Louisville basketball No. 2 in ESPN’s preseason BPI rankings

ESPN has unveiled the top 50 teams in its first BPI rankings for the 2017-18 college basketball season. Only one squad, Gregg Marshall’s Wichita State Shockers, ranks above the mighty Cardinals of Louisville.

Here’s a look at the predictive ranking system’s top 15:

Like other advanced metrics birthed to do better than the RPI, the BPI is a predictive rating system that's designed to both measure team strength and project performance going forward.

So does this mean that Louisville and Wichita State are 100 percent going to play for the national championship next April? Yes, that’s exactly what it means.