Kentucky's Early SEC Tournament Exit Forecasts Grim NCAA Tournament Future

Contrary to what John Calipari would like to tell you, the SEC Tournament matters. In fact, all conference tournaments matter. History tells us that poor performance in conference tournaments, particularly by the Kentucky Wildcats, leads to early exits in the NCAA Tournament.

Let’s start with this. No team has ever lost the first game of their conference tournament and gone on to win the national championship.

Losing to Texas A&M Friday night should not disqualify Kentucky from making a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. However, this team’s shortcomings were abundantly clear. The Cats’ high-powered offense covered them up for the final five games of the regular season, but you gotta win six straight to cut down the nets in Phoenix.

That stat applies to every team in college basketball. Looking more specifically at Kentucky, the trends aren’t much better.

In 2019 Kentucky did not play in the SEC Championship Game. They were the first Kentucky team to advance to the Elite Eight without an SEC Championship Game appearance since Rick Pitino’s team lost to Laettner in 1992.

Corey Price dug through the archives all the way back to NCAA Tournament expansion in 1985 to see how Kentucky finished the season after failing to win an SEC Tournament game. The results will put a pit in your stomach.

1985: Sweet Sixteen
1987: Round Of 64
2000: Round Of 32
2002: Sweet Sixteen
2008: Round Of 64
2023: Round Of 32

This is not a one-way trend. Since the Cats cut down the nets in St. Louis in 1978, Kentucky has been to nine Final Fours. Every one of those teams at least advanced to the SEC Championship Game.

Why Conference Tournament Success Matters

The trends are obviously not on Kentucky’s side ahead of Selection Sunday. Gamblers know that trends do not tell the full story. You must handicap each game with nuance.

It’s easy to apply nuance to these historic trends. Why does conference tournament success matter? Basketball is a sport of momentum.

Over the last few years, Kentucky has stumbled down the stretch ahead of the NCAA Tournament. Many times, it was out of their control. PJ Washington was the first of seemingly annual injuries that through off Kentucky’s continuity on the court. Sahvir Wheeler and Kellan Grady were a couple of others who were not at 100% in March either.

This Kentucky basketball team struggled with injury absences through February. Tre Mitchell returned with four regular season games remaining to give John Calipari an entire roster to work with for the first time all season. Even though Mitchell has been a shell of himself since his return, Kentucky’s late-season play gave the BBN confidence this team was ready to get hot in March.

A Reason for Optimism

Not all conference tournament trends create a dire NCAA Tournament forecast. Consider this, of the last 10 National Champions, only two also won their conference tournaments. Winning one tournament does not mean a team is destined for a solid run in the Big Dance, but it helps.

Kentucky had momentum. Even though they lost it in Nashville, this is still a Kentucky basketball team that’s loaded with superstar shooters and is capable of scoring a ton of points in a short amount of time. They are not forgetting that fact, choosing instead to be optimistic ahead of the NCAA Tournament.

“We’re not done yet. It’s that simple,” Tre Mitchell said after the loss. “We’ll get back in the gym, get back to work. We’ll look at the tape. Coach will tell us what we did and didn’t do, what worked for us, what we went away from.

“At the end of the day we have a team full of hungry dudes that are going to stay in the gym. This minor setback is going to motivate a lot of dudes to play that much harder come the tournament.”

Got thoughts? Continue the conversation on KSBoard, the KSR Message Board. New members can try 1 month for $1.