Waiting for UK in East Region: Final Four coaches, a pair of ex-Cats — and Murray State
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A look at the 2022 men’s basketball NCAA Tournament East Region — which includes the No. 2 seed Kentucky Wildcats:
The defending champs
Last season’s national champion, Coach Scott Drew’s Baylor Bears, are the No. 1 seed in the East Region.
Baylor (26-6) will enter the NCAA tourney with an impressive 18 victories in Quads 1 and 2, but the Bears’ repeat chances have been compromised by injuries.
Guard LJ Cryer, Baylor’s leading scorer (13.5 points per game), is listed as game-to-game due to a foot injury that has caused him to miss 13 games.
Forward Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua, the Bears’ leading rebounder (6.8 per game to go with 8.4 points), is out for the year after suffering a knee injury.
Baylor lost Top 60 freshman Langston Love to a torn ACL before the season even started.
In addition to the injury attrition, Baylor lost four starters from the team that made a dominant run through last season’s NCAA Tournament.
Nevertheless, Drew had Baylor playing well down the stretch, as the Bears won their final five regular-season games to share the Big 12 title with Kansas.
However, Oklahoma upset Baylor 72-67 in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament.
That’s a bad omen for Baylor’s 2022 NCAA tourney fate. Since the NCAA Tournament expanded to at least 64 teams in 1985, no team that failed to win a game in its league tourney has gone on to claim the national championship.
Meet UK’s first foe
A private university located in Jersey City, New Jersey, Saint Peter’s (19-11) is the East Region No. 15 seed after winning the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament as the No. 2 seed.
(That league’s regular-season champion, Rick Pitino’s Iona Gaels, was stunned by No. 9 seed Rider in the MAAC tourney. Had Iona won the league tournament, would Kentucky be opening NCAA play against its former head coach?)
Saint Peter’s is coached by Shaheen Holloway, the former Seton Hall guard.
A longtime assistant to current Seton Hall head man Kevin Willard, Holloway is in his fourth season as Peacocks head coach and has gone 61-53. After going 10-22 in his first season, Holloway has produced three straight winning records at Saint Peter’s — 18-9, 14-11 and this season’s 19-11.
As a player, Holloway might be best remembered for making a game-winning layup that beat Oregon in the 2000 NCAA Tournament round of 64.
The Peacocks are a defensive-oriented team that scored 66.9 points per game this season while allowing 61.8. Saint Peter’s has eight players averaging between five and 11 points per game.
Junior guard Daryl Banks III is the top scorer (11.0 points); forwards KC Ndefo (10.6 points and 6.2 rebounds) and Fousseyni Drame (7.2 points, 6.8 rebounds) are the top two front-line players.
Against major conference competition this season, Saint Peter’s lost 91-70 at St. John’s and 85-71 at Providence, both Big East teams.
An in-state showdown?
If Kentucky defeats Saint Peter’s, the Wildcats could earn their first-ever meeting with an in-state foe. The winner of that 2-15 game will face the victor between No. 7 seed Murray State (30-2) and No. 10 seed San Francisco (24-9).
Amazingly for teams that share the same state, UK and Murray have never played in men’s hoops.
Coach Matt McMahon’s Racers enter the NCAA tourney on a 20-game win streak.
Going solely by the metrics, the Ohio Valley Conference regular-season and tournament champions are under-seeded. Murray State stands No. 21 in the NCAA’s NET Rankings and No. 27 in the Pomeroy Ratings.
OVC Player of the Year KJ Williams, a 6-10, 245-pound senior, leads the Racers in scoring (18.2 points) and rebounding (8.6).
Guard Tevin Brown, a 6-5, 175-pound senior, gives MSU star-caliber play (16.9 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 1.4 steals) in the backcourt.
Murray’s only two losses came vs. East Tennessee, 66-58, on a neutral court in November and at Auburn, 71-58, in December. The Racers have a road victory, 74-72, at Memphis.
If the two Kentucky teams make it to the round of 32, expect a super-charged showdown.
Ex-Cats vs. the Cats?
Two former Kentucky Wildcats guards are in the East Region with UK.
▪ UCLA’s Johnny Juzang, who averaged 2.9 points as a little-used reserve at Kentucky in 2019-20, has become a full-fledged standout playing for Mick Cronin in Westwood.
The 6-6, 210-pound junior is averaging 16.0 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.8 assists for the No. 4 seed Bruins.
For Kentucky to face Juzang, both UK and UCLA will have to reach the East Region finals.
▪ Texas guard Devin Askew, who started at point guard for Kentucky during the Wildcats’ 9-16 slog in 2020-21, is now a Longhorns reserve.
The 6-3, 198-pound sophomore has started three of 32 games for No. 6 seed Texas this season. Askew is averaging 2.2 points and 1.4 assists.
A potential meeting between the Cats and Askew would take place in the round of 16.
Final Four coaches
In addition to UK’s Calipari, there are four other coaches in the East Region who have taken teams to the Final Four.
▪ Chris Beard. The first-year Texas head man led his previous employer, Texas Tech, to an NCAA tourney runner-up finish in 2019.
▪ Mick Cronin. The former Louisville assistant and Murray State head coach led UCLA to last season’s national semifinals, where the Bruins lost a 93-90 overtime classic to No. 1-ranked Gonzaga.
▪ Scott Drew. The Baylor head man led the Bears to the 2021 NCAA title.
▪ Shaka Smart. The coach of No. 9 seed Marquette directed VCU on a Cinderella run from the First Four to the Final Four in 2011.
Calipari, of course, led Kentucky to Final Four appearances in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015, winning the Wildcats’ eighth NCAA title in 2012. He also coached Massachusetts (1996) and Memphis (2008) to Final Fours, although each was subsequently vacated by the NCAA.
Aspiring to the Final Four
In No. 3 seed Purdue (27-6), the East Region also includes one of the top coaches in the country who has yet to make a trip to the national semifinals.
Matt Painter has led the Boilermakers to five Sweet 16s and the 2019 Elite Eight but is still seeking Purdue’s first trip to the national semifinals since Joe Barry Carroll and Co. way back in 1980.
Blue bloods
The East Region is heavy on teams with multiple NCAA championships in their past.
No. 4 seed UCLA has won 11 national championships.
No. 2 seed UK has won eight.
No. 8 seed North Carolina has won six.
No. 12 seed Indiana — which will face Wyoming in the First Four for the right to advance to the round of 64 — has five NCAA championships.
All three of the other blue bloods are on the opposite side of the East Region bracket from UK, meaning the Wildcats could only face one of the others in the round of eight.
This story was originally published March 13, 2022 at 10:28 PM.
