First off, this season has already exceeded my expectations. I didn't think we would beat UVA at home, play UNC tough, or be sitting on 5 conference wins with 6 games left to play. This team has also passed a lot of "eye tests" in my opinion by matching speed and dictating pace of games, and performing somewhat well in crunch time.
With that said, what are reasonable expectation levels in terms of wins/losses for the rest of the season? Here is the rest of the regular season schedule:
Wed., Feb 17, 2016 at Miami * 9 p.m. RSN Coral Gables, Fla.
Sat., Feb 20, 2016 Florida State * 3 p.m. ACCN Cassell Coliseum
Tue., Feb 23, 2016 at Boston College * 9 p.m. ESPNU Chestnut Hill, Mass.
Sun., Feb 28, 2016 at Wake Forest * 6:30 p.m. ESPNU Winston-Salem, N.C.
Wed., Mar 2, 2016 Pittsburgh * 7 p.m ESPN3 Cassell Coliseum
Sat., Mar 5, 2016 Miami * 4 p.m. ACCN Cassell Coliseum
Am I crazy for talking myself into 3 more wins? We really should beat BC and Wake (again, wildly different from my expectations at the beginning of the season where I didn't think we would ever be favorites). Could we sneak a win out against FSU? Take one of two from Miami? Play Pitt tougher?
Maybe I'm way off base thinking we should be in the running for any more wins, but our effort this year has me excited.
Comments
I'd say 3 more wins is very reasonable. Looking at those teams I think based on the way we've played up till now, we are fully capable of winning each one of those games in a vacuum. We're more likely to lose out than to win out, but I think 2.5-3.5 would be a pretty fair o/u
As long as we make it into the ACC Tournament, I'll be happy...
^this guy
I'd be happy even if we don't win a game the rest of the way. Any further wins and just butter on a most excellent season.
I've been thinking about this since we beat Clemson. Agreed that I didn't expect to even come close last night, but by the same token, I absolutely thought we could at least compete with the 'hoo?s when we beat them at our house. I'm with you, though, I do indeed think we can win three more. I think anything at home is at least in play and while I wouldn't bet on the away games, I don't think it's so far fetched that we could eke out a win on the road, just because we have shown that when things go right , we can rise above our means, so to speak. Little luck, lotta Buzz, and now add Clarke. I'd say BC or Wake on the road, Pitt and Miami at home, with a really strong showing against FSU in there for spice. Again, though, I wouldn't bet on the road games, nor would I bet against us with FSU at home. This is the reason I won't miss watching a game this year. By the way, the home Pitt game is scheduled to only be on ESPN3. Is that final? Anyone know?
A lot of the ESPN3 games end up as locally broadcast ACC games. If you live in the broadcast area, the ESPN3 feed gets blacked out.
Thanks, H A. I get my network tv from the Tidewater area, and I have Direct TV with the sports package so I'm hopeful I can watch. My internet speed makes it a real chore to try to watch on the computer. I'll hope for the best.
The ACC's website has been doing live broadcasts of every game that ESPN3 blacked out on their website. That's what I've been using.
I believe this is only for the ACCN games. The RSN games have been the biggest headache for me as a cord cutter. The only solution I have found that works is to use the Hola VPN plugin in Chrome and watch it using ESPN3 on my computer.
My roommate is watching Duke vs UNC instead of VT (lame right?) and I tried using the Hola VPN Chrome extension (link) with watchESPN on my laptop but I'm still getting the blackout message. Any suggestions?
EDIT: Tried again with the extension and it worked! I hadn't heard of that method before your comment. Much better option than firstrow or vipbox.
I don't think @wake is a should win. We can win it, but I think wake is capable of beating us more times than not on a neutral court. The addition of Chris Clarke may help give us a boost too. I'm hoping for 3, but expecting 2 more wins.
You couldn't talk me into us winning is at Miami, otherwise, defending Cassell and two bottom feeders.
Agreed. I'm leaning towards 4 more wins.
2 should be hoped for, 3 would be a huge win of a season. An 8-win ACC season is plenty for an NIT bid.
Ultimately I'd like for us to not have to play on the opening day of the ACC tournament, which makes FSU and Pitt big games. Win two more plus one of those and we should be the 10 seed. Everything after that is just icing on the #TeamCake.
We have a 3 game lead on GT and own the tie breaker right now. One more win should about guarantee that first round bye.
Remember, Louisville can't play in the ACC-T so the 11th best team will be the 10 seed and get that first round bye.
We are the 10 seed now with Louisville out of it, none of the other 4 will catch us. Hopefully, we can win 2 or 3 more. Don't worry.
I completely forgot about Louisville self-imposing.
We met all of my expectations for this year. Leg for both of you, carry on.
Feel like our ceiling would be 5, but I expect at least 3 more Ws.
I see 1-should (vs BC), 3-slight possibility (at Wake, vs FSU and vs Miami), and 2-doubt it (at Miami and vs Pitt). The future is bright for VT BBall.
I hate setting expectations. I want to believe we can win, but don't want to be disappointed if we don't. But I do think we can be in all of them. We will probably get one more "the team did not show game", likely on the road, hopefully Miami if there is one. We may get one more loss to the refs, hopefully the same game. The rest should be close, with some upset chances at home. I hope we get a hopping crowd with homer refs for Pitt. With their aggressive style that cold tip it to us. I'd take 3.5 if setting the odds, and 3 if betting on those odds.
I didn't take into consideration this pretty big break we have right now between games. We have 8 days to rest up and get ready to go to Miami, and gear up for the rest of the season. I'd like to think that it will benefit us. I guess we'll see.
Win the next 17 games in a row to take home the ACC tournament championship and NCAA championship. In Buzz I trust.
I like your attitude. 1 ticket to the hype train please.
This is a real toss-up. Seems like most predictions are ~3 wins.
We always play Miami tough, so we have that going for us.
We always shit our pants when we play BC, independent of home court advantage. So we dont have that going for us there. However, it would really disappoint me to lose to BC. Jim Christian was a horrible hire, they are a bad team. That NC game was an anomaly.
@Wake, toss-up. They are talented enough to take care of business at home.
FSU at home, they are lead by a couple of really good freshmen. Freshmen tend to make a lot more mistakes away from home court.
Pitt at home, I think we can win this one. The last game was really lopsided due to turnovers. We were pretty even on the glass.
Best case - we split with Miami and win our toss-up road games going (5-1)
Worse case - I could see us losing to @Miami, home vs FSU and laying an egg in Chestnut Hill. In which case the morale is gone and we'll finish up 0-6.
Likely case - 3-3, lose both vs the Canes, and home vs Pitt or @Wake.
This is most likely jumping the gun, but I want to treat this post as what it will take to get VT on the NIT bubble.
I took a look at last year's tournaments for similar candidates (P5 teams with ~.500 records) and there were 2 last year:
#4 Seed - Pitt 19-14 (8-10) RPI 77
#5 Seed - ASU 18-16 (9-9) RPI 90
VT's RPI is currently sitting at 128 and will only go up from here but it is unlikely that it reaches as high as pitt's 77 from last year. In terms of remaining wins, I think VT needs at least 4 to even be in consideration. That would put VT's record entering the ACCT at 17-14 (9-9).
The bigger issue is that we will likely be competing with some other middle of the pack ACC squads for an NIT birth:
Syracuse 18-8 (8-5) RPI 39
Pitt 18-7 (7-6) RPI 44
FSU 16-9 (6-7) RPI 52
Clemson 15-10 (8-5) RPI 89
It is unlikely that they would take more than 3 ACC teams to the NIT so we really need to root for at least 2 of these teams to make it to the big dance.
Yeah, to put ourselves in position to make the NIT, I think 4 wins are necessary. If, by some miracle, we can get to that point, then I think we would have a good shot of being invited to the NIT.
As of now, Syracuse and PITT are projected as locks for the NCAA tournament, while FSU is one of the "Last four in". Clemson is one of the "First four out". That's of course just Joe Lunardi speculating, but I think it's a good indicator of what to expect, assuming each team keeps playing like they have been.
But again, I have no idea how to predict the rest of this wild VT season.
I hadn't really considered what it would take yet. Thanks for this analysis.
I think at least two of these teams make the dance, obviously dependent on how the last few weeks of the season shake out. We all keep forgetting about Louisville, who can't play in the ACC tournament or march madness.
Cuse will be in, been playing much better with Jim Boheim back, plus they are a tournament constant. The committee wont leave a big time program like that out.
Pitt, Clemson, FSU. I'll guess Clemson or Clemson&FSU are left out.
For whatever it's worth, I had a dream last night we were playing Memphis in the first round of the CBI. Take that with a grain of salt.
(note: I did have a dream the night before the USA/Belgium game that Julian Green would score a wonderstrike. JUST SAYING)
Hey, i'd be happy to have a postseason outside of the ACC tourney in any capacity.
And if were playing Memphis in the first round of the CBI a monthish from now, I'll take your predictions on the winning powerball #'s.
Clemson's schedule is cake. BC twice, GT, NCSU and UVA. They should get to 11 ACC wins, may get to 12. But that won't help their RPI unless they beat UVA and that's hard to imagine the way both teams are trending. They will be directly in Seth Greenberg territory.
Pitt, on the other hand, plays @SU, vLville, vDuke, @VT and @GT. That might be as low as one more win, probably two. (I think we beat them in the Cassell) They may be looking at a 2-8 or 3-7 Last 10 by selection day.
FSU plays vGT, @VT, @Duke, vND, vSU. It will be tough for them to get to 9-9 in the ACC.
My guess is SU is in, Clemson plays in the First Four and FSU, Pitt and VT are all in the NIT.
Aside from the NIT or CBI, there is a new tournament played in Vegas this year. Its called the Vegas 16 and is played from 3/26 - 3/30. I'm not sure what types of teams will be selected, but if we're not in the NIT, I'm hoping we go to this. Vegas in late March is fantastic!! I'm always looking for a good excuse to go.
http://vegas16.bdglobalsports.com/
Ceiling is 4-5, 0 is entirely possible as well. Young teams are inconsistent. You never know what might happen. Regardless, this season thus far has exceeded my expectations and Buzz has a good foundation for the future.
65 more wins. BOOK IT BABY!