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The pre-season No. 1 is not dead, far from it.
The University of Louisville men’s soccer team heads into its final pair of regular season games with its Big East tournament fate on the line.
It’s simple: win two on the road – at DePaul on Wednesday and Villanova on Saturday – and the Cards finish fourth in the Red Division and host a first-round game on November 2.
Louisville currently holds the last tournament spot with 5 points, one point ahead of Syracuse. DePaul and Villanova are both at 7 points. Two wins by the Cards leapfrogs them into fourth, with 11 points (it’s three for a win, one for a tie). Two Syracuse losses and the Cards are in, no matter what they do (unless Cincinnati upsets everything.)
Two losses by UofL, combined with one Syracuse win or two Syracuse ties, and the Cards are out. Beyond that, it gets really complicated. If the Cards win one and tie one, or tie twice, then they likely finish 5th or 6th, depending on whether Syracuse goes 2-0-0, 1-0-1, 1-1-0, or 0-1-1. There is not enough time or space to go through all the possible combinations of the exact order of finish.
But the picture should clear up considerably after Wednesday’s games.
Win two!
By Andrew Melnykovych
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