A look at Saturday for bubble teams chasing NCAA Tournament bids:
No. 7 Duke faces Virginia Tech in the title game of the ACC Tournament. It’s a chance for retiring Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski to win this event for a record 16th time, but it’s also a huge game for the Hokies, who may need the automatic bid to make the NCAA Tournament.
Virginia Tech, seeded seventh in this tournament, is trying to become the second team to win it with four victories in four days. The Hokies (22-12) beat No. 25 North Carolina in the semifinals and have won 12 of their last 14 games to put themselves in the at-large conversation. A loss to Duke wouldn’t reflect particularly badly on them. The question is whether they need this last victory to get in.
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Virginia Tech was just 1-6 in Quadrant 1 games before beating the Tar Heels. Krzyzewski said the issue the ACC is having is that its nonconference performance hurt the rankings of the league’s teams, and as a result, the wins teams have earned against each other since then haven’t been worth as much.
“Usually the ACC benefits from that because we usually have a great (nonconference) and so we can get nine, 10 teams in. Because wins against four or five different teams produce good numbers for it,” the Duke coach said. “You have to do well in the nonconference, and we didn’t do well in the nonconference and we’re paying a price for it. I just wish there was a little bit of a different way of looking at the whole…
