Where Wake Stands for the ACC Tournament

If you’re looking for the recap of the victory over NC State it is posted here.

Today’s victory over NC State ends Wake’s regular season with a 17-12 record overall and a 7-9 mark in the ACC. Next weekend Wake and the rest of the ACC will head to Charlotte for the ACC Tournament. The question we now need to answer is what the weekend will look like for Wake.

Before today’s game Wake was in a three-way tie for 7^th. Had the tournament been starting Wake would have had the 8^th seed since we hold the tiebreaker over Florida State but definitely do not over Georgia Tech. With today’s win Wake guarantees nothing worse than the 8 seed. Even though FSU just beat Miami and has the same record, Wake will be ahead of FSU. Georgia Tech plays Boston College later this afternoon. With a victory GT will secure the 7 seed and Wake will have the 8. A GT loss and those roles are reversed.

Now let’s look at the scenarios:

If GT wins Wake will have the 8 seed. The 8 plays the 9 at noon on Thursday. No matter what FSU will be that 9 seed. I think we have to like this matchup, but it is a little bit scary to have to beat a team for a 3^rd straight time. That just isn’t ever easy to do. If we were to win that one we face the 1 seed (the winner of tonight’s Duke/UNC game) at noon Friday. Predicting anything past that is a pointless exercise right now because there are just too many options.

With a Boston College win Wake has the 7 seed and plays the 10 seed. Virginia has won both of their games against Boston College, so if Virginia beats Maryland tomorrow they will be the 10 seed, but if they lose it will be BC. It’s hard to say which of these would be preferable. BC killed Wake back in January and Wake beat Virginia last month, but Virginia has gotten much stronger in their last few games and I’m not sure we want to face them right now. Either way, with a win in that game we take on the 2 seed who will be the loser of tonight’s Duke/UNC game.

Without winning the ACC Tournament Wake doesn’t have a prayer of making the NCAA tournament. Maybe we get back in the discussion with a trip to the championship game, but I still don’t think we get in. An NIT bid seems all but guaranteed right now.

I’ll try to update this post in a timely fashion once the BC/GT game is over.

Update - Georgia Tech beat Boston College, meaning Wake will have the 8 seed and play 9 need Florida State in the first round, with a win moving them on to play top seed North Carolina. We can always dream...