If the analysts are correct, Virginia Tech's NCAA Tourny hopes look dim.

The Hokies are 8-8 in the ACC, regarded as the nation's toughest league. Since 1992, only three teams that finished 8-8 in the ACC did not make the NCAA tournament. But Tech's RPI is 120. No team with an RPI worse than 74 -- New Mexico in 1999 -- has ever earned an at-large bid.

Both Jerry Palm of www.collegerpi.com and ESPN.com's Joe Lunardi, the nation's two most respected bracket analysts, predicted yesterday that Tech would be left out of the tournament. In fact, Palm has dismissed Tech since the middle of the season, when he said the Hokies don't even belong in the NCAA tournament discussion unless they win nine or 10 league games.

On the other hand, Palm and Lunardi predicted that Maryland and North Carolina State will make the tournament. It didn't matter that the Terrapins lost their final three games of the regular season, including Saturday's 86-76 loss in Blacksburg, Va., or that Virginia Tech finished one game better than N.C. State and Maryland in the conference standings.

Sure, they beat Duke, but they also lost to VMI, St. John's, and Florida State. At the very least, they fooled a lot of people that had predicted they would finish in the basement of the ACC.