Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg was wondering earlier tonight if there has ever been a team that won nine games in the ACC, beat an opponent that got a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and still didn’t make the tournament. He wondered because all three of those things happened to the Hokies this year.

Now, it’s important to remember that you compete against teams in the present, not the past. But if you go all the way back to 1985, when the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams, just six teams, including Tech this year, finished with a winning record in one of the six major conferences, beat an eventual No. 1 seed and missed the tournament. Six teams in 27 seasons.

The archives on CollegeRPI.com go back through the 1993-94 season. For the seasons before that, dating through 1984-85, you can use sports-reference.com. And here is that data, looked up with the help of fellow scribe Kyle Tucker of The Virginian-Pilot, which made the process go much quicker ...

2011
Virginia Tech (21-11, 9-7 ACC), beat Duke … also beat No. 39 Penn State

2009
Providence (19-13, 10-8 Big East), beat Pittsburgh … also beat No. 12 Syracuse

2007
DePaul (17-13, 9-7 Big East), beat Kansas … also beat No. 19 Villanova, No. 22 Marquette and No. 31 Notre Dame

2006
Florida State (19-9, 9-7 ACC), beat Duke … also beat No. 49 Maryland

1994
Mississippi State (17-10, 9-7 SEC), beat Arkansas … no other top 50 RPI wins

1988
Stanford (21-12, 11-7 Pac-10), beat Arizona ... also beat Baylor (No. 8 seed in NCAAs) and Oregon State (No. 12 seed)

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