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The Resume: U of L's NCAA tournament profile

Jeff Greer
Louisville Courier Journal
University of Louisville head coach Rick Pitino reacts to his teams play against the University North Carolina during the first half of play at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky.       January 31, 2015

Welcome to The Resume, a new feature this season that we'll be doing every week as the NCAA tournament fast approaches. The goal here is to focus specifically on Louisville's tournament profile and assess where the Cardinals stand in terms of seeding in the tournament field.

I'll aim to do these every Monday up to ACC tournament week, and then we can update things a bit more frequently as Louisville's NCAA tournament outlook becomes clearer. Selection Sunday is March 15.

Related:U of L takes on Miami

Last season, I spent a lot of time on seeding and trying to project where Louisville -- and the rest of the teams in college hoops -- would fit into the tournament field. But we never had one place where U of L fans (and other curious hoops fans) could go to look just at Louisville's profile and where the Cardinals stand in the grand scheme of things.

The primer

Here's the deal: The NCAA tournament selection committee has a group of specific metrics with which it evaluates teams. Let's break down specifically what the selection committee does have on its computer software during the process:

What the committee has on its selection process software: RPI, average opponent RPI, overall record, nonconference RPI, nonconference record, conference record, road/neutral record, strength of schedule, nonconference strength of schedule, opponents' strength of schedule, nonconference opponents' strength of schedule, record vs. RPI top 25, record vs. RPI top 50, record vs. RPI top 100, losses to RPI >150 teams, record vs. NCAA tournament teams, last 15 games.

What committee members can use by choice to inform their thinking, but don't have on the NCAA software: Ken Pomeroy's efficiency ratings, Jeff Sagarin's ratings, AP/Coaches top 25 polls, ESPN's BPI, among other metrics.

This is why I constantly tell people that top 25 polls during the season simply don't matter. You can be No. 1 in the country in the AP and Coaches polls and get a 4 seed. That would be unlikely 99 times out of 100 -- or maybe 999 times out of 1,000 -- but it's possible.

Working Louisville's resume

On Saturday, in the minutes after Louisville's comeback win over UNC, sophomore guard Terry Rozier trumpeted the victory as an important resume-builder for U of L's NCAA tournament profile. He was right -- Louisville needed a marquee win on its resume, and the UNC victory provided one. Louisville has two other good wins -- RPI top 50 Ws vs. Indiana and Ohio State -- but it still needed that signature one.

Related:Where Louisville stands in bracket projections

What does Louisville's profile still need to climb higher than the current bracket projections that have the Cards in the 3-6 seeding range? A really, really good road win. Louisville is 6-1 in road or neutral-floor games. That's really solid. But Louisville's road/neutral wins are against teams with RPIs of 31, 62, 72, 91, 123 and 137.

I don't think anyone expected Minnesota (RPI: 91) to be this bad. That season opener was supposed to be a chance for Louisville to play a potential NCAA tournament opponent. Instead, the Gophers, at least using the RPI, rank lower than Long Beach State and WKU.

The challenging part of this resume issue, though, is that Louisville's remaining schedule only has one truly marquee road game -- Saturday's trip to Virginia. That's a really, really big test on the road for U of L against one of the top two teams in the country. (Yes, I know UVA lost to Duke. No, it did not change my opinion of them.) Other than that, Louisville needs to hope that a few of its road wins end up becoming top-50 victories by season's end. Pitt is 62nd in RPI after beating Notre Dame this week. Miami is 54th and hosts Louisville on Tuesday night. Syracuse is 65th in RPI and could move up, too.

The good news for Louisville is that there simply isn't a bad loss on its resume, and there are three chances to get really good wins in the next month -- at UVA, home vs. Notre Dame, home vs. UVA. The conference tournament, with Duke, ND, UNC and UVA all there, also could provide U of L with some neutral-floor games for its resume.

The actual numbers

Overall record: 18-3.

RPI: 14.

Nonconference RPI: 18.

Nonconference record: 12-1.

Conference record: 6-2.

Road/neutral record: 6-1.

Strength of schedule: 52.

Nonconference strength of schedule: 102.

Opponents' strength of schedule: 16.

Record vs. RPI top 25: 1-3.

Record vs. RPI top 50: 3-3.

Record vs. RPI top 100: 8-3.

Losses to RPI >150 teams: 0.

Record vs. NCAA tournament teams (using ESPN's Bracketology: 3-3.

Last 15 games: 12-3.