1998 NCAA Basketball Regional Final - Kentucky vs Duke
Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports
Rounding up the latest bracketologies from around the net.
The college basketball regular season is over as conference tournaments begin all around the nation.
That means the seedings for the NCAA Tournament are just about set as league tournaments usually don"t dramatically affect seeds outside of those automatic-qualifiers. However, history has shown that winning a conference tournament can boost a team"s seeding by a few spots, not to mention being the difference in leagues where multiple teams are vying for No. 1 seeds.
As for the Kentucky Wildcats, they"re pretty much set on being a 4 or 5 seed in the tournament, regardless of what they do in the SEC Tournament. In order to get a 3 seed, they"ll need to win their league tournament and have other teams ahead of them on the seed line suffer slip-ups this week.
ESPN"s Joe Lunardi has the Cats going out West as the 4 seed with No. 1 seed North Carolina in the West Region. The potential for a 4/5 matchup with California is there if the Cats win their first game. Both the Bears and Tar Heel are very strong on the boards and in the paint, an area where UK has struggled mightily at times this season.
Cal ranks 21st in the nation in rebounds per game (40.3) while UNC ranks ninth (41.5). Not to mention the Heels just out-rebounded Duke by a 64-29 margin. No. 2 Oklahoma is also in this region, which makes this essentially this year"s region of death if this comes to pass.
CBS Sports" Jerry Palm has the Cats getting a slightly more favorable region in the Midwest, but has UK falling to a 5 seed. Purdue comes in as the 4 seed, which is maybe the worst potential 4/5 matchup for UK. The Boilermakers have one of the best frontcourts in America withVince Edwards,A.J. Hammons and former UK targetCaleb Swanigan. This region also has Kansas as the 1 seed and Xavier as the 2 seed.
Shelby Mast of USA Today Sports has UKin the friendliest region of any recent bracketology, putting the Cats as a 3 seed in the South Region with Virginia being the 1 seed. A potential 3/6 matchup with Purdue looms, but Xavier makes this region as a 2 seed while Virginia comes in as the 1 seed.
SB Nation"s Chris Dobbertean puts the Cats in the East Region with Purdue as the 5 seed and Villanova as the 1 seed and North Carolina as the 2 seed.
The guys atBracket Matrix, who round up what every website and national outlet projects, has Kentucky registering an average of 4.00, meaning they"re pretty comfortably getting projected as a 4-seed. That number is down from the 3.84 average seeding UK got last week as it continues to look like the 4 seed is what the Cats are getting.
That is, unless some of those teams seeded ahead of them lose early in their respective conference tournaments this week.
Source: http://www.aseaofblue.com/2016/3/7/11172252/bracketology-roundup-kentucky-basketball-in-this-years-group-of-death
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