A Look At NCAA Prospects For The ACC

With Selection Sunday not too far off now, where is everyone’s RPI? Let’s take a look at what SB Nation, Jerry Palm and Joe Lunardi see.

Duke is seen as a 3/3/4 seed. UNC is seen by all as a #1 seed and Louisville gets straight 2s. Florida State gets Duke’s numbers inverted with 4/3/3.

UVA is holding at 5/6/5 but in danger of slipping more.

Notre Dame is in the 6/5/6 range while Virginia Tech gets 9/7/9. Miami gets 8s from everyone.

Syracuse gets 11 from Palm, 10 from Lunardi and SBN sees the Orange as one of the last four in.

Georgia Tech gets a 12 from Lunardi and whiffs with the others.

That leaves Wake and Clemson on the outside but with reasonable RPI scores - Wake has 38 while Clemson is pushing it at 60.

So roughly speaking, the ACC is looking at nine bids now if Syracuse closes well with hope remaining for Wake if the Deacons do as well. Theoretically Georgia Tech could snag a bid as well. Georgia Tech closes at Notre Dame, then hosts Pitt and finishes at Syracuse.

Doable? Yes. Easy? No.

Of course there is the theoretical possibility of a long shot tournament win but those days are basically over. Let’s look at whoever finishes 12th: they’d open Tuesday at noon, then play Wednesday at 2:00. If they won two they’d play Thursday at 2:00 then, advancing again, would play Friday at 7:00 and if a miracle run to the Finals occurred, would play Saturday at 9:00.

Five games in five days? Not a chance. Add this to the difficulty factor: 5-9 get a first-round bye and the top four seeds get a double bye.

We didn’t bother to look to see who is actually in 12th place currently before starting this but it’s Pitt.

It doesn’t matter who it is. No one is going to pull off a five-day, five-game win streak in this conference.

We could see a team pulling off a four-game streak though, and that team would be Syracuse. Here’s why: they’d have a major home court advantage in Brooklyn (this applies to Duke as well), the zone conserves energy and guys like Tyler Lydon and Tyus Battle could heat up.

It’s still a long shot though.