Here’s a crazy thought: With its NCAA Tournament draw, Kentucky makes the Final Four
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NCAA Selection Sunday: Brackets, analysis, predictions and more
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Selection Sunday as brackets are revealed for the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments.
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We’re not going to say Kentucky basketball got an easy NCAA Tournament draw. Nothing comes easy this time of year. March is supposed to be crazy hard. If March wasn’t crazy hard, then any team could win six straight games and crown themselves champion. Call me crazy, UK’s draw could have been harder. Much harder.
For openers, as the No. 3 seed in the East Region, the Cats open play Thursday in Pittsburgh. Senior forward Tre Mitchell is from Pittsburgh. Sophomore forward Adou Thiero is from Pittsburgh. And as we know, head coach John Calipari is from Pittsburgh. Moon Township, to be precise. Talk about your happy homecomings.
“Feels like it was meant to be,” UK freshman guard Rob Dillingham said after he and his teammates let out a loud cheer in Calipari’s living room when the Cats’ seed and site were announced.
“I could probably give away half the house there,” Calipari said when asked about ticket requests.
The Oakland Golden Grizzlies are UK’s first-round foe. Greg Kampe, Oakland’s 68-year-old coach, is a longtime Calipari friend. The two had already exchanged text messages by the time Calipari appeared on his back porch to talk to the media. Oakland won the Horizon League Tournament. Historically, Kampe’s teams are tough and hard-nosed, but the Grizzlies lack Kentucky’s talent. No Saint Peter’s this year. The Cats should move on.
If the seeds hold, Kentucky would next face No. 6 seed Texas Tech in the round of 32. That is if the Red Raiders can end North Carolina State’s magical carpet ride, the Wolfpack being the surprise winners of the ACC Tournament. Texas Tech is ranked 24th by KenPom and 27th in the NCAA NET computer rankings but went 23-10 on the season and lost by 23 points (82-59) to Houston in the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament. Call me crazy, but I like Kentucky’s chances of packing its bags for Dallas.
Once in Big D, the Cats are likely to face the Marquette Golden Eagles, the region’s No. 2 seed. Shaka Smart’s club went 25-9 overall and 14-6 in the Big East. Even without All-American point guard Tyler Kolek, Marquette reached the Big East Tournament finals before losing 73-57 to UConn.
Kolek has an oblique injury. Will he be available for the Big Dance? Marquette’s fingers are crossed. With him, the Golden Eagles are truly dangerous. Without him, they needed overtime to beat Villanova in the conference tournament. Against UConn, they found scoring a challenge. Call me crazy, but I can see Kentucky in the Elite Eight.
If so, that could very well mean a date with Big 12 champion and No. 1 seed Houston in Texas. Kelvin Sampson’s team plays suffocating defense. Nothing new about that. Its offense is better than its previous offenses. Still, Houston has been beset by injuries, and the Cougars scored just 41 points in a 28-point loss to Iowa State in the Big 12 Tournament finals.
I’m not saying I’m picking Kentucky to come out of the South Region, but I’m picking Kentucky to come out of the South Region.
My Final Four: No. 4 seed Auburn upsets overall No. 1 seed UConn, then beats No. 2 seed Iowa State to win the East. No. 2 seed Arizona beats No. 1 seed North Carolina to win the West. No. 1 seed Purdue beats No. 2 seed Tennessee to win the Midwest. And Kentucky.
I know, I know, I’m the fool who picked the Cats to win the SEC Tournament. Instead, they went one-and-done on a fright-night Friday. I’m willing to draw a line through that Texas A&M defeat, however. And all around the country, Kentucky was far from the only high seed to check out of a conference tournament early.
“We’ll have fresh legs,” Calipari said Sunday.
And the NCAAs are a fresh start. I’ve thought all along that this particular Kentucky team was so good offensively it would reach the second weekend but so bad defensively its road would end there. That’s before I saw the draw and had a crazy thought: I can see the Cats playing in Phoenix.
This story was originally published March 17, 2024 at 9:30 PM.
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