There has been a Virginia sighting! The Cavaliers hadn’t beaten a tournament-quality team in three weeks, but held North Carolina to 43 points and won by 10. The Tar Heels entered the game as the No. 3 overall seed in the bracket and will remain on the top line for now. That gap between them and Louisville and the three Pac-12 teams that are chasing the top line is smaller, though.
For Virginia, it stopped a slide that saw the Cavs go from a 3 seed two weeks ago (when the committee released its top 16) to a 6 last week. Virginia has now won two straight after losing six out of eight. The Cavaliers are a 5 at the moment.
We also have a Baylor sighting! The Bears picked up a much-needed victory against West Virginia, which, at least temporarily, ends a recent run of bad play. Baylor had lost three out of four going into the game against the Mountaineers. The Bears still have a very strong profile, but it has been weakened by a couple of recent losses in games they should have won. This victory does not move them up from a 3 seed, but a loss might have moved them down.
West Virginia did drop down to a 5 seed. The Mountaineers have a strange profile. They have great victories (Kansas, Baylor, and at Virginia) but have losses to Texas Tech, Temple and Oklahoma, the last of which came at home. You never know which West Virginia you are going to get, which makes it a difficult team to seed.
Finally, Virginia Tech is quietly having a very nice season. The Hokies beat Miami on Monday to give them three wins in a row and four wins against the RPI top 50. They also have victories against Duke and Virginia, as well as a roadie at Michigan. Virginia Tech crawled onto the 7 line, displacing Northwestern. Miami’s loss has no effect on its place in the bracket.
