And if you change the standard to "make the quarterfinals of the conf tournament" and "win at least 55.5% of conf games" (equivalent of 10-8) then you could also include 1980 as a successful season. We lost our 1st game in the Metro tourney that year but technically it was a QF game. But that's it in the entire history of the program, so the standard has to be some subset of those accomplishments because I know I've been happy with a VT MBB season more than 3x in my entire life lol. I think we're past the point where a deep NIT run makes up for missing the NCAA but, that said, it's been a long time since we had a deep NIT run. I could imagine a scenario this year where we end up something like 19-13 and everybody is disappointed about missing the tournament, but then we win 3+ games in the NIT and we all feel significantly better about the season.