The ACC's outright regular season champion is also its first team eliminated from the NCAA tournament.
Second-seeded Virginia could not survive Michigan State's upset bid for a second straight season, falling to the seventh-seeded Spartans 60-54 on Sunday in the round of 32. Michigan State also ended the Cavaliers' season last year in the Sweet 16.
What hurt Virginia most this year was early and late heroics of Michigan State guard Travis Trice. The senior had 13 points in the opening six minutes to power the Spartans to a 15-4 lead and then he also had a huge late shot clock 3-pointer to extend the gap to eight with less than three minutes to play.
Virginia cut the lead to two early in the second half and to four several times thereafter, but the Cavaliers simply didn't make enough shots to keep pace. They shot 29.8 percent from the field and 2 of 17 from behind the arc, only staying competitive because they got so many offensive rebounds and Michigan State missed 13 free throws.
Michigan State's victory earns the Spartans a Sweet 16 matchup with either third-seeded Oklahoma or 11th-seeded Dayton, a remarkable accomplishment considering all the team lost from last year. Gary Harris, Adreian Payne and Keith Appling are all gone from last year's Elite Eight team and Tom Izzo didn't bring in his usual star-studded recruiting class.
An early NCAA tournament exit is sour finish to an otherwise sweet season for Virginia. The Cavaliers won 30-plus games and the ACC title for a second straight season, but they'll probably always wonder what might have been had second-leading scorer Justin Anderson not fractured a pinkie finger in mid-February.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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