Kentucky now among "First Four Out" following loss to Georgia

Kentucky’s NCAA Tournament hopes are on life support.

Following the Wildcats’ stunning 75-68 loss on Saturday afternoon to Georgia, things aren’t looking great for John Calipari’s group with just six regular season games left. Kentucky was already on the postseason bubble coming into the matchup with UGA, but another embarrassing defeat now has the ‘Cats on the outside looking in.

During halftime of the Duke-Virginia game on ESPN, Bracketologist Joe Lunardi updated his list of teams on the bubble. Unfortunately for the Big Blue Nation, Kentucky has been knocked down to the “First Four Out” after entering Saturday among the “Last Four In”. UK joins the likes of Memphis, Oregon, and Seton Hall as teams that Lunardi says will just miss out on the field of 68.

North Carolina, which was side-by-side with Kentucky prior to Saturday’s games, moved up to the group of “Last Four Byes” after a convincing 91-71 win over Clemson. Kentucky likely would have joined the Tar Heels had they taken care of business against Georgia, but instead dug themselves a deeper hole.

While Kentucky isn’t in an ideal position right now, there will still be chances to win its way back into the projected field. The ‘Cats have six games left on the schedule before the SEC Tournament, four of which will be Quad 1 opportunities: @ Mississippi State on Feb. 15, vs. No. 6 Tennessee on Feb. 18, @ Florida on Feb. 22, and @ Arkansas on March 4.

“Here’s what’s great. We got the kind of schedule that — let’s go win games and we’ll be fine. Just gonna have to go win games,” Head coach John Calipari said after falling to Georgia. “There are games that we’re playing against teams that you beat those teams, you’re fine. Whether we’re healthy or not we’re gonna have to go at those teams and those are gonna be important games for us. But we have them, it’s not like we don’t have any other chances to go get this right.”

Kentucky certainly has the capability of making a run down the stretch of the regular season, but time is quickly running out on the ‘Cats. If something doesn’t change in the immediate future, the program will miss the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three seasons.