Advanced Metric Suggests Louisville Could Get Under-Seeded in NCAA Tournament Yet Again

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Last season, the Louisville men's basketball program was able to do something that they hadn't done in six years: make the NCAA Tournament. After over half a decade of wandering the wilderness during the end of the Chris Mack era and under Kenny Payne, the Cardinals finally found themselves back in the Big Dance in year one under head coach Pat Kelsey.

As excited as Louisville fans were at the time to finally get to participate in March Madness, last year's Selection Sunday was not completely full of elation. The Cardinals, who were routinely projected to be around a No. 5 or 6 seed for the tournament, instead received an eight seed.

As you can imagine, fans and media alike to be surprised and shocked by how much they were under-seeded. It also played a role in their early exit from last year's NCAA Tournament, getting upset 89-75 by Creighton in the first round.

A year later, one advanced metric suggests that Louisville could be on a collision course to getting under-seeded yet again.

On Thursday, Evan Miyakawa, who runs the college basketball analytical site EvanMiya, conducted an exercise to find the teams that are most likely to be under-seeded for the NCAA Tournament. In a nutshell, it was an attempt to find the teams whose predictive metrics (such as KenPom, Torvik, etc.) are much more favorable than their actual resumes.

Not only did Miyakawa determine that Louisville was among the 10 teams most likely to be under-seeded, his stats - when combined with the most recent BracketMatrix update - suggest that they fourth-most likely team to be under-seeded, behind only Florida, Appalachian State and South Florida.

While Louisville is 20-8 overall and 9-6 in the ACC, the advanced metrics still really like them. They currently rank as the No. 16 team in the NET, and the No. 18 squad by KenPom, Bart Torvik and EvanMiya. Even in WAB, a metric that was introduced last season and the selection committee puts a lot of stock in, Louisville currently is No. 23.

If the seeding for the tournament was based on those metrics, Louisville would be in line to likely receiver a five seed, and maybe even a four seed. However, according to BracketMatrix, which averages out dozens of bracket projections made by various publications and pundits, Louisville currently is slotted a six seed in their most recent update. This where they have routinely averaged out in the last couple weeks, occasionally peaking as high as a five seed in various projections, but sometimes dipping as low to a seven-seed.

Louisville has three games left in the regular season, and will be back in action this Saturday when they go to Clemson at 2:00 p.m. EST. The ACC Tournament will start on Mar. 11, and Selection Sunday for the NCAA Tournament is set for Mar. 15.

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