Kentucky women’s basketball faces four-game proving ground for SEC, NCAA tourney seeding
Four games stand between Kentucky women’s basketball and the end of Kenny Brooks’ first regular season at the helm, and the Wildcats have blown past SEC preseason expectations.
Kentucky was voted to finish eighth in each of the league’s preseason polls, as determined by media members and league coaches, and only All-America point guard Georgia Amoore received preseason honors; the presumed first-round pick in this year’s WNBA draft was named to both editions of the All-SEC first team. Since then, the nationally 14th-ranked Wildcats have assembled a 9-3 record in conference play (20-4 overall), defeated four teams in the Associated Press Top 25 and, as of Sunday afternoon, rated as a top-16 seed for the NCAA Tournament, which would mean hosting privileges for the first and second rounds.
Not only are the Wildcats pushing for a massive home-court advantage during March Madness, but they have the potential to secure a similar edge for the upcoming SEC Tournament, which will return to the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, S.C., from March 5-9. Now 16 teams strong, the SEC has restructured its tournament bracket to make space for league newcomers and NCAA Tournament locks No. 16 Oklahoma and No. 2 Texas.
The top four teams in the league standings will receive first- and second-round byes, and will not play until the quarterfinals round on Friday, March 7. Teams seeded Nos. 5-8 will receive a first-round bye and begin tournament play on Thursday, March 6, while the remaining eight teams will open the tournament on Wednesday, March 5.
The Longhorns (26-2, 12-1) — with just three games remaining after their three consecutive top-10 wins over South Carolina, Kentucky and LSU — would own the top-overall seed in the SEC Tournament if the season ended today. No. 6 Gamecocks (23-3, 11-1), who beat LSU on Jan. 24, are in second place, and the No. 7 Tigers (25-2, 10-2) hold sole ownership of third place. Kentucky is alone in fourth.
“That’s what these kids need to understand,” Texas head coach Vic Schaefer said Sunday. “They’ve put themselves in a position now to go win that. We have three games left, two on the road. Always hard to play on the road. We have one final game at home but, to me, that’s what today was about. Whoever won today, put themselves in a position. It’s February 16, and we are in a position to win a championship.”
Though, as Arkansas head coach Mike Neighbors noted at SEC Media Days in October, “the women’s committee took away league record as an NCAA Tournament criteria,” so fighting for preferable seeding in each of the upcoming postseason tournaments has never been tougher. From the two additional, high-level programs, to new, national coach of the year watch-list-caliber leadership at Kentucky and No. 15 Tennessee, even a squad picked to finish in the middle of the pack may very well end up earning an NCAA Tournament bid.
“I’ll predict that right now,” Neighbors said. “Somebody who, in the preseason poll has a double-digit number beside there will be in the NCAA Tournament. That’s how good the league is, and you just added two teams, I think, that have been to every NCAA Tournament except for one or two since I’ve been born. ... I’ve always felt like a 6-10 team in our league is just as good as some other leagues that might not be (as competitive) upside-down.”
Sure enough, ESPN’s latest bracketology predicts that 10 SEC programs will receive NCAA Tournament bids, including six currently projected to earn a top-16 overall seed.
Following LSU’s 65-58 loss at Texas on Sunday, head coach Kim Mulkey went so far as to say that she believes March Madness provides a respite from the consistently deep and “tough” SEC schedule. She noted that, though her team was competitive against South Carolina and Texas and had opportunities to “possibly steal a victory,” the league requires all of its members to “execute, and be extremely tough when it requires the toughness of you.”
“I think if you see the SEC,” Mulkey said. “Wow. It’s just a lot of tough teams, and I would think that we’re probably all a little grateful when the SEC season is over because you may think the NCAA playoffs is, you can kinda breathe a little. But it’s tough in this league.”
SEC bids in the NCAA Tournament
The six SEC teams revealed Sunday by the NCAA Selection Committee as early top-16 seeds are first-seeded South Carolina and Texas, second-seeded LSU, and fourth-seeded Kentucky, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
Among those six teams, only LSU lost after the reveal, but ESPN’s Charlie Creme (who compiles ESPN’s bracketology and does not dictate actual NCAA Tournament bids) still lists the Tigers as a No. 2 seed. With so much basketball yet to be played, nothing is promised, especially for those currently occupying the No. 3 or No. 4 seed lines. In fact, Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell noted the importance of each individual win after the Lady Vols’ single-digit victory over Ole Miss on Sunday.
“It would’ve really sucked to lose this game,” Caldwell said. “And you have that 16 next on paper, but you know it’s gone. So it’s good that we can breathe another day.”
Creme’s latest bracketology, updated Tuesday morning, does list the Wildcats as a No. 3 seed, and designated his projected SEC bids like so — No. 1 Texas, No. 1 South Carolina, No. 2 LSU, No. 3 Kentucky, No. 4 Tennessee, No. 4 Oklahoma, No. 5 Alabama, No. 6 Ole Miss, No. 7 Vanderbilt and No. 9 Mississippi State (18-9, 5-8).
Bracketology updates every Tuesday and Friday. The NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee will reveal its second and final in-season early top-16 seeds on Feb. 27 at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
The road ahead
The Wildcats currently hold the rights to the fourth and final double bye for the SEC Tournament, but the next five teams — No. 18 Alabama (21-5, 8-4), Ole Miss (17-8, 8-5), No. 16 Oklahoma (19-6, 7-5), Tennessee (19-6, 6-6) and Vanderbilt (19-7, 6-6) — lurk in hopes of stealing the No. 4 seed.
What needs to happen for Kentucky to maintain its league standing?
The easy answer, of course, is to win all of its remaining games. But the Wildcats’ slate includes a road trip to Missouri on Thursday before three games against ranked opponents currently predicted to receive a top-16 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament — LSU on Feb. 23, Tennessee on Feb. 27 and South Carolina on March 2, the latter of which takes place away from Historic Memorial Coliseum, at which UK holds a 13-1 record this season.
Fortunately, for Kentucky, things aren’t much easier for those looking to pass the Wildcats in the conference standings.
Alabama, which UK defeated on Jan. 30 and therefore owns the tiebreaker against, still has to travel to Tennessee, and host Auburn and LSU before its regular-season finale at Oklahoma.
Ole Miss, which held off the Wildcats in Oxford last week and therefore owns the tiebreaker against them, will host Missouri and South Carolina ahead of a road trip to LSU.
Oklahoma and Vanderbilt, both of which lost to UK this season, will battle it out in Norman on Thursday. The Commodores will later host South Carolina and Texas A&M before ending the regular season at Missouri, while the Sooners still need to travel to Arkansas and Florida before the Crimson Tide comes to town.
And then there’s Tennessee, which still needs to play Alabama and Georgia at home and Florida on the road, in addition to traveling to Lexington for the first iteration of the new-look UK-Tennessee rivalry.
Thursday
No. 8 Kentucky at Missouri
When: 7:30 p.m.
TV: SEC Network+
Radio: WLAP-AM 630
Records: Kentucky 20-4 (9-3 SEC), Missouri 13-14 (2-10 SEC)
Series: Kentucky leads 12-5
Last meeting: Kentucky won 76-71 on Jan. 21, 2024, in Rupp Arena
