Big East Locks Up Third Number One Seed

Louisville took care of Providence in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament today but the good news didn't come til later for the Huskies. As sure-to-be number one seed Pittsburgh was on their way to losing to West Virginia, possible number one seed Oklahoma was having a similar tough time with in-state rival Oklahoma State. And just like Pitt, it was not to be for the Sooners. They lost 71-70 and pretty much secured themselves a number two seed.
If the Sooners could have run the table in the Big 12 tourney, it would have compensated for their late season swoon, despite some of it coming without All-Galaxy power forward Blake Griffin. But that didn't happen. Now neither will their top seed.
Coming into tournament time UConn, Pittsburgh, North Carolina and Oklahoma were the prohibitive favorites for the four top spots. North Carolina and Pitt are definite locks and Connecticut will most likely get in because their resume is superb as their only two losses since the start of 2009 are to Pittsburgh.
That left the fourth one open. Oklahoma was the front runner because the committee was most likely going to forgive their two losses without Griffin. Unless they couldn't overcome the late season troubles even with Griffin. Now it looks like they can't.
That leaves Louisville, Michigan State and Memphis vying for that final top seed. Memphis gets penalized for playing in a putrid Conference USA, so they're undefeated record in it is irrelevant. On top of that, their best out-of-conference win is at Gonzaga. Not that impressive.
Michigan State has been very good since December. But they play in a down Big Ten. That hurts.
That leaves Louisville. They overcame a horrible first two months to win the Big East regular season championship. And getting to the semi-finals of the BET should be enough to catapult them to a No. 1.