Kentucky basketball returns to the top 25. And the Cats are rising on bracketology boards.
Kentucky basketball is back in the Associated Press Top 25.
The Wildcats returned to the national rankings Monday, coming in at No. 23 in the latest poll as the 2022-23 regular season heads into its final week.
UK had climbed to a tie for 30th in the AP voting last week, but the Cats were still far removed from the top 25 on total points. Texas A&M was ranked No. 25 in last week’s poll, and the Aggies had 125 points while being mentioned on 42 of 62 total ballots. Kentucky, meanwhile, had just 12 points last week and received a mention on only four ballots.
That changed in a big way in this week’s poll.
Kentucky received a total of 162 points in the latest voting, and the Cats were mentioned on a total of 39 ballots. Steve Greenberg of the Chicago Sun-Times ranked them at No. 15 nationally, and eight other voters had them in the top 20.
UK began the season as the No. 4 team in the AP rankings before dropping out altogether in the Jan. 2 poll. The Cats had not been ranked in the top 25 since then.
Houston, Alabama, Kansas, UCLA and Purdue remained the top five in the newest AP rankings, in the same order as last week. Tennessee dropped one spot to No. 12, and Texas A&M jumped one spot to No. 24.
It was another stellar week for the Wildcats, who won 82-74 at Florida and then put together their most complete performance of the season, an 86-54 dismantling of Auburn in Rupp Arena on Saturday to lift UK’s record to 20-9 and 11-5 in Southeastern Conference play.
That made it four consecutive victories in a row for Kentucky, which had also won six straight SEC games from Jan. 14 to Feb. 4 before hitting back-to-back bumps in the road: a 15-point home loss to Arkansas followed by a deflating defeat at Georgia. Those two games, however, did come as CJ Fredrick (ribs) and Sahvir Wheeler (ankle) started dealing with new injuries, which shuffled around UK’s rotation.
Fredrick returned to the court for seven scoreless minutes Saturday, and Wheeler has now missed six games in a row, but the Cats seem to have found their chemistry.
And the nation is clearly taking notice.
In addition to the uptick in AP Top 25 votes, the Wildcats keep moving on bracketology boards.
Bracketville pushed Kentucky to a 6 seed in its Monday morning update, placing the Cats at No. 22 overall on the NCAA Tournament seed list. (So, just two spots away from 5-seed territory.) That website had UK going to Columbus for the first week and placed the Wildcats in the Louisville regional — a dream scenario for the team.
BracketWAG.com now has Kentucky as the best 8 seed — and 29th on the overall seed list — following the win over Auburn. Those projections have the Cats in Birmingham for the first week of the tournament, placing them in the Las Vegas regional.
ESPN’s Bracketology will not be updated until Tuesday morning, but Joe Lunardi’s projections had the Wildcats as an 8 seed before their 32-point win over Auburn, which was in the ESPN bracket as a 10 seed going into the weekend.
It’s clear now that the only debate regarding Kentucky’s future is where, not if, the Cats will be placed in the NCAA Tournament field. ESPN’s John Gasaway wrote Sunday night that it’s time to move UK into the “lock” category on March Madness boards. The Wildcats had been a staple of “Bubble Watch” features on the national websites in recent weeks, but they’ve now done enough to warrant a spot in the 68-team field regardless of what happens over the next two weeks.
Kentucky will have its Senior Night home finale against Vanderbilt (16-13, 9-7 SEC) on Wednesday before wrapping up the regular season at Arkansas (19-10, 8-8 SEC) on Saturday afternoon. Then comes the SEC Tournament, and the Cats are on the cusp of clinching the No. 3 seed for that event, a scenario that would move them directly into Friday’s quarterfinals.
UK begins the week at No. 20 in the NCAA’s NET ratings with a 5-7 record in Quad 1 games and a 6-0 mark against Quad 2 opponents. The game against Arkansas (still No. 14 in the NET) will be another Quad 1 opportunity, while the Vandy matchup is currently regarded as a Quad 3 matchup.
Selection Sunday is set for March 12.
This story was originally published February 27, 2023 at 12:10 PM.
