing to think about is, State is the odd team out on the last weekend of the regular season. Their last regular season game is actually Tuesday against Duke. So by the time the tournament comes around, they won’t have played for over a week. That’s where I think the double bye could work against them. I’d rather be the 5 or 6 seed and get a Wednesday “warm-up” game than to get the 4 seed, in which case their first game in nine days would be a quarterfinal against a really good team, probably Duke.
What about Carolina? As everyone knows, they need Quad I wins. Who do they need to play to get them? On a neutral court, that’s Miami, Virginia, NC State, and Duke. That’s who they need to beat to improve their tournament resume. They’ll have to win a Wednesday game in order to get the chance, and even then, they could end up matched with Pitt or Clemson in the quarters. Between their remaining regular season games against Virginia and Duke and the tournament, I think they need two Quad I wins to get in.
Miami certainly seems like the favorite, with Duke and NC State being the trendy picks for “teams nobody wants to play right now”. But I don’t know that I can recall a more wide open tournament. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see any of the current top 9 teams win it.