Louisville women's basketball is set to begin the NCAA Tournament against Middle Tennessee.

The Cardinals earned the No. 6 seed and will play the No. 11 Lady Raiders on Friday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They will open tournament play after losing to Notre Dame in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals. It was the team’s third loss in the last five games after entering February having only dropped three games on the season.

The Cardinals had a backloaded schedule with four straight top-25 matchups, which included home-and-home series against the Fighting Irish and Syracuse, going 5-5 over the last 10 games of the regular season. They’ll use that experience and those lessons as they hope to make a deep postseason run.

Louisville’s No. 6 seed marks only the second time in 10 years that the squad hasn’t hosted the first two rounds of the tournament. It’s also the lowest the squad has been seeded since being a No. 7 seed in 2012 when it lost to Maryland in the Sweet 16, where U of L coach Jeff Walz spent three years before coming to Louisville.

Louisville's No. 5 seed in 2023 was the lowest for the squad since making the national championship game as a No. 5 seed in 2013. Though the Cardinals didn’t get that far last season, they still made the Elite Eight for the fifth time in as many NCAA Tournaments. Its last Final Four run was two years ago as a No. 1 seed but fell to eventual national champion South Carolina.

MORE: Watch Louisville women's basketball vs. Middle Tennessee in March Madness on ESPN+

Often an underdog in the postseason, Louisville has its sights set on making noise in the NCAA Tournament, and that starts with Friday's meeting against Middle Tennessee.

"What I love about the NCAA Tournament — we've thrived on it here and just embraced it — is you're playing people, normally, you haven't played," Walz said in February. "So, now you get a chance to really put a game plan together, do things against a team that hasn't seen you all year and they don't know how we do things. We're unorthodox at times. To me, that's what makes it fun."

We occasionally recommend interesting products and services. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. USA TODAY Network newsrooms operate independently, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.

Reach Louisville football, women's basketball and baseball beat writer Alexis Cubit at acubit@gannett.com and follow her on X at @Alexis_Cubit.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville vs Middle Tennessee in 2024 Women’s NCAA Tournament