VT has come a long way in a year. I took a look to see what our chances would be to make the tournament. This is what I see:
1) There are 26 slots in the tournament; 13 automatic bids and 13 at-large bids.
2) There are 6 conferences that will get just one bid (A-10: probably UMass; Atlantic Sun: Jacksonville; Big South: High Point; MAAC: Canisius; Northeast (hard to pick a leader and Patriot: Loyola-Md.).
3)There are 17 teams who will get a slot before we will. These 17 teams will in all likelihood also include the conference champions for the other 7 conferences:
American East: Stony Brook
ACC: UNC, Syracuse, Notre Dame
Big East: Florida, Denver (hard to believe they are in the BE)
Big-10: Maryland, PSU, Northwestern
Colonial: Towson, JMU, Elon
Ivy: Princeton, Penn, Cornell
MPSF: Colorado, USC
4) This leaves 3 slots for the following teams: VT, Virginia, Louisville and BC form the ACC (Duke has no chance), Albany from the American East, Johns Hopkins or Rutgers from the Big-10 and Temple from the Big East. Here is your lacrosse rooting guide: root against the other 3 ACC teams and the 4 listed non-ACC teams.
5) The key for us is the standings in the ACC. If we can beat UVa (I expect losses to Syracuse and Notre Dame), it is likely that we would finish in a 3-way tie for 4th with BC and either Virginia or Louisville. If it is BC and UVa, we get the #5 seed and would play UVa in the ACC tourney. If it is BC and Louisville, we get the #4 seed and play BC (this assumes that all other games go as expected). If we get either the #4 seed or #5 seed and win an ACC tourney game, we're in. That would make two big wins at the end of the season; UVa plus a tourney win. It is hard to see any other path that gets us into the NCAAs.
6) The losses to JMU, Elon and Louisville are the key. Reverse any one of those losses and we would be in good shape with one more win. Reverse two of those losses and we would be in good shape now.