The Good and Bad of Virginia's NCAA Tournament Draw
Virginia (25-7) has earned the No. 4 seed in the South Region of the 2023 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and will face No. 13 seed Furman (27-7) in the first round on Thursday at Amway Center in Orlando, Florida. The game will tip off at 12:40pm ET on Thursday and will be broadcast on TruTV.
See the full bracket for the 2023 NCAA Tournament here:
The region in which a team is placed and the potential matchups in that region is a significant factor in each team's chances of making a run to the Final Four. With the reveal of the 68-team NCAA Tournament bracket on Selection Sunday, we can now begin to examine not only Virginia's first round matchup, but UVA's entire path to the Final Four should the Cavaliers advance. Let's break down the good and bad of Virginia's NCAA Tournament draw and path through the South Region bracket.
Good: Virginia hangs on to a No. 4 seed
There was a lot of debate on Selection Sunday about Virginia potentially dropping from the 4 seed line after losing to Duke in the ACC Championship Game, especially with the Blue Devils gaining some serious momentum towards replacing UVA as the final No. 4 seed. Several bracketologists made that change in their final bracket projections, predicting Virginia to be slotted as a No. 5 seed. In the end, the NCAA Selection Committee stuck with UVA as the final No. 4 seed and the No. 16 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. We'll get into what that means for Virginia's specific matchups later, but generally it's better to be a higher seed and significantly better to be a 4 seed than a 5 seed. First round games between a 5 seed and a 12 seed are notorious for upsets, almost to the point where they're not even considered upsets anymore because they happen so frequently. And while it's not at all uncommon for a No. 4 seed to lose to a No. 13 seed (see: Virginia in 2021), it's far more likely for a 12 seed to upset a 5 seed, so UVA clinging to the 4 seed line is a major victory.
Bad: Big Bad Bama
Virginia was placed in the same region as the No. 1 overall seed Alabama, which not only means UVA will likely have to take down the top-seeded Crimson Tide in order to make the Final Four, but that matchup would happen in the Sweet Sixteen. The Cavaliers are certainly capable of beating Alabama, just as every team in the NCAA Tournament is capable of beating any opponent on any given day, as Tony Bennett frequently says when discussing March Madness, but this potential matchup does place somewhat of a ceiling on Virginia's aspirations for a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. When the Cavaliers have their A-Game, there isn't a team in the country they can't beat, but against a team as talented as Alabama, it will take a near-perfect performance from Virginia to get by Alabama and into the Elite Eight.
Good: A fair and somewhat favorable path to the Sweet Sixteen
On the bright side, losing to No. 1 Alabama in the Sweet Sixteen could arguably be seen as a successful outcome for the season for Virginia. From a seeding standpoint, the benchmark for a No. 4 seed to meet expectations - that is, winning the games in which you are the higher seed - is to reach the Sweet Sixteen. With the exception of the 2019 national title run, Virginia has rarely managed to meet the expectations associated with its seed. UVA has racked up an unprecedented level of regular season success, but largely hasn't been able to avoid early exits from the NCAA Tournament. After bringing back nearly the same roster as last season's team that missed the NCAA Tournament, Virginia going 25-7 to this point, winning an ACC regular season title, reaching the ACC Championship Game, and earning a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament is quite respectable. If UVA can win its first and second round games and reach the Sweet Sixteen, there's a strong argument that the 2022-2023 season should be viewed as a successful one. Given the fact that the Cavaliers haven't won an NCAA Tournament game since 2019, the program and the fanbase are certainly hungry for Virginia to take care of business in the opening rounds.
In order to make it out of Orlando, Virginia will have to win a pair of games against Furman and either San Diego State or Charleston. All three of these teams are formidable foes, but not any more intimidating than some of the other combinations of 13, 5, and 12-seeded teams around the bracket: Louisiana, Duke, Oral Roberts (East), Iona, Saint Mary's, VCU (West), and Kent State, Miami, Drake (Midwest). That Virginia could have been in Duke's shoes - getting a No. 5 seed and facing a very dangerous Oral Roberts team in the first round and then likely playing Tennessee in the second round - should make the Cavaliers feel fortunate about their draw.
Bad: Furman is dangerous
This could be said about a lot of the lower-seeded opponents UVA could have faced, but the truth is that Virginia will always be a first-round upset waiting to happen in the NCAA Tournament, due in large part to the team's style of play. Because the Cavaliers play so slow, it's hard for them to knock teams out early on. UVA can make up for an off-shooting night by playing smothering defense, but it's difficult for Virginia to run away with a game because of the pace of play, which lends greater consequence to any scoring droughts that UVA's own offense endures. All it takes is for the opponent to get hot and Virginia will struggle to keep up. Tony Bennett has also argued that due to the shifting landscape of college basketball with the transfer portal and eligibility changes, the gap between high seeds and low seeds has never been smaller.
We'll get into Furman's personnel and system in more detail in our game preview coming out later this week, but here are some initial insights on why the Paladins might be primed to give the Hoos some trouble in the first round. Furman scores an average of 82.1 points per game, a number that is tied for 10th in all of college basketball. The Paladins are 33rd in adjusted offensive efficiency and are shooting 60.1% on two-point field goals, ranking first in that category in the entire country. Their team three-point shooting percentage is average at 34.7%, but they attempt more than 27 threes per game, making almost 10 triples in each contest. Furman has experience and talent, led by the Southern Conference's Player of the Year Jalen Slawson and another First-Team selection in Mike Bothwell, both of whom are fifth-year seniors. The Paladins share the ball well and have good shot selection, ranking eighth in the NCAA with 17.1 assists per game. Furman's defense is not much to write home about, but sometimes the shots just don't fall for Virginia and Furman has more than enough offense to capitalize on that and give UVA a run for its money on Thursday in Orlando.
Not good or bad: Orlando and then..... Louisville?
As a destination for Virginia's first and second round games, Orlando isn't great, but it's not terrible. It should be a decent travel destination for a lot of fans this time of year and it shouldn't be an overwhelming home-court advantage for any of the four teams in Virginia's region.
If UVA can make it through the first and second round, though, then the Cavaliers have a great deal of familiarity and pleasant memories awaiting them at the venue for the South Region semifinals and finals, which will be held at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville. Virginia is 9-2 in that building, thanks in large part to UVA's yearly dominance over Louisville, but the Cavaliers also have two postseason wins in Louisville that came during UVA's magical run to the 2019 National Championship. As a freshman, Kihei Clark had one of his best games with 12 points, six assists, four rebounds, and three three-pointers to lead Virginia past Oregon in the Sweet Sixteen. Clark then made the greatest play in the history of the UVA basketball program to assist on Mamadi Diakite's season-saving buzzer beater to send the Elite Eight game against Purdue to overtime, with Virginia ultimately prevailing to go to the Final Four. If UVA was to advance to the Sweet Sixteen and take a shot at knocking off No. 1 overall seed Alabama, what better place for Kihei Clark and the Cavaliers to have that opportunity? We're certainly getting ahead of ourselves now, but that tends to happen when the March Madness bracket is revealed and avid fans can begin to trace their teams potential path to the Final Four.
Stay tuned to CavaliersNow for complete coverage of Virginia's (hopefully lengthy) run in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.
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