We are now only six weeks away from Selection Sunday, and the Louisville men’s basketball team still has a resume that needs improving. We mentioned last week that the schedule is very back-loaded with quadrant-1 games. Most recently, Louisville beat Georgia Tech on Monday in convincing fashion.
They were hoping to use that momentum ahead of two quad-1 games this week, but those have now been postponed after a positive COVID-19 test within the program. Wednesday’s game at Syracuse and the weekend matchup at Virginia will now hopefully be rescheduled at some point soon. Of course, health and safety is the first priority here.
Louisville took an extended break in December that reportedly hit the majority of the players. A scheduled ACC game against NC State, Louisville’s first scheduled ACC contest of the season, was postponed during this first Covid pause. The first game back from that was a blowout loss at Wisconsin. Odds are at least one or two of the postponed games will not be happening, but either way the schedule is going to be a busy one for the Cards after they return to action.
Resume Update:
Overall Record: 11-4
ACC Record: 5-2
Quadrant 1 Wins: None
Bad Losses: @ Miami
AP Poll: unranked
Coaches Poll: unranked
KenPom: 36
Sagarin: 25
Torvik: 53
NCAA NET: 42
Remaining Quad 1 opportunities (subject to change):
@ Syracuse
@ Virginia
@ Va. Tech
@ North Carolina
@ Duke
Virginia
With Pittsburgh dropping out of the top-75 in the NET, Louisville no longer has a single quad-1 win (0-3 record). There are still six opportunities on the schedule, assuming the road games at Syracuse and Virginia still happen. Louisville will need to go 3-3 or 4-2 in those games if they want to avoid being in that 7-10 seed range.
I think most people would rate Louisville as a better team than some of these bracket projections indicate. That being said, the eye test does not matter all that much when you are a power conference program like Louisville. There is not much more than can be said about the Cards’ resume, because the next month will essentially determine where they are placed in the bracket on Selection Sunday. The range of outcomes is wide. Louisville could easily jump into the conversation for a top 3-4 seed if they can go on a winning streak and compete for an ACC title. They could also miss out on the tournament completely, although I do not think that is a likely scenario.
Louisville Bracket Projections as of 2/3 (Links Included)
ESPN: 8 seed playing San Diego State
CBS: 8 seed playing Colorado
FOX: 7 seed playing Colorado
Sports Illustrated: 7 seed playing BYU
SB Nation: 9 seed playing Drake
Heat Check CBB: 9 seed playing Rutgers
TeamRankings: 8 seed (30th overall)
BracketMatrix Aggregator: 8 seed (30th overall)
