Louisville basketball: 3 takeaways from senior night win over Virginia Tech

March is here

After the frustrating loss to Florida State on Monday night, I think we all thought it essentially ended any chances of the Louisville basketball program winning the ACC regular-season title and claiming the number one seed for the postseason tournament.

However, this is college basketball and March is a month that has become synonymous with crazy things happening. That’s exactly what happened for Louisville on Saturday as Florida State became the third top 10 program to fall at Littlejohn Coliseum, courtesy of Clemson as they fell in the final seconds 70-69.

The loss opened the door for Louisville, who sat at 24-5 and 15-4 in the conference, to at least get back into the conversation but there was still Duke who was likely to take control of the conference if they could take down Virginia.

They didn’t, falling to Tony Bennett’s suddenly hot team (of course) by two points thus dropping to 23-6 and 13-5 in conference play allowing Louisville to take back first place if they could knock off the struggling Hokies; which they did.

As if that wasn’t enough, when looking at the bigger national picture, Louisville without question was a team trending downward following the blowout loss to FSU. Most bracketologists have moved them onto the four-line, giving them an even more challenging opening opponent than we originally thought they may face.

Then March happened (even though Saturday was Feb. 29th).

No. 2, no. 6, no. 7, no. 9, no. 10, no. 12, and no. 16 all fell (five them to unranked teams) once again opening the door for Louisville to begin rising.

2 – Baylor (Loss to TCU)

6 – Florida State (Loss to Clemson)

7 – Duke (Loss to Virginia)

9 – Maryland (Loss to Michigan State)

10 – Creighton (Loss to St. John’s)

12 – Villanova (Loss to Providence)

16 – Penn State (Loss to Iowa)

Joe Lunardi updated his bracket this morning, moving Louisville to the three seed line in the Midwest while Jerry Palm at CBS Sports kept Louisville as a four, while Bracket Matrix has Louisville as a three as well.

A lot still has to happen for Louisville to win the ACC outright, something they’ve yet to do since joining the conference in 2014. Louisville does hold a one-game lead at this point, but with only one game remaining compared to most teams having two, the Cards will need others to fall.

First off. Louisville must win against Virginia on Saturday if there’s any chance of winning the ACC title or sharing it. Then, they’ll need Florida State to drop at least one more game against their final two opponents, Notre Dame and Boston College.

As Kelly Dickey tweeted yesterday, Louisville will finish second and be the two seed for the conference tournament if the Sagarin favorite wins each of the remaining games. That doesn’t mean it’s over though.

There’s a lot of basketball left and be played and anything you read today can change tomorrow (and likely will) but even with a couple of frustrating losses, there’s still a chance for Louisville to finish the season in a great spot and in a prime position to make a run.