Virginia Clinches No. 2 Seed In ACC Tournament With Win Over Wake Forest

It was not pretty, but Virginia was able to get the home win against Wake Forest tonight and with that, they are going to be the No. 2 seed in the ACC Tournament that begins next week. Duke is going to be the regular-season champion, but the Cavaliers in Ryan Odom's first season in Charlottesville, will be the No. 2 seed and earn a double bye in the conference tournament.

Having to only play three games and getting an extra couple of days of rest is going to be huge for this Virginia team.

Here is how things looked heading into the final week:

No. 1 Duke (15-1 ACC, 27-2 overall)
No. 11 Virginia (13-3 ACC, 25-4 overall)
RV Miami (12-4 ACC, 23-6 overall)
No. 18 North Carolina (11-5 ACC, 23-6 overall)
RV Clemson (11-5 ACC, 21-8 overall)
NC State (10-6 ACC, 19-10 overall)
No. 21 Louisville (9-7 ACC, 20-9 overall)
Cal (8-8 ACC, 20-9 overall)
SMU (8-8 ACC, 19-10 overall)
Florida State (8-8 ACC, 15-14 overall)
Stanford (7-9 ACC, 18-11 overall)
Virginia Tech (7-9 ACC, 18-11 overall)
Wake Forest (6-10 ACC, 15-14 overall)
Syracuse (6-10 ACC, 15-14 overall)
Pittsburgh (4-12 ACC, 11-18 overall)
Notre Dame (4-12 ACC, 13-16 overall)
Boston College (3-13 ACC, 10-19 overall)
Georgia Tech (2-14 ACC, 11-18 overall)

First Round of Provisional ACC Tournament

(12)Virginia Tech vs. (13) Wake Forest
(10) Florida State vs. (15) Pittsburgh
(11) Stanford vs. (14) Syracuse

Second Round of Provisional ACC Tournament After Feb. 22

(8) Cal vs. (9) SMU
(12/13) Virginia Tech OR Wake Forest vs. (5) Clemson
(10/15) Florida State OR Pittsburgh vs. (7) Louisville
(11/14) Stanford OR Syracuse vs. (6) NC State

Quarterfinals of Provisional ACC Tournament After Feb. 22

(1) Duke vs. (8/9) Cal OR SMU
(4) North Carolina vs. (5/12/13) Clemson OR Virginia Tech OR Wake Forest
(2) Virginia vs. (7/10/15) Louisville OR Florida State OR Pittsburgh
(3) Miami vs. (6/11/14) NC State OR Stanford OR Syracuse

If they faced the highest seed in each round, Virginia would have to beat Louisville, Miami, and Duke to win the ACC Tournament.

Will UVA be able to advance to the championship game?

This season should already be considered a success under Odom, but if they were able to get to the ACC Championship game, that would be special. They would almost certainly be playing Duke in a rematch and that would be a tall task for the Cavaliers.

Tonight was a good bounce back for the Cavaliers and this was something that Odom talked about after the loss to Duke:

"We do it every game. Celebrate, tolerate. We're going to celebrate the things that we did really well. We're not going to tolerate the things that we didn't, and try to move those tolerated things to the celebrate side, and we just try to learn from the game and the performance, and there's probably a five to seven minute stretch in there where we might be able to learn some things about ourselves but all in all we did not play well enough to be extremely competitive in this game."

He also gave plenty of praise for Duke and their young head coach Jon Scheyer:

"He's done a great job since he took over. There's no more pressure situation than what he's been thrust into. And he and his staff have done a fabulous job of following a legend, and obviously, he knows the inner workings of this place better than anybody. And he's just done a magnificent job in this particular year. His team is well-balanced. They know who they are on offense. They know who they are on defense.

They're a typical tough-minded Duke basketball team that's going to rebound and pressure the ball and be kind of in your grill, and offensively, they're very patient, and they know where the ball needs to go on most possessions, and so that's a credit to Coach Scheyer and his staff."

Tonight was a good reminder of what Odom and this team have accomplished this season, but there is still more to come.