Late last week, UVA released its 2012-2013 basketball schedule, including its opponents for the Preseason NIT, which is apparently now going by the catchier "NIT Season Tip-Off." Today, the NCAA released the full bracket for the event, which shows a "2" next to Virginia's name
The NCAA doesn't get too crazy with bracketing for this one - 3 of the top 6 seeds are in Pitt's "East Region," and we draw the 8th seeded Delaware Blue Hens in our pod. The Hoos must first take care of a decent Fairfield squad (19-14 last season), then will play the winner of the Delaware vs. Penn matchup.
The full bracket is below (or you can see it here). If Virginia wins its two games at home, it will head Thanksgiving week (games are on that Wednesday and Friday) to Madison Square Garden and be guaranteed two matchups against quality competition.
The sidebar, which doesn't show up on the bracket, is that teams that don't advance to New York will play two more games at campus sites. It is vital that UVA take care of business at home and move on to take on the Michigans, Pitts, and KSUs of the world. A loss at JPJ, forcing two more games against low-RPI opponents, would be a blown opportunity, a major strength of schedule hit, and would prevent me from cheering on the Hoos at the Garden. Disaster all around.
