2017 ACC Tournament: Bracket Preview if the Season Ended Today

There’s still a good bit of basketball left to be played this season. Not a whole lot, but at least for the Virginia Cavaliers, there are still three more games to go before heading to Brooklyn for the ACC Tournament. Still, we couldn’t help ourselves but to take a look at the ACC standings as they are today. There’s a four-way tie for second place that will shake itself out — for the most part, at least — but we went ahead and applied the league’s tiebreak rules.

Here’s what it looks like as of right now.

At 12-3 in the ACC, North Carolina stands alone atop the ACC standings and receives a double bye as the No. 1 seed.

From there, things get a little trickier as four teams are tied for second with a 10-5 ACC record. Using the conference tiebreak rules, which compares the records of the four teams against each other, Florida State gets the No. 2 seed and Notre Dame gets the No. 3 seed. That leaves Duke and Louisville tied for No. 4 (each won one game against the four tied teams and lost two), but Louisville, owning the head-to-head over Duke, gets the No. 4 seed and the last double-bye.

With Duke at 5th, Miami gets the 6-seed and Syracuse gets the seventh. Miami has a 9-6 record and Syracuse has a 9-7 record, and of course, at the end of the regular season, no one will be a half game back, but for these purposes, we’ll treat Miami as half a game ahead of Syracuse.

Virginia and Virginia Tech are tied for No. 8, each with an 8-7 ACC record. They split their meetings during the regular season, which means we compare their records against the highest-ranked team, and we work our way down. Both teams lost to Carolina, which means we then compare their records against the four teams tied for second. The Hoos beat Louisville twice and Notre Dame once, and lost to each of Duke and FSU, giving them a 3-2 record. Meanwhile, the Hokies played the group only once each, and lost all of their games for an 0-4 record. UVA 8th, VT 9th, although it doesn’t matter, as the 8 and 9 seeds will go head to head in the tournament.

Georgia Tech is half a game ahead ofWake Forest, so they get slotted 10th and 11th, respectively. Pitt and Clemson are each locked at 4-11, but Pitt owns the head-to-head, and so they get 12th and Clemson is at 13th. NC State is half a game behind each, while poor Boston College, with a 2-13 record, sits in last place in the conference.

Opening against Virginia Tech with North Carolina waiting seems like it could be one of the worst paths for the Hoos to reclaim the title. What do you think?