How the NCAA Tournament selection committee likely discussed Louisville basketball

The wait is almost over, and the "Selection Show" for the NCAA Tournament is just about here.

Louisville (20-13) is one of a handful of teams hoping to make the 68-team field when it's revealed at 6 p.m. Sunday on TBS. The Cards will find out their fate at the start of the show, as the broadcast will reveal every team that made the bracket in the first 10 minutes. Then the show will go region-by-region and unveil the matchups like it used to do.

The discussion related to Louisville's NCAA Tournament resume centers on the lack of top-quality wins. Louisville countered that dent in its profile with solid computer rankings, three top-quadrant road wins and no losses against teams ranked outside the top 56 in the RPI. It is very much a bubble-team resume.

Let's look at four factors, mentioned in revealing interviews this week with NCAA Tournament selection committee chair Bruce Rasmussen, that shed light on how the committee likely talked about the Cards.

1. "Very talented" but ... 

Rasmussen, in a brief live chat on the NCAA's March Madness Twitter account, aptly described Louisville's predicament.

"Louisville has had a large number of games against first-quadrant teams, and they are certainly a team that, when you look at them, they’re very talented," Rasmussen said. "Do they have enough on their resume?"

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The Cards finished 0-7 against teams ranked in the top 10 of the RPI, with five of those losses coming on neutral or road courts. The committee likely discussed where those games were played, but there's no denying those games will count as missed opportunities.

Louisville's three "Quadrant 1" wins all came on the road, and Rasmussen indicated in an interview with CBS Sports that he places a lot of value in road wins. If that's the case, then the Cards' wins at Florida State, Notre Dame and Virginia Tech — two teams likely in the tournament and a third, Notre Dame, that is in the bubble discussions — will help them.

2. The eye test

Now, Rasmussen is only one member of the 10-person committee, but his insights offer up some tea leaves. One line of thought that stuck out was how he balanced the "eye test," or impressions from watching teams play, against their computer numbers.

"I think there's a value in seeing teams in person," Rasmussen said. "You see the physicality and the length. You see how they respond to things that don't go their way, maybe a call. You see a little bit more. You get a feel for the flow of the game and why the game ends up being the way it is."

Rasmussen later said that he didn't want the committee to "put too much value on those couple games where it just wasn't working." Instead, he'd like them to look at "the entire picture." 

If that's the case, then Louisville should hope committee members saw the Cards' losses to Clemson, Miami, Purdue, Seton Hall and Virginia, in addition to some of their quality victories. Louisville looked like an NCAA Tournament-worthy team in those games. That said, the losses are still losses.

3. Win games "you're supposed to"

Interim Louisville coach David Padgett oddly worded his answer on Thursday when asked if his team deserved to be in the Big Dance, saying the Cards "didn't do anything wrong." What he meant, though, aligned with another comment Rasmussen made to CBS Sports.

"I think one of the hardest things to do is win the games you're supposed to," Rasmussen said. "I don't think we talk about that enough. It's not necessarily that they're great wins, but you win the games you're supposed to -- 18- to 21-year-olds, that's hard."

Louisville went 15-0 in Quadrant 3 and 4 games, one of only 12 teams in the RPI's top 40 to finish unbeaten in those quadrants. The Cards, Oklahoma State and Texas are the only so-called "bubble" teams with that going for them. What might ding Louisville, though, is a pair of home losses to FSU and Syracuse that could be considered "supposed-to-win" games.

4. Quantity of opportunities

In past NCAA Tournament selection processes, the committee seemed to value RPI and strength of schedule more than most other factors. Louisville, sitting at 39th in the RPI with the No. 14 schedule strength, has strong numbers.

But Rasmussen said he created his own system to personally evaluate teams, an off-the-computers assessment tool that attempts to even the playing field for teams from smaller conferences that struggle getting bigger-name opponents to schedule them. He gives overall points for quality wins, but he also gives "points per opportunity" for quality wins. That could hurt the Cards.

"Where you feel good about a team is where they're toward the top in both," Rasmussen told CBS Sports. "But what happens is, sometimes you get tricked, because, say you have a team from the ACC: They have 20 opportunities and four good wins. Out of 20. So they accumulate points, but points per opportunity isn't very good. That's where we have to have a discussion."

Jeff Greer: 502-582-4044; jgreer@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @jeffgreer_cj. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/jeffg.