Kentucky Basketball: Making or breaking their march to 2020 Final Four

Kentucky Basketball has had the regular-season title in the SEC wrapped up for several weeks now. With the top seed in the conference tournament solidified, they hope to use the tournament to pad their resume and impress the Selection Committee as they vie for a 1 seed in the National Tournament.

If this is your first time visiting “Making or breaking”, it is designed to help you fill out your bracket when you get to the Sweet Sixteen and you just do not know what team to pick. It is straight to the point analysis of the particular strengths and weaknesses of a team that can decide if they march on to the Final Four in Atlanta.

Defining a contender: The term contender is a subjective term. In order to avoid any bias, The Associated Press College Basketball (AP) poll and the NCAA Men’s NET Rankings (NET) will be used to decide if a team is a contender or not. With that disclaimer out-of-the-way, let us venture into the world of the Kentucky Wildcats.

Kentucky Basketball began the preseason ranked No.2 by the Associated Press. They would fall to their lowest rank of No.19 after consecutive losses to Utah and Ohio State in the same week. Their lowest point of the season, however, was the three-point loss to Evansville in November.

While Kentucky continued to climb up the polls after that loss to land where they are now, Evansville would eventually go on to lose all 18 Missouri Conference Valley Conference games to land in last place. The biggest loser of Evansville’s poor season is Kentucky who has paid for every loss Evansville had this season and Kentucky is currently No.21 in the NET because of it.

Fortunately for the Wildcats, basketball is played on the court and not on computers. However, computers can crunch the numbers that give a clearer picture of what can make or break Kentucky on the court.