Easiest path to a National Championship for the Kentucky basketball team
By Drew Koch
What’s the easiest path for the Kentucky basketball team to a National Championship?
The Wildcats defeated No. 12 seed Davidson and No. 13 Buffalo last week. The Kentucky basketball team is 4 wins away from taking home their 9th National Championship in school history. What is the Wildcats’ easiest path to hanging another banner in the rafters of Rupp Arena?
Kansas State Wildcats (No. 8 South) – Sweet Sixteen
Thursday night in Atlanta, the Wildcats take on the Kansas State Wildcats. Things couldn’t have broken better for UK to this point in the tournament. After knocking out Davidson, the Wildcats expected to have a date with Arizona in the Round of 32. The Buffalo Bulls, however, had different ideas and ran Arizona right out of the NCAA Tournament.
Even more improbable was the No. 1 overall seed Virginia losing to the 16-seed University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) Retrievers. UMBC lost their ensuing game to Kansas State, which set up Thursday night’s game against UK.
The Kentucky basketball team is superior to KSU in almost every way, espeically if their leading scorer Dean Wade is still injured. At 71.6 points per game, Kansas State doesn’t scare many teams offensively. Over their last 5 games, Kentucky has averaged almost 80 points. That bodes well for the Cats.
Loyola-Chicago Ramblers (No. 11 South) – Elite Eight
If the Wildcats can take care of business against Kansas State, the Ramblers are a favorable match up in the South Regional Final. The Missouri Valley Conference Champions have Sister Jean’s magic on their side, but a game against UK does not set up well for Loyola-Chicago.
Size-wise, the Ramblers are at a distinct disadvantage against the Kentucky basketball team. Loyola’s Cameron Krutwig is their tallest player, and he’s not necessarily a focal-point of their offense. While the Ramblers share the ball on offense and are a solid three-point shooting team, Kentucky has made several good shooting teams look bad this season.
Loyola-Chicago made a great run just getting to the Sweet Sixteen. Porter Moser’s team has shown a lot of grit and determination surviving the first weekend, but compared to Nevada, the Ramblers pose the easier match up for the Wildcats moving forward.
Florida State Seminoles (No. 9 West) – Final Four
It may be a pipe dream, but a Final Four match up between UK and FSU would be just what the doctor ordered to help guide the Wildcats to the National Championship game on April 2nd. The Seminoles have an uphill climb to make it to San Antonio, but it’s plausible.
Florida State plays an uptempo-style of basketball. FSU is 34th in the nation in scoring, racking up 81.1 points per game. After watching Kentucky fly up and down the court against Buffalo this past weekend, I don’t think a back-and-forth, up-and-down game would bother the Wildcats too much.
Defensively, Florida State is just not that good. Ike Obiagu does block over 2 shots per game, but he rarely sees time in Leonard Hamilton’s rotation. Yes, they were able to knock off the 1-seed Xavier, but they gave up 82 points to a Louisville squad that Kentucky trounced by almost 30 earlier in the season.
Clemson Tigers (No. 5 Midwest) – National Championship
A National Championship game between the Kentucky Wildcats and Clemson Tigers wouldn’t be the best thing for college basketball. Heck, outside of the state of South Carolina and the commonwealth of Kentucky, not many TVs and devices would be tuned in to the game. That being said, a championship game between Clemson and UK would definitely favor the Cats.
Clemson is very good on the defensive side of the ball. The Tigers allow only 65.5 points per game to their opponents. Considering they play in the ACC, that’s an impressive statistic. Another impressive statistic for Clemson is their defense inside the perimeter. The Tigers hold opponents below 44% from the field inside the three-point line. That’s 8th best in the nation.
Where Clemson fails to impress me is offensively. Yes, they have 5 players who average double figures in scoring, but so does Loyola-Chicago. I know Virginia is a great defensive team, but they held Clemson to 36 points back on January 23rd. That’s right, 36 freaking points! The Tigers also had games of 60, 52 and 58 total points.
Kentucky has played it’s fair share of low-scoring games this season, and would have no problem mucking it up against Clemson in the National Championship game. If the road to title No. 9 takes Kentucky past Kansas State, Loyola-Chicago, Florida State and Clemson, the Wildcats should head to Las Vegas, because they’d be extraordinarily lucky to have that easy of a path to the National Championship.