Three ways Louisville basketball can secure a No. 1 seed

Gonzaga or San Diego State loss

I’ll be frank. Given the remaining schedules for the two non-Power 5 1-seeds, the likelihood of either team losing is slim-to-none. Both the West Coast Conference and the Mountain West are a far cry from the ACC, even in a down year for the league.

As for the WCC, even St. Mary’s isn’t even close to the same wavelength as Gonzaga this year. The Zags have one loss on the season, to top overall seed Kansas.

Though their strength of schedule isn’t great (49th), the chances of them being knocked off by a conference opponent before the postseason are extremely low.

The Aztecs of SDSU have not lost a game, and have only had 3 games decided by 5 points or less. The odds of a late-season loss for SDSU are even more unlikely than Gonzaga’s.

Their strength of schedule is very poor for a 1-seed (77th), which seems to be a testament to this seemingly non-separatist committee, in this particular case, extending a ripe olive branch to a mid-major conference leader solely based off of their loss column. But I digress…

Basically Louisville basketball needs a team from the MWC or the WCC to shock the world. It could happen.

Louisville has an opportunity to take care of its side of the equation. What the basketball oracle chooses to do with the other half of the equation remains to be seen.