Breaking down UVA basketball’s ACC Regular Season Title odds and potential ACC Tournament seeding

With the Virginia Cavaliers getting back on track after a home win against the Clemson Tigers on Tuesday night, UVA advanced to 14-5 in the ACC and set themselves up to still potentially grab a piece of the ACC Regular Season Title while also clinching a top-four seed in the ACC Tournament. With the other midweek ACC games concluded, we have a concrete picture of where UVA sits in the Regular Season Title and seeding picture.

Here, we identify all the possible scenarios for the ‘Hoos this weekend and how the variety of title and seeding outcomes could occur.

How UVA can win the ACC Regular Season Title

The path to winning the ACC Regular Season Title is quite simple now. With UVA tied with the Pittsburgh Panthers and the Miami Hurricanes at 14-5 and those two teams playing each other on Saturday, the best Virginia can hope for is to share the title with the winner of that game. To do so, UVA, logically, has to beat Louisville this coming Saturday. If the Cavaliers lose that game, they’ll finish 14-6 in the ACC and will consequently be a game behind Miami or Pitt, depending on which team beats the other.

Bottom line, win against Louisville and UVA wins its sixth ACC Regular Season Title under Tony Bennett and sixth in the last ten seasons.

Why UVA can’t be the #1 seed in the ACC Tourney

As mentioned above, a UVA win on Saturday would leave them tied with Pitt or Miami for first place. Then, because the Wahoos lost their lone head-to-head contest with both the Panthers and the Hurricanes, whichever of those two teams wins on Saturday would be the one seed.

How UVA can clinch the #2 seed in the ACC Tourney

From here onwards, the seeding gets more complex considering the number of potential tiebreakers with Miami (14-5), Pitt (14-5), UVA (14-5), Clemson (13-6), and Duke (13-6) all within one game of each other in the ACC. Because one of Pitt or Miami will be 15-5 no matter what, the Clemson Tigers and Duke Blue Devils can’t get a share of the Regular Season Title, but their presence does complicate the seeding.

(1) The easiest path to the #2 seed for Virginia is simply to beat Louisville on Saturday. Do that, and they’d be locked into the #2 spot with the winner of Pitt-Miami claiming the one seed because of their win over the Wahoos.

There is, however, one other scenario where the Cavaliers could get the #2 seed while losing to Louisville. Stick with me here.

(2) For that to happen, Miami would have to beat Pitt (in Miami) on Saturday while both Clemson (vs Notre Dame) and Duke (at North Carolina) would have to win. That would put UVA in a four-way tie with Clemson, Duke, and Pitt at 14-6. In such a situation, the tiebreaker would be record against those other tied teams. Because the Wahoos’ 2-1 (wins against Clemson and Duke, loss to Pitt) combined record against those three teams would be ahead of Duke (1-2: win against Pitt, losses to Clemson and UVA) and Pitt (1-2: win against UVA, losses to Pitt and Clemson) and tied with Clemson (2-1: wins against Pitt and Duke, loss to UVA), Virginia would be the #2 seed because of their head-to-head win over Clemson since those two teams tied for the 2-1 record against the other three teams.

However, any other string of results combined with a UVA loss would put the Cavaliers as either the #3 or #4 seed in Greensboro.

How UVA could fall to the #3 seed in the ACC Tourney

So, again, UVA can only fall below the #2 seed if they lose to Louisville and those other three games don’t play out perfectly. If they do lose to Louisville, there are a whopping six scenarios where Virginia would be the #3 seed.

(1) For starters, if Miami beats Pitt, Clemson beats Notre Dame, and Duke loses to North Carolina, UVA would be in a three-way tie with Pitt and Clemson for second place in the conference. As those three teams would all be tied at 1-1 in combined record against the other tied squads (Clemson beat Pitt but lost to UVA, Pitt beat UVA but lost to Clemson, UVA beat Clemson but lost to Pitt), the tiebreaker would then advance to record against the #1 seed. Pitt’s 1-1 record against Miami would make them the #2 seed over UVA and Clemson who are both 0-1 against Miami. Then, Virginia’s win against Clemson would make them the #3 seed.

(2) Next up, if Miami was to win and then both Clemson and Duke were to lose, Virginia would tie with Pitt for second place. But, relatively simply, the ‘Hoos would lose the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Panthers and would fall to the #3 spot.

Interestingly, if Pitt beats Miami and UVA loses, Tony Bennett’s team would be locked into the #3 spot no matter what Clemson and Duke do.

(3) Diving in, though, if Pitt, Clemson, and Duke all win, that would mean Virginia would be in a four way tie with Miami, Clemson, and Duke for second place. Once again, the first tiebreaker would be combined record against the other tied teams. Miami (3-1: wins against Duke, Clemson, and UVA, loss to Duke) would take the #2 spot while UVA (2-1: wins against Duke and Clemson, loss to Miami) would take the #3 seed with Clemson (1-2: win against Duke, losses to Miami and UVA) at the #4 and Duke (win against Miami, losses to Miami, Clemson, and UVA) at #5.

(4) If Pitt and Clemson win but Duke loses, UVA would then be in a three-way tie with Miami and Clemson for second place with combined record against tied teams the tiebreaker once more. Miami’s 2-0 record (wins against UVA and Clemson) would make them the #2 seed while UVA’s 1-1 record (win against Clemson, loss to Miami) would put them at #3 with Clemson at #4 with losses to Virginia and Miami.

(5) If Pitt and Duke win but Clemson loses, UVA would be in a three-way tie with Miami and Duke. In that situation, Miami (2-1: wins against UVA and Duke, loss to Duke) would be seeded #2 with UVA (1-1: win against Duke, loss to Miami) as the #3 and Duke (win against Miami, losses to UVA and Miami) as the #4.

(6) Lastly, if Pitt wins with Clemson and Duke both losing, Virginia would tie for second place with Miami. Consequently, UVA would be the #3 seed because of their tie-breaking loss to the Hurricanes back in December.

How UVA could fall to the #4 seed in the ACC Tourney

The absolute worst case scenario for the Cavaliers could still see them drop down to the #4 seed.

(1) The one and only way for that to happen would be for Virginia to lose to Louisville and then for Miami to beat Pitt, for Duke to beat North Carolina, and for Clemson to lose to Notre Dame.

Those results would put UVA in a three-way tie with Pitt and Duke for second place in the conference. Because those three teams would be tied for the same combined record against the other tied teams at 1-1 (Duke beat Pitt but lost to UVA, Pitt beat UVA but lost to Duke, and UVA beat Duke but lost to Pitt), the tiebreaker would then go to record against the #1 seed Miami. As such, UVA being 0-1 would make them the #4 seed with Duke and Pitt each having a 1-1 record against the Hurricanes — Duke would be the #2 seed in that situation because of their tie-breaking win over Pitt.

If UVA loses to Louisville

Laid out differently, these are all of UVA’s potential seeding situations if they unexpectedly fall to Louisville on Saturday.

UVA loses and Miami beats Pitt

• Clemson + Duke win —> UVA is the #2 seed
• Clemson wins, Duke loses —> UVA is the #3 seed
• Clemson loses, Duke wins —> UVA is the #4 seed
• Clemson + Duke lose —> UVA is the #3 seed

UVA loses and Pitt beats Miami

• Clemson + Duke win —> UVA is the #3 seed
• Clemson wins, Duke loses —> UVA is the #3 seed
• Clemson loses, Duke wins —> UVA is the #3 seed
• Clemson + Duke lose —> UVA is the #3 seed

As you can see here and as I already detailed, there are only two scenarios where Virginia isn’t the #3 seed if they lose to Louisville.

Just win

The easiest takeaway from all this is that, if UVA simply takes care of business against the ACC’s worst team at home, they’ll close out a successful regular season with a share of the ACC Title and the #2 seed in Greensboro. Ask any reasonable UVA fan before the season if they’d accept that and you’d get a firm yes. Anything other than that, at this point, would likely be a disappointment. Ideally, we don’t have to come back to these scenarios at 4:00 PM on Saturday.