Upsets? Unpredictability? Well, sure. But with the first eight games of this ACC Tournament complete, somehow the league’s basketball universe does not seem so disordered after all.

Look at the way the contestants in the semifinals shook out after third-seed Virginia Tech completed quarterfinal action by blowing open a close game in the second half, defeating a flagging Wake Forest squad, 71-52.

Playing less than a day after surviving a double overtime thriller against Georgia Tech, the 11^th-seeded Demon Deacons trailed only 36-34 at halftime against the Hokies. But Wake committed 11 turnovers and made only 27.8 percent of its shots in the second half. Sixteen of Virginia Tech’s second-half points came off Wake turnovers.

“When we take care of the ball, we can be pretty efficient offensively and a pretty good basketball team,” said Deacon coach Skip Prosser after his team fell to 15-16. “When we don’t, we’re not.”

Wake failed to force a single second-half turnover by Virginia Tech. Coach Seth Greenberg’s squad had only two turnovers for the entire game, the second-fewest ever in an ACC Tournament game. The record, a single turnover in a regulation contest, was set by N.C. State in the deepest of deep freeze games, a 12-10 win over Duke in the 1968 semifinals.

So Virginia Tech got its first ACC Tournament win in its third try, and advanced to Saturday’s 4 PM semifinals to take on 10^th-seed N.C. State. The first semifinals at 1:30 PM will pit top-seed North Carolina against No. 4 Boston College.

In case you’re keeping score, that’s three of the top four seeds still playing, with a single interloper defying form. Since seedings are based on season-long performance, you could argue that, somehow, this seemingly topsy-turvy tournament actually delivered a rather predictable result.

Go figure.

N.C. State and Virginia Tech met twice this season, with the Wolfpack winning each time by double-digit margins. “I think their starting five is really good,” Greenberg said. “I think they’re probably the best passing team in our league in terms of seeing things before they happen.”

If seedings are in essence predictions of performance, then perhaps we can see things before they happen, too. Then again, it takes only one exception to change our perspective entirely.