LOUISVILLE, Ky. (KT) — Still smarting over being disrespected by the NCAA Tournament selection committee, Louisville men’s basketball coach Pat Kelsey is using smoke signals to send the group a message for 2026 by building an impressive nonconference schedule that can’t be ignored.<\/p>\n
“What I want to do is make sure that, when we get there and the Selection Committee is looking at us, they know one thing: Louisville didn’t duck the smoke,” Kelsey told the media during a press conference this summer.<\/p>\n
Of course, it’s not enough just to schedule high-level opponents, the Cardinals will still have to beat some of them to present a strong case. So the strategy could certainly backfire.<\/p>\n
“You can’t sharpen your teeth eating oatmeal,” Kelsey said. “Whether it ends up being the best strategy in the world, I don’t know, but that’s what we decided. Bring it.”<\/p>\n
U of L received a No. 8 seed in the tournament last season, a number that was three spots below what he and most seeding experts it deserved with a 27-7 record and a second-place finish in the ACC, one game behind Duke. So Kelsey went to work doing some research before constructing next season’s slate. He consulted scheduling gurus, paid attention during ACC coaches’ meetings and talked to Bubba Cunningham, chair of the 2025 selection committee.<\/p>\n
“He told me, they’re human beings in the room,” Kelsey said. “They’re all going to decide what they’re going to decide what they’re going to decide. That person might like the KenPom metric, that guy might like the NET. That guy might just do the eye test. They’re not held to a structured standard of selection.”<\/p>\n
Kelsey’s handiwork was released on Monday. The 13-game non-conference slate features matchups against three teams that reach the Sweet 16 last season and six potential Top 25 programs, two on the road and two others at so-called neutral sites in the opponent’s home state. Oh, and there’s also an exhibition game against Kansas in the KFC Yum! Center on Oct. 24. Four days later the Cards will host Division I Bucknell in another exhibition.<\/p>\n
Here’s the non-conference schedule. Tipoff times and TV are to be determined:<\/p>\n
Nov. 3, Monday–vs. South Carolina State<\/p>\n
Nov. 6, Thursday–vs. Jackson State<\/p>\n
Nov. 11, Tuesday–vs. Kentucky<\/p>\n
Nov. 15, Saturday–vs. Ohio<\/p>\n
Nov. 21, Friday–Cincinnati at Heritage Bank Center in Cincinnati<\/p>\n
Nov. 24, Monday–vs. Eastern Michigan<\/p>\n
Nov. 26, Wednesday–vs. NJIT<\/p>\n
Dec. 3, Wednesday at Arkansas (ACC\/SEC Challenge)<\/p>\n
Dec. 6, Saturday–vs. Indiana at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis<\/p>\n
Dec, 13, Saturday–vs. Memphis<\/p>\n
Dec. 16, Tuesday–at Tennessee<\/p>\n
Dec. 20, Saturday–vs. Montana<\/p>\n
Feb. 14, Saturday–vs. Baylor at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas<\/p>\n
The ACC schedule is expected to be announced next month. The leaague is moving from a 20-game slate to 18. Under the new arrangement U of L’s primary partner this coming season will be SMU and its variable partner will be Duke, meaning the Cards will play both those teams home and away. The primary partner won’t change, but there will be a different variable foe each year.<\/p>\n
Louisville’s ACC home matchups: Boston College, Georgia Tech, NC State, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech.<\/p>\n
Away: California, Clemson, Miami, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Stanford, Wake Forest.<\/p>\n
The ACC Tournament will be played at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, N.C. March-10-14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOUISVILLE, Ky. (KT) — Still smarting over being disrespected by the NCAA Tournament selection committee, Louisville men’s basketball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,72013,398,400,401,99],"class_list":["post-109722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-morning-briefing","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}