Nick Saban's daughter Kristen Saban expresses disappointment as Virginia faces disappointing 67-42 loss against Colorado State: "Wtf Virginia???"

The Virginia Cavaliers (23-11) were on the end of a 67-42 drubbing in the NCAA Tournament First Four at the hands of the Colorado State Rams (25-10) at the UD Arena in Dayton, Ohio, to crash out unceremoniously.

After being a bubble team and barely squeaking through to March Madness as 10-seeds on Selection Sundays, the short stay in the tournament was still shocking to fans, with the Cavaliers being national champions barely five years ago.

Former Alabama coach Nick Saban's daughter, Kristen Saban, an avid watcher of college sports, captured the overriding feeling among college hoops fans with a tweet after the game, which has since been deleted.

"On another note, WTF VIRGINIA???" Saban wrote.

Kristen Saban's tweet

Virginia had poor offensive game to crash out

Virginia had a poor offensive night, shooting 25% (14-of-56) from the field against Colorado State's 55.3%.

The Cavaliers did not take a shot in the final 10 minutes and 30 seconds of the first half and did not score a point in the last 9 minutes and 20 seconds of that half. They only scored 14 points in that half, the fewest they have scored all season.

The last time the Cavaliers won a game in the NCAA Tournament was their championship game in 2019, in which they beat the Texas Tech Red Raiders 85-77 in overtime.

Virginia has since lost to No. 13 seeds Ohio and Furman in 2021 and 2023, was not invited to the Big Dance in 2022 and lost to No. 10 seed Colorado State in 2024.

Coach Tony Bennett addressed the concerning trend during his postgame news conference after the disappointing loss.

"There have been some hard losses in the first round, that’s frustrating,” Bennett said (via NCAA.com). “Absolutely I always have to examine our ability to advance. We’ve raised the bar really high. We’ve qualified for this tournament which is not an easy thing. But it’s stung to get to this point and not advance."

"We’ve got to look at things certainly from a system standpoint. I wish we could have played better . . . because we were so excited to get this chance, because this team maxed out for the most part in the regular season at times," he added.

A year after the Virginia Cavaliers became the first No. 1 seed to lose to a 16-seed in the first round of the Big Dance when they went down 74-54 to the UMBC Retrievers, they won the national championship.

If the Cavaliers are to repeat that trick, Tony Bennett has a lot of work to do.