We know nothing...

A lot of people have a lot of things to say about the Louisville Cardinals mens' basketball team this season. A lot of people say many different things. The only thing that anyone can really say about them and be accurate is that they are VERY inconsistent and no one has any clue what type of team they really are. Coach Willard may have said it best when he compared them to the ever-popular Forrest Gump quote about being "like a box of chocolates." My comparison is similar, but not in the way he meant it. It's not about "which player" will show up on a given night and have a big game, but more like which TEAM shows up.

On their best nights, this team has shown that they belong on the court with ANYONE, beating the #2 team on their home court (that team is now the #1 team in the nation). On the rest of them they look average at best, and lets not kid ourselves, downright horrible on other nights.

There is no really solid control element to say what this team can really do, as on a given night they've shot the ball extremely well (over 50% in a half sometimes) or extremely poorly (in the 20-30% range). They have showed up BIG as mentioned before vs. Syracuse on the road, and also AT West Virgina and at home against Number 4 (at the time) Villanova. They played with those teams to the end and if not for a few bad calls (in which officials have been suspended and banned from officiating the BE Tourney) probably might have 2 more wins. Granted, they had a 17 point lead against Nova and played terribly down the stretch to let them back in, and also gave up leads against West Virginia. Let's also not forget this is the same team that threw in epic clunkers against the likes of Western Carolina, St. Johns, Seton Hall, and Charlotte.

That is really the point of this article though. No matter how amazing the Cards might play in a game, they are more than capable of shooting themselves in the foot and giving the game away, no matter the size of the lead they may have.

I still firmly believe that this team is tournament worthy, more-so because the rest of the at-large field isn't that great than I feel like this is a marginally talented Louisville team. They also boast the 5th toughest schedule in the country and do play in arguably the toughest conference. The head of the selection committee also said in an interview on ESPN the other day that they take things like the WVU and Nova games where officiating obviously played a factor in getting the L, so I think they either throw those games out, or count them as "not a loss" at best. It's hard to TOTALLY blame a loss on officiating, especially because they basically handed those games away after giving up leads; but come on, 2 botched calls and a procedural error in the final minute and a half of a basketball game, deciding the final score by 3 points is a bit much.

So again, Kentucky is still a lock to nab a one-seed, and I still feel like Louisville is in, but probably not deserving of a great seed (and just about any other year, we'd be "dancing" in the NIT). Enjoy filling out your brackets and good luck with picking what Louisville will do (they could either bounce out early in the first round or make a Final 4 run--now THAT'S funny.)