2015-16 Louisville Cardinals: What if they had played in the postseason?
Louisville self-imposed a postseason ban in 2016, keeping a promising team from competing for conference and national titles. How might the Cards have measured up?
This is the 4th in a series of 4 articles about the 2015-16 Louisville Cardinals. Check out my archive for my previous articles and others in the Hoops Hindsight series.
Elite college basketball programs like Louisville get measured on what they achieve in the postseason. The 2015-16 Louisville Cardinals never got to be measured because of a self-imposed postseason ban due to recruiting violations. But what if they hadn’t sat out the postseason? What might they have achieved?
Using adjusted margin per 100 possessions and a little imagination, we can create some plausible scenarios of what might have happened. Here are the ground rules:
I’ll use Louisville’s adjusted margin as of February 5th, counting only games against teams in the top 150 KenPom rankings. This eliminated the completely outclassed teams, and is a reasonable sample of major conference teams and capable mid-majors. Louisville’s margin at that time was +27.6 pts/100 poss.
I’ll assume Louisville would have matched their final 12-6 record in ACC play and earned the 4 seed in the ACC Tournament. This would bump the actual 4-14 seeds down a seed, and means Louisville would play #5 seed Notre Dame in their first game.
I’ll “insert” Louisville in the games they would have played, and recalculate the final game margin based on the adjusted margin for Louisville (in #1 above) compared to who Louisville is playing, multiplied by the number of possessions. For example, Notre Dame actually beat Duke 84-79 in overtime (74 poss) in the ACC Tournament; they were obviously tied after regulation (67 poss). Notre Dame’s adjusted margin was +16.6/100 poss, so Louisville was 11.0 pts/100 poss better. In 67 regulation possessions, Louisville would have outscored Notre Dame by 7 pts and won the game.
For the NCAA Tournament, I’m assuming Louisville take’s Duke’s spot as the 4 seed in the West Regional. They had similar RPIs (Duke 15, Louisville 16), and it seem fair to assume an ACC semifinal appearance would have pushed the Cards ahead of Duke. I’ll then follow the same process in #3 for the NCAA games Louisville is in, and assume the same teams win the other games in the West Regional and the same teams from other regions make the Final Four.
So, what would Louisville have done?
ACC Quarterfinals: #4 seed Louisville vs #5 seed Notre Dame
As I mentioned above, in real life Notre Dame beat Duke in overtime. Louisville was rated as 11.0 pts/100 poss better than Duke, so I’m projecting Louisville would have won by 7 points in regulation and advanced to the ACC semifinals.
ACC Semifinals: #4 seed Louisville vs #1 seed North Carolina
Louisville beat North Carolina on February 1st in the last game before the postseason ban. However, in real life North Carolina had an adjusted margin of +29.8 pts/100 poss, enough to sneak past Louisville in this matchup by 2 points over 69 possessions.
NCAA Tournament First Round: #4 seed Louisville vs #13 seed UNC Wilmington
Louisville tips off their NCAA Tournament in Providence against the Seahawks and former Louisville assistant Kevin Keatts. While Duke beat UNC-Wilmington by 8 points, Louisville would be projected to win by over 13 points (73 poss) and advance to the second round.
NCAA Tournament Second Round: #4 seed Louisville vs #12 seed Yale
Yale upset Baylor in the first round, giving Louisville a relatively comfortable second round game. Louisville would be projected to beat the Bulldogs by 8 points (62 poss) and move to the Sweet 16.
NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen: #4 seed Louisville vs #1 seed Oregon
The Ducks got a #1 seed by winning the Pac-12 Tournament despite regular season losses to 3 non-NCAA Tournament teams (UNLV, Boise State, Stanford). KenPom rated them as the weakest #1 seed, and their adjusted margin of +22.7/100 poss is a good bit below Louisville’s projected rating. In real life Oregon beat Duke in this game, but Louisville slips past the Ducks by 3 points (70 poss) and into the Elite Eight!
NCAA Tournament Elite Eight: #4 seed Louisville vs #2 seed Oklahoma
The Sooners and senior star Buddy Hield were actually higher rated by KenPom than #1 seed Oregon, and in real life the Sooners beat the Ducks to make the Final Four. In our reimagining, Louisville is rated higher than the Sooners (+23.8/100 poss) and would prevail by 3 points (67 poss). The Cardinals are in the imaginary Final Four!
NCAA Tournament Final Four: #4 seed Louisville vs #1 seed Villanova
If the Cardinals had made the 2016 Final Four, they would have made it 3 ACC teams (North Carolina, Syracuse). The lone non-ACC representative, Villanova, was rated as the #1 team for the season by KenPom with an adjusted margin of +32.0/100 poss. In our imaginary tournament, that is enough to give the Wildcats a slim 3 point win over the Cardinals (63 poss).
At the time of the postseason ban, Louisville was playing like one of the best teams in the country. Even adjusting to exclude games where they beat up on weak teams, the Cards had a strong enough statistical profile to match up with almost anyone. As a likely 4-seed, Louisville would have been a strong candidate to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. The fanbase never got to see that come true, but they should know that in an alternate universe a Final Four appearance was “in the Cards”!