Looking Up: How Kentucky Can Move Up In Seeding This Weekend

Right now the ESPN Bracketology has Kentucky as a four seed in the Midwest bracket with Wichita State, Michigan State and Duke as the one, two and three respectively.  Not a bad draw for the Cats, but ideally UK will end up with at least a 2/3 seed to avoid the one’s.  There’s still plenty of time left for them to play their way up in the rankings (and with at least two games left against Florida, there are ample opportunities too), but moving up in bracketology often takes more than you can do on your own, so it’s important that we as fans do our best to root against all the teams that are above us.

Just about every top ranked team is playing this weekend, but not all of them have a realistic shot of losing – so I won’t include the gimmies.  With that said, here are the games of interest this weekend.

Friday Night:

Seton Hall at (6) Villanova 

—It’s not likely Villanova loses against Seton Hall here.  ‘Nova’s only two losses have come against Creighton and Syracuse… but they have been without power on their campus this week, and notably haven’t had as much time in the film room.  I wouldn’t expect the Wildcast to drop one tonight, but crazier things have happened when the lights go out.

Saturday:

(4) Wichita State at Northern Iowa

—Wichita State is good – you can’t be bad and be 24-0 on the season.  But take a peek at their schedule, and you’ll see they aren’t that good.  Most of their wins came against teams with logos you wouldn’t recognize – though they do hold two wins against Tennessee and Alabama.  Will they lose against Northern Iowa?  Probably not.  UNI has played those same teams and lost 12 games.  But it is a road game, so who knows.

(7) Cincinatti at Southern Methodist

—If I had to pick a game for an unranked opponent to win, it would probably be this one.  The Bearcats are travelling to SMU.  SMU already has wins over Memphis and UConn, and they only lost to Cincinatti by 8 when they played them at their home court.  If Cincinatti loses here, they also have a three game stretch against Louisville, Connecticut and Memphis coming later in the year, that might be enough to drop them a few seeds come selection Sunday.

(10) Michigan at (17) Iowa

—This one is kind of lose lose for Kentucky.  One of them wins and gets cemented in with another quality win, the other loses and has an excusable loss.  If we have to root, root for Michigan – it might just drop Iowa enough to let UK pass them.

(15) Texas at Kansas State

—Texas is actually picked as a 5 seed in the latest bracketology, but they are ranked above Kentucky in the polls, so let’s pull for them to lose.  Kansas State came within three of beating Texas on their home court, and while they have lost three of the last four, they have proven themselves to be unpredictable.  Predictably unpredictable, if you will.  With losses against WVU and an awful Georgetown team, but wins over Marcus Smart’s OKST and a top 25 Oklahoma, expect KSU to give Texas all they want in Manhattan Kansas.

Sunday Games:

(9) Michigan State at Wisconsin

—To me, Wisconsin is an enigma.  They rattled off 16 wins in a row, before dropping 5 of the last 7.  And those first 16 weren’t a joke – they beat Florida, Illinois and Iowa.  In the first half of the season, they seemed like the first Wisconsin team with an offense to match their defense, but the former dried up and the latter hasn’t been as hot as once thought.  Meanwhile the Spartans are injured, have dropped two of the last four (including a loss to Georgetown), and have to travel to Wisconsin.  Don’t count out Izzo, but this game has the makings of an upset.