NEW YORK – So now, there’s nothing left to do for Villanova but head home and wait.

Unlike last season, the Wildcats won’t be wondering whether they’ve done enough to make the NCAA Tournament. They’ve already taken care of that some time ago.

This March, it’s only a matter of seed and destination. The Selection Committee will let everyone know for sure tomorrow night. At the moment it seems likely that they’ll be a 3, and quite possibly be sent to the Wachovia Center, their home away from Lancaster Avenue, for the opening weekend.

Yet until it becomes official, you’ll just have to trust your favorite bracketologist.

In the first half of Friday night’s Big East semifinal doubleheader at Madison Square Garden, the 10th-ranked Wildcats got the regular-season conference champion Louisville for the second time in two months. In early January in South Philly, they couldn’t convert a tip-in at the buzzer and went down by one.

This time, it never got to that point.

The fifth-ranked Cardinals (27-5), who are trying to make a case for one of the top four seeds in the Madness, came back from an eight-point halftime hole to advance to the title game, 69-55. They’ll get either Syracuse or West Virginia at 9 p.m. tonight.

The Cards went on a 17-2 run to start the second half. But the Wildcats (26-7) had things tied up at 50 with a little over eight minutes to go. Louisville then scored the next 10, and held Villanova to a single field goal the rest of the way.

The Wildcats were trying to make it to their first final since 1997.

The Cards have won eight straight.

“At halftime, I told the guys I was speechless for the first time all year,” said Louisville coach Rick Pitino. “I said, ‘I don’t recognize you. I don’t know who you are.’ Individual glory is nice, but team is what it’s all about.”

When the Cards play like they did after intermission, they’re as scary as anyone. Still, Villanova was right there until the next-to-last TV timeout.

Which doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to digest.

“I thought we were definitely playing well enough to grind one out,” said Villanova coach Jay Wright. “So right now it hurts. But we’ve got to recover. We’ve been good at that this season. But I honestly thought this was one that we had a chance to win. A chance.”

Didn’t happen. Louisville obviously had something to do with that. But for the second straight night, Villanova played two different halves. On Thursday, the Wildcats led Marquette by 16 at the break, but needed a last-second layup to pull out a 1-point victory. This time, there would be no such heroics.

“That’s just something you can’t do at this point in the season,” Wright said, correctly.

The Wildcats got only two points on six shots from Scottie Reynolds, who had 21 against the Golden Eagles. It was the first time in five Big East tourney games that he didn’t lead his team in scoring. Again, the Cards weren’t going to let him hurt them.

Dante Cunningham had 14, but only two of those came after intermission, and none in the closing 18 minutes. Corey Fisher also scored 14 off the bench, but had seven of Nova’s season-high 23 turnovers. Both played 24 minutes due to foul trouble. Dwayne Anderson, who made the winning bucket 24 hours earlier, added a dozen points to go with his four giveaways.

Louisville got 17 points from Earl Clark and 16 from Jerry Smith, who shot 6-for-9, 4-for-7 from the arc. The Cards had only four turnovers after halftime, and made 13 of 28 treys. In the first meeting, they were 3-for-25. They also converted just three from deep in their easy quarterfinal win over Providence.