NCAA Basketball: Biggest Winners and Losers from the 2018-19 non-conference
By Adam Childs
No. 5 Loser – Kentucky Wildcats (first 9 games)
Kentucky had probably one of the worst starts to the season of any team in the country. They got beat by 34 points against Duke while giving up 118. Their defense looked non-existent and they looked lost sometimes on offense.
The next eight games would go better, but the Wildcats still looked like they were not deserving of a top 25 ranking. They struggled to beat teams like Winthrop and VMI. They finished off the first nine games with an OT loss to Seton Hall when the Pirates made more plays down the stretch to finished them off. It looked like just getting five-star freshman would not work for them this year. The Wildcats looked destined for an eight seed in the tournament or worse.
No. 5 Winner – Kentucky Wildcats (last 3 games)
Then the last three games happened. The Wildcats started it by beating Utah by 17 and then had a huge win over North Carolina in Chicago. They finished their three-game stretch with a 13 point win against a Louisville team who had been playing well.
Kentucky went from struggling to look like an at-large team to all of sudden looking like a top ten team again. The way the Wildcats were playing it looked like this three-game stretch could bury and instead, they have responded and played their best basketball of the year. Maybe John Calipari knew what he was doing from the beginning and it just took the Wildcats longer to show their true potential this year. Either way, nobody will want to see them come tournament time.