Previewing the ACC Tournament For Virginia Tech Baseball: Can the Hokies Make a Run?

Charlotte, NC — With the ACC baseball tournament just days away, it's time that we take a look at a few important things regarding Virginia Tech and the information surrounding them heading into the five-day affair in Charlotte. In this piece, I will look over potential pitching rotations, a brief bubble watch, and a potential path through the ACC tournament.

The Hokies locked up the No. 7 seed and will play at ~5 p.m. ET on Wednesday against the winner of 10 seed Notre Dame and 15 seed Clemson — the latter with which they just finished up a three-game series.

The Hokies have won four series in a row heading into the ACC tournament and sit at No. 47 in the RPI.

No. 1: Who will start on the mound?

Why not go with Brett Renfrow? While he'd be on six days of rest, he just threw 104 pitches on Thursday, so it would likely be in the best interest of the Hokies to give him, at minimum, one more day of rest.

Looking back further into Renfrow's numbers, he's thrown a staggering 564 pitches in the last 40 or so days, along with nearing a career high in both innings pitched and pitch count, sitting just one solid start away from reaching both as the Hokies look to make a regional push this week.

To me, there are two viable options and I think that the Hokies' best move it a combination of the two.

Those two arms are Madden Clement — the Hokies' regular midweek starter — who threw an inning against Clemson on Saturday and Chase Swift, who didn't throw at all this weekend.

Piggybacking one off of the other would likely get the Hokies through the first six or so innings of the game, as both arms have midweek starting experience along with ACC experience. If the Hokies can combine those two, it would set the bullpen up in a semi-favorable position going further into the week should they win the first game.

Topic 2: Bubble Watch

There are two major things to watch for regarding Virginia Tech's bubble bid going into this week.

The good news: Most outlets have Virginia Tech in the field safely and not even on the bubble.

The bad news: Virginia Tech has fallen to 47th in the RPI, where a loss to Clemson or Notre Dame could knock them out of the top 50 before selection Monday and put the committee in a very tricky spot, where they have recently been less-than-favorable to some ACC teams in a similar situation in recent years.

For safety, the Hokies are looking for nothing short of at least one win this week, which I think would lock them in, purely because that would set up a matchup against North Carolina, which is No. 2 in the RPI and would raise the Hokies' RPI and strength of schedule, regardless of a win or loss.

Topic 3: Path To Championship:

As mentioned above, the Hokies will play their first game on Wednesday against the winner of Clemson and Notre Dame. Should they win that game, they automatically go on to face North Carolina, which is the two seed in the conference tournament after finishing 22-8 in the conference.

Should the Hokies win both of those, they'd first be effectively locked into the national tournament, but the future path would be uncertain.

The three seeds — on the same side of the bracket — are Florida State, who will play against the winner of Wake Forest and either Louisville or Pitt; those three finished sixth, 11th, and 14th in the conference, respectively.

Then would be the ACC championship on Saturday. While that game could be against any of the eight teams in that half of the bracket, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it would likely be a faceoff against Georgia Tech, which is the third-ranked team in the country as things stand.

Regardless, the Hokies have no clear or easy path, at minimum, No. 2 UNC stands in the way before a likely matchup against No. 11 Florida State.

We will have you covered on the full tournament and bubble watch day-by-day from Tuesday morning to Monday morning before the selection show.

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