CRAWFORD | For Kelsey, Louisville's NCAA seeding snub sparked scheduling 'smoke'

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- This isn't a schedule. It's a stress test.

After getting slapped with a No. 8 seed in last year's NCAA Tournament — a number that looked more like a slight than a seed — Louisville's second-year coach grabbed the schedule by the throat.

Kentucky. Tennessee. Indiana. Memphis. Baylor. Arkansas. Cincinnati.

Not to mention Duke twice, and the whole ACC gang.

This isn't a schedule. It's a subpoena.

"You can't sharpen your teeth eating oatmeal," Kelsey said Wednesday. "Whether it ends up being the best strategy in the world, I don't know. But that's what we decided. Bring it."

Easy, coach. I'm supposed to be the one writing the fancy one-liners.

But there's a method to the madness. Kelsey consulted with scheduling gurus. He listened during ACC coaches' meetings. He talked to Bubba Cunningham, chair of the NCAA Tournament selection committee.

"He told me, they're human beings in a room," Kelsey said. "They're all 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 human beings — and they're not held to a structured standard of selection."

So what do you do?

There's no easy answer to that now — any more than there was last March. But Kelsey made a decision: err on the side of boldness. Stack the deck with high-level opponents. Leave no doubt that Louisville will go looking for the fight.

"What I do want to do is make sure that when we get there, and the selection committee is looking at us, they know one thing," he said. "Louisville didn't duck the smoke."

In fact, the smoke begins even before the regular season starts. Kansas will be the Cardinals' exhibition opener in the KFC Yum! Center.

"Pretty cool, isn't it?" Kelsey said. "It's pretty cool. I mean, it's an exhibition game. It doesn't count on your record or anything like that. But as I mentioned, this is one of the best sports towns in the country. … Does that get you pretty fired up -- an October game against Kansas at the Yum! What I'm hoping for is about 20,000 people."

It's a far cry from where Louisville opened last season, in the Bahamas.

"One of the guys that took my bags at the hotel was in the starting lineup with the team we played that evening," Kelsey said. "So I'd like to think coach Bill Self's team, the Kansas Jayhawks, are going to be a little bit better test early and get us ready."

At least he won't have to give Self a tip.

Shortly after that game, Kentucky will visit the KFC Yum! Center in the first huge Year 2 test for Kelsey and his team. It just worked out, because of the games the program had scheduled, that the rivalry wound up in that spot, its earliest-ever meeting.

Win that, and the smoke Kelsey keeps talking about likely will turn to fire. At least until the next big matchup.

Kelsey knows the road he's laid out. There are no guarantees, and few easy stretches to pad the margins – especially if the ACC is improved overall. There are no soft landings.

But there's a scoreboard, and a committee room, and somewhere in between, a shot to prove Louisville belongs on a higher line.

The smoke is coming either way. Might as well light the match yourself.