U of L No. 4 seed in East, will play UC-Irvine
The University of Louisville basketball team is headed west -- way west.
Louisville (24-8) received a No. 4 seed in the East region of the 2015 NCAA tournament, but the Cardinals will start the tournament on Friday in Seattle against 13th seed University of California-Irvine.
The Cards are paired up in the same region as the second overall No. 1 seed, Villanova, a former Big East foe. Louisville's four-team pod in Seattle also features fifth-seeded Northern Iowa and 12th seed Wyoming.
Northern Iowa and Wyoming tip off at 1:40 p.m. Eastern time on Friday at the KeyArena in Seattle. Louisville and UC-Irvine will tip off after the conclusion of that game, and TBS will carry the live broadcast.
The regional semifinals and final will be in Syracuse over March 27-29.
"We're real happy about being out in Seattle," Louisville coach Rick Pitino told ESPN Radio on Sunday. "We wanted to get away. It's less distractions. We're very excited about that."
Pitino said he doesn't know much about Irvine, but he and his staff had identified the Anteaters (21-12) as a potential opening-round opponent and started the scouting process over the weekend. Louisville planned to watch film of Irvine on Sunday night, then hold double-session practices on Monday and Tuesday before leaving for Seattle on Wednesday.
UC-Irvine won the Big West conference tournament on Saturday, beating UC-Riverside, UC-Santa Barbara and Hawaii over a three-day run. The Anteaters have played several big-name opponents this season, including a 17-point loss to Arizona and a two-point overtime loss at Oregon.
How do the teams match up? UC-Irvine is a fairly efficient offensive team, ranked 22nd in the nation in 3-point shooting percentage and only turns the ball over on 18 percent of its possessions, a number that ranks 99th in the country. Will Davis, a 6-foot-8 senior forward, is Irvine's leading scorer (13.6 points per game) and rebounder (6.9 per game).
On defense, Irvine is built around 7-foot-6 center Mamadou Ndiaye. The Anteaters don't force tons of turnovers, but they are ranked 30th in the nation in field-goal percentage defense.
"To me, it's about how you're playing," Pitino said on ESPN Radio. "Our only weakness right now (is) challenged shots ... This year we're shooting 8 percent. We have to stay away from that challenged shot."
The rest of the East region features a bunch of familiar faces to Louisville. Fellow ACC members Virginia (2 seed) and NC State (8 seed) are in the same 16-team group. Rick Pitino's former team, Providence, is the region's sixth seed.
U of L was a bit of a unique situation for the NCAA tournament's selection committee.
The Cardinals played six games this season without starting point guard Chris Jones, who was dismissed from the team in late February. When things like that happen, the committee tries to balance a team's full body of work, from the first game of the season to the last, against what the team looks like without the missing player.
The committee had to take all those factors into consideration. They ranked Louisville 15th on their 1-68 team rankings list.
"Louisville is a strong team without Chris Jones and they'll still be a strong team," selection committee chairman Scott Barnes said. "No bad losses there. We tracked that. We talked quite a bit about it."
Reach U of L beat writer Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter (@jeffgreer_cj).