BOB DONNAN l US Presswire

Virginia Tech head coach Seth Greenberg coaches the Hokies in a 63-49 victory over Miami in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament. It was Tech's only win over a team that finished the season rated in the RPI top 50.

BLACKSBURG -- No, Virginia Tech men's basketball coach Seth Greenberg isn't going to file commitment papers against the members of the NCAA tournament selection committee.

But he is certainly disappointed.

Tech did not receive one of 34 at-large bids to the 65-team NCAA tournament Sunday night and was relegated to the National Invitation Tournament.

"Do we feel like we were capable of competing in the tournament? Without a doubt," Greenberg said Sunday. "Do we feel like if we were a [No.] 12 seed that people wouldn't want to play us? Yeah."

The Hokies (19-13) will host Morgan State (22-10) in the first round of the NIT at 7 p.m. Wednesday in a game that will air on ESPN Classic.

On Saturday, Greenberg had said that anyone who had just watched the Hokies' 68-66 loss to North Carolina and did not think Tech was one of the top 65 teams in the country was "certifiably insane."

"Statistically, ... they didn't measure up to being one of the top 34 at-large teams," NCAA committee chairman Tom O'Connor said on a teleconference Sunday. "They're one of the top 65 teams in the country, but our charge is to pick the top 34 teams in the country at large."

Greenberg's "certifiably insane" remark got a lot of play on TV and radio Saturday.

"I'm a very passionate guy. That was not meant to offend anyone," Greenberg said Sunday.

O'Connor, the athletic director of George Mason, said Tech's resume was lacking in four areas:

n Only one win against the NCAA tournament field (Friday's ACC quarterfinal win over Miami).

n Four losses against teams below No. 100 in the Rating Percentage Index (No. 102 North Carolina State, No. 120 Richmond, No. 129 Old Dominion and No. 155 Penn State).

n No nonleague wins against the top 120 in the RPI.

n No wins against teams in the top 50 of the RPI until the ACC Tournament.

O'Connor wouldn't say if Tech would have gotten in the field if it had beaten UNC on Saturday, or how close Tech came to making it in. He also wouldn't say if Tech was the team that got bumped from the field when Georgia (17-16) won the SEC tournament Sunday.

The Hokies finished 1-7 against teams in the top 50 of the NCAA's final official RPI.

Greenberg put his spin on four of those seven losses.

He noted that Jeff Allen was suspended when Tech lost to Duke. Tech had an overtime loss to Butler, a game in which Allen missed a free throw late in regulation. There was a 70-69 loss at Clemson in which Demontez Stitt made two free throws after what Greenberg said was a "questionable" foul call on A.D. Vassallo with 3.8 seconds left. In Saturday's loss to UNC, Tyler Hansbrough made a 15-footer with eight-tenths of a second left.

"How many teams were going to be better than that?" Greenberg said. "Of the people that are in the field, how many were going to win at Carolina [where Tech was blown out]? ... How many were going to win at Clemson?

"We lost some games we wish we had back."

The last five at-large teams in the field were No. 11 seed Kentucky, which was 4-6 against the top 50; No. 11 seed St. Joseph's, which was 5-6; No. 11 Kansas State, which was 3-5; No. 11 Baylor, which was 3-8; and No. 12 seed Villanova, which was 4-7.

One of Greenberg's big arguments in recent days was that Tech finished in fourth place (9-7) in the top-rated conference in the RPI's league rankings. But O'Connor said on CBS's selection show that the committee doesn't talk about conference rankings.

Greenberg isn't pleased that the RPI is only used in certain ways by the committee.

"They selectively decide when they want to use it," he said. "Maybe they should just eliminate the RPI."

Greenberg wants the NCAA to expand the tournament.

The ACC got only four teams in the field. This is the first time since N.C. State in 1975 that a team with at least 10 ACC wins in the regular season and ACC Tournament combined failed to make the field.

The Hokies, who were hoping to make the field for the second straight year, watched the pairings show from a stadium club at Lane Stadium.

"I've been nervous the whole day," senior forward Deron Washington said. "Once the show ended, it was just pretty tough to know we weren't in the field."

Tech is in the 32-team NIT for the second time in four years and is the top seed in its eight-team bracket. Morgan State got an automatic NIT bid as the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference regular-season champ.

Greenberg said he and some boosters will pay for NIT tickets for 3,000 Tech students.