Virginia-Furman, VCU-Saint Mary’s among first-round NCAA Tournament matchups

Two teams from the Commonwealth are among the 68 qualifiers for the NCAA Tournament in men’s Division I, and they’ll be going in vastly different directions.

Virginia received the No. 4 seed in the South Region when the bracket was announced Sunday night. The Cavaliers (25-7), who shared the ACC regular-season title and were the tournament runners-up, will play Southern Conference Tournament champion Furman at 12:40 p.m. Thursday in Orlando, Florida, with truTV providing coverage.

The winner of that game will come back Saturday to face the victor between No. 5 seed San Diego State and the No. 12 College of Charleston.

Charleston, the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament champion, was the first CAA team to earn a spot in the AP Top 25 in about 3 1/2 decades.

Meanwhile, VCU will be heading north. The Rams got the No. 12 seed in the West Region and will go to Albany, New York, to face No. 5 Saint Mary’s at 2 p.m. Friday on TBS.

The Gaels, from Moraga in California’s Bay Area, shared the West Coast Conference regular-season title with Gonzaga but lost to the Bulldogs in the WCC’s tourney final.

The VCU-Saint Mary’s winner will play Sunday in the round of 32 against the winner between No. 13 Iona, coached by Rick Pitino, and No. 4 Connecticut.

VCU missed point guard Ace Baldwin, the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year, with wrist problems for some early games and had trouble in half-court offense.

Losses to Arizona State, Memphis, Temple and Jacksonville would have made it improbable for the Rams to gain an at-large berth, but beginning with an 89-72 home victory over Davidson on Jan. 7, VCU thrived in A-10 play, winning the league by three games and going 3-0 in the tournament in Brooklyn, New York.