CHARLOTTE, N.C. --Although the College Basketball Invitational is well-suited to men's basketball teams like Virginia, the Cavaliers are approaching their postseason options with caution.

Virginia (15-14 overall, 5-11 ACC) almost certainly would need to win the ACC Tournament in order to receive an NCAA Tournament bid, but the Cavaliers will finish the regular season with no worse than a .500 record and might be a candidate for the National Invitation Tournament.

The NIT, now operated by the NCAA, has a 32-team field. The CBI, sponsored by the Gazelle Group, will have 16 teams in its first tournament.

Jon Oliver, Virginia's senior associate athletic director, said UVa was contacted by the Gazelle Group and asked to confirm its availability for the CBI by this Friday.

"We're not going to sign any agreement until we know what the NIT is doing," Oliver said. "We've already signed an agreement with the NIT with pretty much the same language as the CBI."

The NIT has reduced its field from 48 to 32 and now is obligated to taking regular-season conference champions, which has made it a tougher invitation than it was in 2006, when coach Dave Leitao's first Virginia team got in the field with a 15-14 record.

"I'm not speaking to our NIT prospects," Oliver said, "but I don't want to preclude that possibility. I'd be a little nervous to agree to something now that might hurt us down the road.

"Teams could commit right now and it's something [the CBI] could trumpet Thursday and Friday. I don't know if the NIT would hold it against us, but you wouldn't want to run that risk."

If the Cavaliers do not receive an NIT bid and the CBI is still looking for teams on Sunday night, Virginia probably would be in a position to listen.

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Trivia question: What do Jim Valvano, Gary Williams and Roy Williams have in common?

None of them has as many ACC coach-of-the-year awards as Virginia Tech's Seth Greenberg, recognized Tuesday for the second time in five seasons at Tech, four as an ACC member.

Gary Williams has been the coach at Maryland for 19 seasons and won a national championship in 2002, but that was the only time he was recognized as ACC coach-of-the year. Other one-time winners include 10-year North Carolina State coach Jim Valvano and Roy Williams, who is in his fifth season at North Carolina and has finished first in the regular season three times, including a tie with Virginia in 2006-2007.

"Low expectations are a great thing," said Greenberg, who was third behind Virginia's Dave Leitao in last year's coach-of-the-year balloting.

Tech was picked 10th in the preseason this year and Greenberg admits that a case could have been made for picking the Hokies 12th.

Commonwealth ties

Jeff Jones, who was 29 when he was hired as Virginia coach in 1990 and took the Cavaliers to the NCAA Tournament five times in an eight-year span, is now poised to return to the NCAA Tournament if his American University team can beat Colgate on Friday on American's home floor.

It would be the first NCAA bid for the Eagles, losers in the Patriot League championship game three years in a row from 2002-2004. Jones, who is 42 days younger than his UVa successor once-removed, Leitao, already has American (20-11) at the 20-win level for the first time since 1989-90.

n Randy Peele, an assistant at Virginia Tech from 1999-2002, has Winthrop (22-11) in the NCAA field after taking the Eagles to a fourth-straight Southern Conference championship in his first season. Peele had been an assistant to ex-Roanoker Gregg Marshall for the previous four seasons.

n Marshall went 11-20 in his first season at Wichita State. That included a 71-67 loss to Indiana State in the first round of the Missouri Valley Conference, where Marshall wasn't around for the finish. He was ejected after picking up two technical fouls, his second and third of the season.

Rockbridge Rocket

William Copeland, the Timesland boys' swimmer of the year in 2004 as a senior at Rockbridge County High School, won both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events at last week's Pac-10 championships.

Copeland, a senior at the University of California, also anchored victorious Cal teams in the 200 freestyle and 400 medley relays and goes into the Division I championships ranked second in his individual specialties.