March Madness: Ranking the remaining teams in the South Region

4. Kansas State Wildcats (9 seed)

Strength: Experience

It’s weird to say this but I doubt that this team is afraid of Kentucky one bit. Not after going through that daily gauntlet of great teams and players in the Big 12 this year. The Wildcats despite going through some injuries was very competitive in the league and can easily give Kentucky a battle.

Barry Brown has gone from role player to a star in this year, and several young role players have been quietly emergence in the recent stretch, so there is depth here.

Weakness: Dean Wade’s injury

There will be those who make something of Kansas State’s 50 point performance against UBMC, but I took it as a nervous team who was just as concerned about avoiding being the second historic team on the losing side as winning the game (the Retriever’s defense also deserves some credit).

The real issue is not having the leading scorer of the team, Dean Wade who provides the only low post scoring for Kansas State. With this being a foot injury, even if he’s available to play by next weekend, his effectiveness will be limited. And considering he’ll be dealing with Kentucky’s bigs for 40 minutes, Wade is probably not going to have the impact needed for this team to make the Final Four.