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Only two ACC teams have ever failed to make a 64-team NCAA field with 9-7 conference records, so you’d have to think that Virginia Tech (18-7 overall, 8-3 ACC) and Virginia (17-7, 8-3) would be guaranteed a spot if they could come up with two more conference victories.

No less of an authority than UVa athletic director Craig Littlepage urges caution when basing NCAA speculation on conference records.

He isn’t sure that 10 ACC victories represent a “lock.”

Littlepage is in his final season on the NCAA men’s basketball committee after serving as chairman during the 2005-2006 season.

“Conference schedules have to be evaluated now the way that non-conference schedules have always been evaluated,” Littlepage said. “Without the double round-robin, the difference in conference schedules can be pretty significant.”

The only major conference in which all teams play each other at home and on the road is the Pacific-10. The ACC has used an unbalanced schedule since 2004-2005, when Virginia Tech and Miami joined the league.

Ex-Big East colleague Boston College joined them in 2005-2006, when Florida State became the second ACC team to finish 9-7 in the league and not get an NCAA bid.

The first was the 1999-2000 Virginia team coached by Pete Gillen.

It could happen to Virginia again this year, provided the Cavaliers don’t win at least two more ACC games.

With the unbalanced schedule, ACC teams have a single game with six opponents and two games with the other five.

The five teams that Virginia will face twice are Virginia Tech, Maryland, Wake Forest, Miami and N.C. State. Those teams were fifth, sixth, 10th, 11th and 12th in the preseason ACC poll (Virginia was eighth).

Maryland, a team that has lost twice to the Cavaliers this season, had a higher power rating than No. 38 Virginia earlier in the week. So did Florida State and Clemson, a UVa victim on the Tigers’ home court.

The five teams that Tech will play twice are North Carolina, Boston College, Virginia, Miami and N.C. State. Those teams were picked first, third, eighth, 11 and 12th (Tech was sixth).

Of course, when it comes to selecting the NCAA field, the men’s basketball committee will look at actual performance and not the preseason predictions. Going into the weekend, Boston College stands in first place in the ACC at 9-3, with Tech tied with North Carolina and Virginia at 8-3.

The Hokies are 3-1 against BC, North Carolina and Virginia. The Cavaliers are 0-3 against BC, Tech and UNC.

Fortunately for the Cavaliers, they only had to play BC and Carolina once each, but both of those games were on the road. Virginia handled Boston College easily last year at University Hall and probably would be favored to beat the Eagles at John Paul Jones Arena, where UVa is 13-1.

While Tech has had the tougher conference schedule, the Hokies have some skeletons in their closet, namely early season losses to Western Michigan and Marshall.

Those losses were comparable to back-to-back Virginia defeats in the Puerto Rico Shootout in San Juan, where UVa was beaten by Appalachian State and Utah.

According to Littlepage, it’s good that those setbacks occurred in December.

“If a team is going to stub its toe, it’s better to stub it earlier rather than later,” Littlepage said. “On the back end of that, it’s better if a team is performing stronger at the end of the season.”

Does Virginia’s seven-game winning streak, stretching from Jan. 16 through Feb. 9, qualify as the end of the season? Not exactly.

The end of Virginia’s winning streak coincided with a Tech surge, but there are five regular-season games remaining for both teams, followed by the ACC Tournament.

Now is not the time to slack off.