<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>LOUISVILLE — Louisville is just one-third of the way through its Big East Conference basketball schedule, but Coach Rick Pitino is looking into the future, in this case the future being the NCAA Tournament seedings. And he doesn't like what he sees. Because of the Big East's balance from top to (almost) bottom, it's going to take a Herculean effort by the Cardinals (14-5, 4-2) — or any other league team, for that matter — to avoid five or six conference losses and earn a high seed in the tournament. UofL, which will host St. John's (7-10, 1-5) at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in Freedom Hall, already has two unexpected setbacks with the toughest part of its schedule still ahead. The culprit, Pitino believes, when it comes to seeding is the Big East's move to an 18-game schedule this season, an increase of two games. He says he argued against it because he knew the pitfalls. "I was trying to fight going to 18 games because everybody is just going to beat up on each other when you play that many league games," Pitino said. He thinks a No. 1 seed is out of the question for a Big East team, "unless you have a dominant team in the league that can just overpower everybody else, and it's going to take an awful lot to overpower this Big East. Now if one team gets hot ... " The closest thing the league has to a dominant club at the moment is No. 9 Georgetown (15-2, 5-1) and even the talented Hoyas have already had two narrow escapes, at home, clipping Syracuse, 64-60 in overtime, and Connecticut, 72-69. After Georgetown, there are seven teams with two losses and four others with three.</div> Kentucky.com
