One Final Look at Louisville's NCAA Tournament Resume & Projection

(Photo of Jim Patterson Stadium: University of Louisville Athletics)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - At long last, we have finally reached Selection Monday. After a few days of nervous waiting following their pool play exit from the ACC Baseball Championship, Louisville will finally learn their NCAA Tournament fate.

Sporting an overall record of 28-22, the Cardinals are not exactly a stone cold lock to crack the field of 64. The question is, have they done enough to snag an at-large bid? Or have they done too much damage and seen their bubble burst? Let's take one final look at their NCAA Tournament resume, which you can view here.

For those unfamiliar, tournament resumes are separated into quadrants, with Quadrant 1 being the best and Quadrant 4 being the worst. Quadrants are classified based on the opponent's RPI ranking. Unlike college basketball, location of the game is not taken into account.

First let's start with what could get them in. While their 16-16 record might not seem overly impressive, especially for Louisville, there's some meat to it. Their series split with Notre Dame; series wins over FSU, Virginia, and Duke; and series sweep over NC State all are regarded as Quadrant 1 wins. Not to mention, they have a pair of non-conference Q1 wins over Vanderbilt and USC Upstate.

Their RPI ranking of 75th certainly does not do them any favors, but it might not be a killing blow this year. COVID-19 led to uneven scheduling across the college baseball landscape, with many teams not only having their initial amount of games limited, but also having them wiped out completely because of the virus. As a result, RPI is not as reliable this season as it normally is.

Unfortunately, there isn't much else that Louisville has working in their favor. In ACC play, hey were swept by Clemson, Miami and UNC, and have a series loss to Georgia Tech. They also have non-con losses to Cincinnati, Morehead State, EKU and Western Illinois.

Their road record is far from impressive, as they went 8-12 away from Jim Patterson Stadium (compared to 19-9 at home). Finally, they went 5-12 over the final month, going from the No. 4 team in the country to a bubble team extraordinarily fast.

Heading into the final day of conference championship week, both Baseball America and D1Baseball had the Cardinals on the outside looking in. It also didn't help that USF, Rider, Presbyterian and Jacksonville all stole bids from ECU, Fairfield, Campbell and Liberty, who could get in as at-larges.

When 12:00 p.m. EST rolls around, and the field of 64 is revealed on ESPN2, fans need to be prepared for the very real possibility that the selection committee could have Louisville not going dancing

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