NCAA Basketball: Reevaluating preseason top 25 power rankings of 2022-23 season

18. Virginia (25-8, 4-seed, Round of 64)

Things did not go as planned last season for Tony Bennett at Virginia, missing the NCAA Tournament and struggling after replacing major holes on the roster. This year, there wasn’t much movement, with the Cavaliers bringing back an experienced and talented roster that knew how to win games and play with each other. They also had fifth-year senior Kihei Clark running the point, now four years removed from his major role on Virginia’s national championship run.

An 8-0 start to the season included nice wins over Baylor, Illinois, and Michigan (all away from home), with the Cavaliers spending much of the season nearer to the top of the Top 25. In a year where the ACC was dreadful as a whole, the Cavaliers held their own for much of the year, though their play was pretty rough near the end of the year, dropping a terrible outing at Boston College and limping towards the finish line. After falling to Duke in the ACC title game, things got even worse for the Cavaliers as they were upended in the final moments by 13-seed Furman in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

For the third time in the last five NCAA Tournaments, the Cavaliers were upset by a team seeded 13th or lower. It’s a dreadful way for another season to end, especially one where this Virginia team had the talent and poise after tying for the ACC regular season championship. Another early upset shows signs of a pattern for a Cavaliers team known for its elite defense, and you can certainly saw that the season-ending this way makes it another disappointing year in Charlottesville.