Regardless of the outcome of the SEC tournament championship game on Sunday most would probably say that Kentucky is a long shot to land the one seed in the South later in the day when the brackets are officially revealed.
But how strong is the Cats' case?
It's widely assumed that Kansas and Villanova will headline the Midwest and East regions when the selection committee's work is unveiled early Sunday evening. That's on the basis of the way they've padded their resumes over the course of the regular season. In Kansas' case, even a surprising loss to TCU in the Big XII tournament probably isn't enough to throw that into much doubt.
Gonzaga as the one seed in the West is a little less of a sure thing, it would seem, but still seems to be the general consensus or at least the majority opinion of pundits and self-styled bracketologists.
The South region is where it would seem things could get very interesting. In recent weeks North Carolina has been the most popular choice for the program that is expected to land on the top line in the South. But UNC hasn't been a sure thing in that spot, and a loss to Duke in the ACC tournament semifinals could introduce a little more doubt.
Kentucky has only rarely been listed as a one seed by bracketologists over the past couple of months, even as the Wildcats have ripped off ten consecutive wins and earned a berth in the SEC tournament championship game against Arkansas (1 p.m. Sunday, ESPN).
It's still safe to say that Kentucky is probably an unlikely choice unless almost all of the bracketologists have been off their game. There are, after all, usually reasons for the picks that they make.
Nonetheless, Kentucky's rankings and most of the numbers included in their tournament seeding resume actually tell a story that could be surprising to some. Do the Cats have a real case for the top spot in the South?
The case for Kentucky as an unlikely one seed
We'll start with the case for Kentucky, which is a case that many who wouldn't consider themselves fans of the program probably haven't deeply considered.
The first point that would need to be made, if a committee member were arguing for the Cats, would be that there is really no clear fourth team deserving of a one seed. Methodically, one could easily demonstrate that all of the contenders beyond Kansas, Villanova and Gonzaga have enough glaring weaknesses on their resume that would justify bumping them to the two seed line.
North Carolina: Although the Tar Heels won the nation's best conference, the ACC, by a comfortable two-game margin, their case for a one seed is not perfect. Far from it. North Carolina lost their head-to-head meeting with Kentucky on a neutral floor early in the 2016-17 season. That would only seem to matter if all the other numbers between the two teams are equal. Guess what? The numbers are closer than many seem to believe.
North Carolina's 5-4 record against the RPI's Top 25 is better than Kentucky's 3-4 mark, but when the two programs' records are extended to include games against Top 50 teams Kentucky has the edge. The Cats are 10-4 against those teams while the Tar Heels are 10-5. This is based on the RPI rankings of opponents heading into the weekend (unfortunately for Kentucky, some opponents have dipped below the 50th spot since then).
Furthermore, Kentucky's losses haven't been as bad as North Carolina's, by and large. UK's worst loss was a road defeat at the hands of Tennessee (81st RPI) while North Carolina's worst defeat came at Georgia Tech (105th RPI).
Kentucky did lose on the road by 20 points to Florida (8th RPI), but North Carolina lost to Georgia Tech by 12, to Miami by 15, to Duke by eight and ten respectively and to Virginia by 10 points.
North Carolina had more opportunities for quality wins according to perception, and perception may have some basis in reality as computer models aren't perfect, but according to the computers they only faced one more Top 50 opponent than Kentucky. The Tar Heels did defeat Louisville, Florida State, Duke and Virginia, but all of those wins came in the friendly confines of the Dean Dome. Kentucky is lacking for quality wins away from Rupp Arena (save for that very relevant win over UNC in Las Vegas), but the point here is that UNC doesn't have a better road or neutral site resume than Kentucky. In fact, one could argue that Kentucky's road and neutral resume has been superior to North Carolina's. Neutral site games are all the tournament consists of.
Duke: The Blue Devils ripped off an impressive run through the ACC Tournament, dispatching of Louisville, North Carolina and Notre Dame in three consecutive games from Friday through Sunday in their most impressive wins, and that beefs up their away from home portfolio. But Duke would also be an eight-loss one seed that finished three games behind their conference's first place team in the regular season.
Duke also has a home loss to NC State, which is far worse than any loss suffered by Kentucky or North Carolina over the course of the entire season.
Arizona/Oregon: This is being written and published while the Oregon-Arizona Pac-12 championship game is still going on, but that's really irrelevant because the two teams are in a similar boat. The winner of this game will have a case for a one seed, and a legitimate one (given the flaws in the resumes of the other contenders), but the Wildcats and Ducks both have major drawbacks, too.
Both Oregon and Arizona went into the Pac-12 championship game with only two wins against RPI Top 25 teams. Some of that is out of their control, because the Pac-12 afforded them so few opportunities for high quality wins, but the fact remains: They're both lacking for signature wins. Furthermore, both teams are lacking in wins against even RPI Top 50 teams. Going into their conference's tournament title game Arizona was just 5-4 against the Top 50 and Oregon was only 4-2 against the same type of schools (compare to UK's 10-4, UNC's 10-5 and Duke's 13-6).
But it's not just about what other teams have failed to do.
Kentucky would seem to be a relatively safe one seed, which is to say that even when they haven't played well (which has been too often, anyone must admit), they've generally found ways to gut out wins when it matters.
Arizona and Oregon both have gaudy overall records, but so does Kentucky. The Cats are 28-5, though it would be easy to miss that if you didn't know the record and only listened to the tone of the discussion around the team this year.
Kentucky is, purely in terms of wins and losses, one of the nation's hottest teams. Going into Sunday's SEC tournament championship game in Nashville the Cats have won ten consecutive games. Not all of those wins have been impressive, but Florida ranks high in RPI and Vanderbilt was playing high-quality basketball at the time of the game. And you can't do better than 10-0 in a 10-game span.
Although Kentucky dropped games to Kansas, UCLA and Louisville, the Cats had real opportunities to win all of those games. They built leads against Kansas and UCLA early before faltering as the games wore on, while a poor second half stretch against Louisville killed their chances at a big road win.
The case against Kentucky
The most glaring number working against Kentucky in its resume is it's low win total against RPI Top 25 teams: Three. That's no worse than Arizona or Oregon in that respect, but it's worse than North Carolina and Duke's win totals against Top 25 teams according to the RPI.
The case against Kentucky would then move to the eye test, where a lot of reasonable people might say, very reasonably, that even in victory Kentucky hasn't often looked like a one seed. Whether we're talking about the four-game stretch in which Kentucky lost three games or some of the other SEC wins that were less impressive (see: at Vanderbilt, home against LSU, at Mississippi State and others), the Cats had some close calls (then again, so did everyone else).
Kentucky has had a troubling knack for starting games slow over the past couple of weeks. That hasn't bit them yet, but it could spook committee members when comparing the strength of potential one seeds for the South bracket.
Those making a case against Kentucky would probably place a lot of qualifiers by the Cats' win against North Carolina, whether that's fair or not. The final outcome was what it was, but the neutral site was UK-friendly, Malik Monk scored 47 points and Theo Pinson didn't play for the Tar Heels.
Critics would also point out that Kentucky had three other marquee out-of-conference opportunities to notch signature wins and failed. Perhaps just one win in those three games against Kansas, UCLA and Louisville would have been enough to push Kentucky over the hump, assuming the Cats land on the two line.
What will happen, what should happen
It will be a surprise if Kentucky is the one seed in the South when the brackets are revealed on Sunday.
But the reality is, going strictly by the numbers there's a very real case to be made that the Cats are as deserving of that fourth one seed as any other team in contention for the top line.
Obviously Kentucky would still have to take care of Arkansas on Sunday, otherwise the point is moot, but the committee has demonstrated that even victory on Sunday against a quality Arkansas team wouldn't be likely to move the needle.
