ESPN wildly disrespects Louisville basketball with inexcusable mistake

Louisville basketball is set to face USF in the East region, which some are claiming is the best region, and by far. The Cardinals and the Bulls are going to tip off on Thursday at 1:30 p.m local time, as Louisville is looking to go on a run and make it to the Final Four for the first time since 2013, when Rick Pitino and Louisville won the whole thing.

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However, it won’t be easy, as this East region is absolutely loaded. ESPN recently shone a light on how loaded this region is, highlighting some of the top programs, but they made a wild mistake: they forgot to include the Cardinals.

ESPN’s latest NCAA Tournament graphic completely ignores Louisville

ESPN put together a graphic revealing that Duke, UConn, Michigan State, Kansas, and UCLA are all in the East region, and that those five programs combined for 496 tournament wins and 28 National Titles, but for whatever reason, they didn’t include Louisville on the graphic.  

While the Cards struggled for a few seasons before Pat Kelsey's era, they were one of the top programs in the 2010’s and are one of the most historic programs in college basketball. Not putting Louisville on this graphic has Cardinals fans flooding the comment section. For starters, Louisville is the 6-seed and UCLA is the 7-seed, and the Cardinals have more NCAA Tournament wins than Michigan State and have won more NCAA Championship games than Michigan State and UConn.

ESPN leaving Louisville out of this graphic is disrespectful to the Cardinals, and it just shows that this program isn’t getting the respect it deserves, despite all that Kelsey has done in just two years. The Cards are looking to send a message to ESPN and all the doubters that they shouldn’t be an afterthought or left out of these graphics, and that they belong in the conversation when everyone is talking about how loaded the East region is.

Louisville will face USF in the first round on Thursday, March 19, at 1:30 p.m. local time, and if they win that game, they likely would face the Michigan Spartans in the Round of 32. With Bruce Pearl picking USF to win and now ESPN leaving Louisville off the graphic, the Cardinals are getting tons of disrespect early on, and hopefully, this lights a fire under the Cardinals, and Louisville goes out and proves everyone wrong.

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