Bracketology Update 2/18: Things Have Gotten a Bit More Complicated

Just a week ago, Louisville Men’s Basketball was cruising on a 10-game winning streak. The Cardinals were firmly on the 2-line after the committee’s bracket reveal and were among teams in the hunt for a number one seed. Since last Tuesday, Louisville picked up two quadrant-2 losses and the bracketology projections are not as clear as they were just seven days ago.

Before we look at where Louisville is projected, let’s do a reset on how the Cards’ resume stacks up. Pittsburgh has fallen all the way down to 98th in the NET, so that road win will likely stay a quad-2 win until Selection Sunday. Michigan has moved up to 26; that will remain a quad-1 win as long as the Wolverines remain in the top-30.

Louisville’s Resume:

Overall Record: 21-5
Conference Record: 12-3 (2nd in ACC)

AP Poll: 11th
NCAA NET: 9th
KenPom: 12th
Sagarin: 18th

Good Wins (Quadrant-1): Michigan, at Notre Dame, at Duke, at NC State
Bad Losses: at Georgia Tech, at Clemson

Quad-1 record: 4-3
Quad-2: 3-2
Quad-3: 9-0
Quad-4: 5-0

Remaining Quad-1 games: at FSU (2/24), at UVA (3/7), ACC Tournament? (Mar. 10-14)

The two losses this past week are not catastrophic to Louisville’s resume, but they probably rule out the possibility of a 1-seed and make a 2-seed unlikely. The Cards have very little room for error and will need to pick up multiple good wins before Selection Sunday if they want to be in play for a 2 or 3 seed. Louisville has a shortage of opportunities remaining. If they cannot take advantage of those quad-1 games, they leave the door open for other teams to jump over them.

Bracketology Projections as of 2/18 (Links included):

ESPN: 3 seed in the Midwest playing UC Irvine
CBS: 4 seed in the Midwest playing Yale
FOX: 3 seed in the Midwest playing Wright State
SB Nation: 3 seed in the Midwest playing Winthrop
USA Today: 3 seed in the Midwest playing Wright State
Sports Illustrated: 3 seed
TeamRankings: 3 seed (9th overall)
Bracket Matrix Aggregator: 3 seed (9th overall)

ACC Bracketology:

Duke, Florida State, and Louisville are still the only three locks from the ACC. Virginia remains on the bubble, but they are projected to be in the field of 68 by most bracketologists. As for the rest of the conference, NC State is the only other team projected in the field by any of the 94 different bracketology projections on the internet. As things stand, it still looks like the ACC will be a four bid league in 2020.