The students join the St Kilda Saints (12-2) and Falcons to have clinched a post season spot with one round left in the regular season.
Either Magic A (7-7) or the Bombers (6-8) will sneak in as the fourth seeded team. However, the Bombers need to beat winless University B and hope Varsity A beats the Magic on Saturday.
If the teams finish with the same record, the Bombers will claim the final playoff spot through the head to head tiebreaker (2-1). Varsity captain Sam King had a major influence on his team's gutsy win over the Falcons.
Despite being double teamed all game, he used a variety of moves around the basket to score a game high 20 points.
But it was King's defence and rebounding superiority that pushed the students past the second seeded Falcons.
He also got some much needed help from guard Oli Davies, who finished with 19 points and drained two clutch free throws to ice the game.
With the scores locked at 55-55 midway through the final quarter, Matt Stephenson (eight points) and Brendan Rose (six) scored layups before King hit a three pointer to put Varsity 62-55 ahead.
After a Falcons timeout, Sam Colenutt (nine points) struck from beyond the arc to put Varsity 65-56 up with two minutes left.
However, the Falcons were not going down without a fight. Jacob Cromb, who scored a team high 19 points, drilled a three pointer and Henrie Njob Anti scored a layup to pull to within four points with 23 seconds left on the clock.
With no option left but to foul and hope the students faltered from the charity stripe, the Falcons forced a turnover from the inbound.
Njob Anti scored another layup to cut the deficit to 65-63, but Davies landed a couple of free throws after being fouled and King fittingly put the game to bed with a steal.
After leading the entire first half, the Falcons do not need to look any further back than the third quarter to see where the game was lost.
Up 34-29 after two quarters, the Falcons managed just two baskets during the first six minutes of the third quarter, allowing Varsity to go on a 15-4 run.
Varsity built a 49 40 lead late in the quarter, before the Falcons finally started finding the bottom of the net to peg the deficit back to five with 10 minutes to play.
In the other games, Finn Delaney scored 19 points to help the St Kilda Saints thrash University B 85-64, while Bombers guard Olly Smith scored 29 points in his team's 83-74 win against the Magic.
