Selection Sunday is near. Here’s what Kentucky needs to do this week to get a 1 seed.
It’s no secret that Kentucky Coach John Calipari isn’t a big fan of the Southeastern Conference Tournament.
“Let’s not have a postseason tournament,” Calipari said several years ago, one of his many comments critical of an exercise that, in the UK coach’s opinion, doesn’t really mean much this time of year.
This time around, however, his Wildcats probably have a little something extra to play for.
Kentucky goes into its opener in the SEC Tournament on Friday as one of the few teams with a realistic shot at a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. To achieve that goal, this weekend’s league tourney could ultimately be a winner-take-all event for one of those top seeds.
“You’ve really got six teams in play for the four spots,” Bracketville founder Dave Ommen told the Herald-Leader this week.
Those six teams are — in order of the Bracketville seed list going into the major conference tournaments — Gonzaga, Baylor, Arizona, Auburn, Kansas and Kentucky.
“I have no doubt that the four No. 1s are going to come from that six, at this point,” said Ommen, who is ranked as one of the nation’s top bracketologists based on his accurate predictions in the past.
Gonzaga, which won the West Coast Conference Tournament on Tuesday night, is a lock for a No. 1 seed, and the Zags might be the No. 1 overall seed, which is where the NCAA selection committee had them in its early bracket reveal three weeks ago.
Arizona will also be a No. 1 seed if it wins the Pac-12, says Ommen, who added that the Wildcats could also still claim one of those spots with a loss in the league tournament. (Zona is the odds-on favorite to win the tourney, by the way, and it won’t face a Quad 1 opponent until the title game, if at all).
Baylor also has a resume that’s hard to ignore. The Bears are 11-4 in Quad 1 games — a relatively new and pretty important stat in the NCAA bracketing process — and they could get three more Quad 1 games (the toughest possible matchups) in the Big 12 Tournament.
It’s possible that Baylor could get a 1 seed without winning the league tourney, but this is where things get a bit uncertain.
If Gonzaga and Arizona both claim No. 1 seeds, that leaves two spots up for grabs. And the four teams gunning for those two spots could face each other in their respective conference tournaments.
“The differences between those top teams is small,” Ommen said.
And it seems logical that — if Baylor, Kansas, Auburn and Kentucky continue to win — the battle for those No. 1 seeds could be decided in league championship games.
There are still several scenarios that could play out over the next few days, but it looks like UK would have a very good shot at a 1 seed if it can win the SEC Tournament title Sunday.
Kentucky and a No. 1 seed
Just to be clear: barring a major surprise from the selection committee, Kentucky will be no worse than a 2 seed on Selection Sunday. As Ommen points out, these teams’ resumes are more than 90 percent complete going into the league tournament, and one loss — especially to a decent/good/great team — isn’t going to shift fortunes too much.
Ommen has UK as the No. 6 overall team on his seed list going into the SEC Tournament — the BracketMatrix.com aggregation site has the same — and there’s no real path for three teams to jump UK at this stage. Duke and Wisconsin are Nos. 7 and 8 on Ommen’s list, and he doesn’t see either team as a viable 1 seed, even with a league tournament championship.
The best-case scenario for Kentucky to bolster its resume would be to get Alabama in the SEC quarterfinals Friday, with Tennessee in the Saturday semifinals and then either Auburn or Arkansas in the title game Sunday afternoon.
That would be three Quad 1 games, and a sweep would give the Wildcats an 11-6 record in such matchups. That stacks up pretty well, no matter what happens elsewhere.
Ommen said there are still some paths to a 1 seed even if UK doesn’t win the SEC Tournament, but that would likely necessitate something like Auburn and Kansas losing early, and Kentucky beating Alabama, Tennessee and then losing a close game to Arkansas for the league title.
The safest route would be to cut down the nets in Tampa. And the clearest scenario for the selection committee would be to simply award the Big 12 and SEC champs — assuming it’s two of those four schools — the final No. 1 seeds.
“If Baylor or Kansas advances further (than the other) or wins the Big 12 and Arizona wins the Pac-12, then I think you’re looking at Gonzaga, Arizona, the Big 12 champ and the SEC champ between Kentucky and Auburn.”
With so little to differentiate these teams’ resumes — especially Auburn, Kansas and Kentucky — at this point, the Wildcats do hold some potential trump cards.
The biggest is that blowout victory at Kansas, something that selection committee chairman Tom Burnett has acknowledged could put the Cats over the top if those two teams are next to each other on the final seed list.
The selection committee will also factor in that UK was missing key players for at least three of its four SEC losses. The Cats won’t get credit for wins in those games, obviously, but it’s something that will be taken into consideration if it’s a close call between Kentucky and one of these other teams.
If it does come down to Kentucky and Auburn on Sunday, the committee would surely place greater weight on a neutral-court UK victory in that game than a UK loss, without TyTy Washington for much of the game and Sahvir Wheeler for key moments, on Auburn’s home court in January.
And, contrary to the popular opinion that Sunday games don’t matter in the bracketing process, a Kentucky-Auburn SEC finals would be an easy either/or scenario for the committee. Winner gets the 1 seed, loser gets the 2.
“You basically set up your brackets, and you have one here and there,” Ommen said. “And because they’re both SEC schools, it doesn’t mess with any of the other bracketing principles. So you set everything up, and when the game ends, the winner goes there and the loser goes there.”
Usually by this time of year, the top seeds aren’t this undecided. The uncertainty should add a little extra spice to the conference tournaments. With some heavy hitters tipping off their postseason play Thursday afternoon, UK fans hoping for a 1 seed will have plenty of scoreboard watching to do. Early losses by Arizona, Auburn, Baylor and/or Kansas should help the Cats’ overall case, but the simplest way to the top line will be to just keep winning.
“There are at least two spots that are very much up for play. And we could have three,” Ommen said. “You’re talking about teams that are all really close right now.”
Sunday
NCAA Tournament selection shows
6 p.m.: Men’s bracket revealed (CBS-27)
8 p.m.: Women’s bracket revealed (ESPN)
