Georgia Tech (14-16, 7-12 ACC ) at UVa (21-9, 12-7 ACC)

8 p.m., ACC Network

After a week off, UVa returns to action tomorrow to wrap up the regular season, with a home rematch against Georgia Tech. The Wahoos have already wrapped up a top-four ACC finish and ACC Tournament seed for the 11th time in 13 years. With a win over the Yellow Jackets, they would clinch the No. 3 seed in the ACC Tournament; they’ll either be the 3 or 4 seed with a loss, depending on results elsewhere.

Virginia is also playing for its postseason life in this one. Most bracketologists have the Cavaliers just on the right side of the bubble heading into the final weekend of the regular season; a loss to Georgia Tech would surely see them depart most projected brackets and they’d likely miss the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years, barring a big run in Washington, D.C. next week. A win doesn’t lock anything up for UVa but it would move the Hoos one step closer to the field of 68.

Their opponent comes to Charlottesville on a three-game winning streak, with coach Damon Stoudamire trying to close his first year on The Flats in the best way possible. The Yellow Jackets won at Miami, had a week off, and then beat Florida State at home and Wake Forest on the road. The performance in Winston-Salem should be a wakeup call for the Hoos if they were sleeping on this one; the Yellow Jackets jumped out to a 26-4 lead against Wake, a team that, like UVa, needed the win to help their NCAA Tournament prospects.

If the Jackets do pull the upset, it would be a rare win in Charlottesville for their program. UVa has dominated the series with Georgia Tech of late, having not haven’t lost at John Paul Jones Arena since 2008, the second year the building was open.

Georgia Tech’s performance of late has been impressive, even if its efficiency numbers aren’t very impressive. The Jackets rank 125th in KenPom, and are outside the top-100 in both offensive and defensive efficiency, ranking 140th and 129th in those categories, respectively. Georgia Tech doesn’t shoot particularly well from inside or outside of the arc, ranking outside the top-200 nationally in both categories. The Jackets also give the ball away quite a bit, ranking 234th in turnover rate allowed. They are four spots from the bottom nationally in creating turnovers, too. Opponents have shot just 31.5 percent from deep against their defense, which is their biggest strength on that end of the floor.

In the first meeting against UVa, the Yellow Jackets raced out to an early lead behind some hot shooting. GT led by as many as 11 in the first half, before the Hoos rallied in the final few minutes to take a 33-29 lead into the locker room. UVa would play well out of the break too, coasting to a 75-66 victory that was the team’s first road win of the season. The Jackets scored 1.05 points per possession, and made nine 3-pointers, though they took 27 of them. They also turned it over 13 times. Virginia, meanwhile, went 11-of-23 from deep, had 19 assists, and scored 1.19 points per possession. The Hoos led by as many as 15 in the second half, rallying from a win likelihood of 23.6 percent earlier in the game.

Miles Kelly, Guard

Georgia Tech’s leading scorer was held to just 8 points in the first matchup with UVa, going 3-for-11 from the field in the loss. For the season, Kelly is averaging 14.6 points and 5.8 rebounds per contest, and has had a couple big games of late. He went for 25 points including seven made 3s in the win at Miami on February 24 and had 19 at Wake, going 5-of-8 triple from long range.

Baye Ndongo, Forward

A 6-foot-9 freshman from Senegal, Ndongo has a promising future at Georgia Tech. In his first season of college basketball, he is second on the team in scoring at 11.7 points per game. He is also a top rebounder, with 8.2 per contest; Ndongo has reached 10+ rebounds in three of GT’s last five games, including double-double efforts against Syracuse and FSU. Ndongo had a nice game against the Hoos in January, going for 15 points on 6-for-7 shooting from the field.

Kowacie Reeves, Guard

After a hot start to the season, Reeves has cooled off a bit. The 6-foot-7 junior had six double-figure scoring outings in the first eight games of the season, and had a good start to ACC play, too, going for 18 at FSU and 17 against Boston College. But in his last eight games, he’s reached double figures just once; Reeves scored 8 points in 31 minutes at Wake on Tuesday night. He was quiet in the first meeting with UVa too, scoring 6 points in 30 minutes of action.

Naithan George, Guard

The freshman point guard is quietly putting together a very nice first season in Atlanta. The Toronto native is scoring 9.4 points per game while dishing out 4.6 assists. George was quite good in his last two contests, scoring 15 points against Florida State and scoring 16 at Wake despite not making a 3 in the game. Against Virginia, he had one of his best all-around performance, scoring 15 assists while dishing out 9 assists in the home loss.

This is about as “must-win” as a game can be for Virginia. The resume has a lot of holes in it, mostly because of the wide-margin losses, many of which came against non-NCAA Tournament teams, and the lack of signature wins to make up for it. One thing UVa has going for it, though, is good “results based” metrics, which show what a team has accomplished rather than predicting what it’ll do next, like KenPom does. Those predictive metrics don’t favor UVa because the blowouts on the resume demonstrate how far away the Hoos can be against similar or better competition.

The one thing they have on their resume (at least for right now) is no bad losses. Notre Dame is the worst one, and as of Friday, that is a Quad-2 loss, which isn’t considered a bad one. A loss to Georgia Tech, a Quad-3 opponent, would be a bad loss and would sink an already flawed resume.

Georgia Tech’s performances of late should scare the Cavaliers and ensure that they don’t overlook this one. That, as well as the stakes, should help Virginia be locked in for this one. Plus, this one is at home, and while UVa has lost two of its last three in Charlottesville, the atmosphere on Saturday should be a good on for Senior Night.

Despite some inspired play down the stretch, we still like UVa to ride the defense and home court to a win here before turning its attention to the postseason. It might not be fair to expect a big win given how the Jackets are playing right now, but if the Cavaliers find themselves up a decent amount in the first half or early in the second, they’d be wise to keep their foot on the gas and try to make the win as efficient as possible. Still, a win of any kind is what UVa needs here.