Louisville coach Pat Kelsey sent a message ahead of March Madness that his team will be playing with extra fire and a chip on their shoulder after conceding to being “hurt” by the Cardinals’ seeding for the NCAA Tournament.
Despite compiling a 27-7 record in Kelsey’s first year with the team, the Cardinals will enter the tournament as an eight seed, meaning they face a tricky opening-round matchup with nine seed Creighton.
The Cardinals have lost just twice since a December defeat to in-state rivals Kentucky, the second of those losses coming at the hands of the Duke Blue Devils in the final of the ACC Tournament. Duke finished the regular season as the top team in Associated Press Top 25.
Louisville ended the year 13th by the same ranking, with the Cardinals 23rd in NET rating, a data-driven sorting system used by the NCAA to put together the brackets when considering the composition of the field of 68 teams. Kelsey’s team were also 23rd by a similar system, the Ken Pom college basketball ratings, leaving him bemused as to why the Cardinals were not named as a top-six seed.
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Speaking on KY Sports Radio, Kelsey said: “Man, so first of all, I just wanna say how fortunate we are and excited we are about playing the national tournament, representing our school in our city.
“I’ll be completely honest with you, when we’re watching the selection show, when that popped up, it hurt a little bit.
“You felt slighted a little bit. It is what it is at this point. You have the advantage of no choice, but in my opinion, we should be playing a 12 or 11 seed. Every metric under the sun that you look at and all the experts, NET, 23, which would put us in a possible five seed range, Ken Pom, 23.
“I mean, heck fellas, you’re Kentucky fans, since that December 14th game, that’s three months ago. Three months. We’ve lost two games [since].
Back in the madness#GoCards x @neilhuffman pic.twitter.com/cIl4MQmOig
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“We went 18-2 in the ACC. We went to the conference championship game and lost to the number one team in the country. So it is what it is.”
But Kelsey made it clear how his team will respond to that disappointment.
“If anything to a competitor or to our guys and to me, it puts a little fire in your belly and gives you just a little added, a little chip on your shoulder,” Kelsey continued.
“But we have to do a great job in preparation over the next couple days. And obviously Creighton is an explosive team, a dangerous team, extremely well-coached, as you guys know. And we’re excited about getting to work.”
