The NCAA Tournament 68-team field will be announced on Sunday at 6 p.m. EST. There is no need for Virginia Tech head coach Mike Young and his team to tune into the broadcast, as they had their bubble popped on Tuesday night.
A 95-89 overtime loss to Wake Forest in the first round of the NCAA Tournament will send the Hokies to the NIT. In a season that started with so much hype, it ended in perfect Virginia Tech fashion. Some might say that it was a fitting end to the season for the Hokies, given that one nightmare haunted them that they couldn't fix.
Virginia Tech men's basketball nightmare NCAA Tournament scenario will haunt them all offseason
Let's not sugarcoat it: This is a massively disappointing season in Blacksburg. A team that began the season looking like they were a tournament team went 11-2 in non-conference games. Once ACC play began, it was a frustrating two months of basketball. That might be an understatement.
Virginia Tech went 8-10 in a much-improved conference, but three games turned their season from a promising one to a complete nightmare. In three games in January where they held a lead late in the game or were tied, they lost devastatingly. Literally.
It started with a loss at Wake Forest on a 3-point inside the final five seconds. They returned to host Stanford and blew a 13-point lead late in the game, and lost a 3-pointer with a second left. Then the nightmare in Dallas is the one that stung the most. Leading SMU by five points with seven seconds left, a turnover on an inbounds pass led to a 3-pointer to close the deficit to two points. Then a missed free throw led to a Boopier Miller half-court heave that gave the Mustangs a one-point victory.
If, and with this team, that's a big if, they won those games, they are 11-7 in the ACC, and avoiding playing on the first day of the ACC Tournament. They would have had 22 regular-season wins, and they likely would have been safely in the NCAA Tournament field.
Instead, a roster that is certainly one of the top 68 teams in the country is going to go to the NIT, and who knows what will happen. We have seen teams in past seasons who have their season spiral the way the Hokies sputtered and lose early in the NIT. Whatever happens, not closing out three games is going to have long-lasting effects on the program.