Virginia earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years when the 2016 bracket was revealed on Sunday.
UVA produced a 26-7 record through the ACC Tournament where it lost a hard-fought 61-57 game with fellow No. 1 seed North Carolina on Saturday. The Hoos are on the top line in the Midwest, while the Tar Heels are atop the East. The Cavaliers picked up 7 wins against teams seeded fourth or higher in this year’s field.
The Midwest bracket includes recent Virginia nemesis Michigan State as the No. 2 seed. State leads the nation in 3-point shooting at 43.5%, which can be a big challenge for UVA’s Pack-Line defense. The Spartans have eliminated the Hoos from the NCAA Tournament the past two seasons. In 2014, MSU won in the Sweet 16 in New York. In 2015, Tom Izzo’s club won in the round of 32 in Charlotte. If the teams each advance, they would meet in the Elite 8 this year in Chicago.
The Izzo factor has been a thorn in the side of the Tony Bennett family much further back, though. Dick Bennett led Wisconsin-Green Bay to the tournament in 1991 with Tony Bennett as the star guard on the team. The Phoenix lost to Michigan State in the tournament and Izzo was an assistant coach on that team. By 2000, Izzo had taken over the top chair for the Spartans while Dick Bennett had shifted to Wisconsin. The Badgers and Spartans advanced to the Final Four that season where Izzo’s club won the game en route to the National Championship. In all, Izzo owned a 10-3 record against the elder Bennett with Bennett winning the first two matchups.
”That would be a game that we’d be playing to go to the Final Four so that would be pretty good incentive,” Cavalier coach Tony Bennett said. ”If we get to that game, I’ll answer all of your questions about all of that stuff because that’s so premature to speak about that. Obviously both teams would have to advance and do their work. That’s a mistake to look down the road. This is just about getting ready for a veteran Hampton team and trying to advance.”
First things first. Virginia’s first round opponent is No. 16 seed Hampton (21-10), champions of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. That game is Thursday in Raleigh, N.C., at PNC Arena. The game will be televised by truTV. It is scheduled to start approximately 30 minutes after the conclusion of the first game, which begins at 12:40 p.m. That means the likely start time is approximately 3:00-3:15 p.m.
If the Hoos advance – and No. 1 seeds are 124-0 in the opening game in bracket history vs. No. 16 seeds – then the winner of the 8-9 matchup awaits on Saturday. The No. 8 team in the bracket is Texas Tech and coach Tubby Smith, who of course was heavily involved in the coaching rumor mill on the message boards when Bennett was hired. The ninth seed is Butler, whose former coach Brad Stevens is often mentioned in discussions about great young coaches with Bennett. Those two teams play Thursday in Raleigh in the aforementioned 12:40 p.m. game.
If all the higher seeds advance, Virginia’s path to a potential Final Four berth in Houston would be Hampton, Texas Tech, Iowa State, and Michigan State. The Final Four matchup for the Midwest winner is with the East where UNC is the top seed.
The Midwest bracket features these matchups:
- No. 1 Virginia vs. No. 16 Hampton
- No. 8. Texas Tech vs. No. 9 Butler
- No. 5 Purdue vs. No. 12 Little Rock
- No. 4 Iowa State vs. No. 13 Iona
- No. 6 Seton Hall vs. No. 11 Gonzaga
- No. 3 Utah vs. No. 14 Fresno State
- No. 7 Dayton vs. No. 10 Syracuse
- No. 2 Michigan State vs. No. 15 Middle Tennessee State
The No. 1 seed for Virginia is the fifth in school history. Of course, two of those have come in the past three seasons with a No. 2 seed sandwiched in between. That’s just another part of the legacy of this senior class, which has claimed 109 wins, tied with the 1984 senior class for second most in program history.
”When Mike Tobey was on my radio show a couple of weeks ago they asked him what’s changed from your first year to now?” Bennett said. ”He said what’s changed, and I thought it was well said, our first year when we were watching whatever bracketology – Are we on the bubble? Are we in the last four in, the last four out? Where are we at? And worried about that. Now we’re wondering whether we’re going to be a one or two seed. [We’re] appreciative to be in that spot and I think it shows the progress of the program from Mike’s first year four years ago to now.”
