LOUISVILLE March Madness is back! And everyone here in this bedrock basketball city is furious.
The metro area that annually has the highest viewership in America for the men s NCAA tournament is broken, bitter and bereft of basketball. Louisville had its hoops soul crushed by a confluence of unexpected events in the days leading up to Selection Sunday, and few people fully realized it until the results were on national TV at 6:37 p.m. local time.
Louisville’s joy was stolen by bidthieves and bad losses and too few quality wins and two damaging pauses in a pandemic-shortened season and, if you want to indulge in conspiracy theories, by the athletic director of the Cardinals’ most hated rival, who happened to chair the tourney selection committee. Milquetoast Mitch Barnhart of Kentucky has done almost nothing to stoke the fires of the rivalry during his 19-year tenure until now. (Even if this wasn’t his doing.)