Louisville Basketball: Cardinals dodge major penalty, but tournament berth in jeopardy

The University of Louisville avoided major penalties from the NCAA, but they have their fair share of on-the-court problems. Can the Cardinals play their way into the NCAA Tournament?

Louisville fans breathed a sigh of relief when their basketball program avoided major penalties from the NCAA. The Cardinals will have to vacate wins (including the 2013 National Championship) and pay back NCAA Tournament revenue, but the more serious penalties were not enforced. Here is a description of Louisville’s penalties from the NCAA’s official website:

"Louisville must vacate men’s basketball records in which student-athletes competed while ineligible during the 2011-12 through 2014-15 academic years according to a decision issued by the NCAA Division I Infractions Appeals Committee. The appeals committee also upheld the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions penalty that requires the university to return to the NCAA money received through conference revenue sharing for its appearances in the 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championships."

The good news for Louisville is that no scholarships were taken away from the program. That is an extremely damaging punishment as it reduces the margin for error when evaluating prospects. A team with less scholarships has to be sure that each player will be able to contribute and be productive.

Syracuse is a perfect example of the negative repercussions of losing scholarships. The Orange were limited to ten scholarships (programs are allowed 13) which hurt their depth and overall talent level. They are in jeopardy of missing the tournament for the second consecutive year because they only have five or six productive players.

Louisville was also fortunate to avoid a postseason ban since this can cause talented players to flee from the program. The Cardinals self-imposed a postseason ban two seasons ago and were extremely fortunate to minimize player defections.

Related Story: Louisville no longer 2013 national champions

However, even without a formal postseason ban, the Cardinals are no lock for the Big Dance. Louisville is very much on the bubble since their best wins are at Florida State and at home against Virginia Tech. Even with zero bad losses, this is not sufficient for an at-large bid especially from a power conference team with ample opportunities.

A RPI ranking of 52 is not encouraging, but more importantly, they have only two quadrant one wins. One of those wins (at Notre Dame) is against a team that is likely NIT bound. Louisville has also proven that they are unable to beat tournament caliber teams on a consistent basis (2-11 vs RPI Top 50).

Louisville’s resume is undeniably uninspiring, but tournament selection and seeding is relative. 68 teams must be selected to the tournament so it is important to analyze how the Cardinals compare to other bubble teams. Louisville is currently the first team out on Bracket Matrix and this table shows how they compare to the last four teams in the projected field.

The data below is based on expected RPI according to RPI Forecast on February 20th.

@St. Joes)Syracuse38452 (@Louisville, @Miami)2 (@Wake, @Georgia Tech)

This shows that Louisville’s resume is comparable with teams around the projected cutline. The most appealing part of their resume is the lack of damaging losses, but we have seen with the top 16 selection show that the committee values quality wins above all.

Luckily for Louisville, their remaining schedule is among the most difficult in the country which means they will have numerous opportunities to pad their resume. The Cardinals will play at Duke, at Virginia Tech, home versus Virginia, and at NCST. All four of these games would be considered quadrant one games.

However, this gauntlet of a closing schedule is a double-edged sword. While it benefits Louisville to have these opportunities, they still have to win some of these games to be taken seriously. If they go 0-4, then the ACC tournament will be pressure packed for the Cardinals as their margin for error will be non-existent.

That is an unbelievable amount of pressure for a first year head coach who was thrust into an extremely difficult situation. Louisville has talent throughout the roster and were ranked in the preseason, but have underachieved significantly.

Next: ACC Power Rankings

It is beginning to look more likely that the Cardinals will miss the NCAA Tournament entirely, which would have seemed ridiculous just a few months ago. While Louisville lucked out with the NCAA ruling, on-court performance has the this talented squad in an unfamiliar place.