Evan Miyakawa is one of the fastest-growing college basketball analytics experts out there. He's got stats on stats that will make your head spin. His site features all sorts of deep figures that seem impossible to figure out but are sitting there nicely laid out for you. One of the major ones that people like to look at is "Team Rankings."
When looking at the major way he sorts the teams, called "relative ranking", Kentucky is listed at 19th. The relative ranking is defined as: "Relative Ranking: Each team is ranked based on how it would be expected to perform head-to-head against other similarly ranked teams. If a team is ranked 4th, it is predicted to lose against each of the top three teams, but predicted to beat teams ranked 5th, 6th, and so on. Each head-to-head prediction is based on both teams’ efficiency ratings, opponent adjustment, and pace adjustment." This ranking is helpful because it says that, more often than not, the teams behind Kentucky will lose to the Wildcats while the teams ahead of them will win. This is simple and helpful.
Miyakawa also likes to use emojis next to the team's name in this ranking to give a quick summary of how they are performing lately. Auburn has a flame emoji, Houston has an injured emoji, and Gonzaga has a chart that descends. Then there is Kentucky, which currently has the frozen emoji next to it. The blue character looks like ice. This guy - 🥶. If you hover over the emoji, it will describe why it's there, and for Kentucky, it says, "This team has been kind of bad recently." Yikes.
Miyakawa is not wrong. The Wildcats have been kind of bad recently. While it was only a couple of weeks ago that they beat Gonzaga in Seattle, they struggled against Colgate, fought their way past Louisville, and then were whopped by Ohio State. Kentucky must find a way to turn things around and go from a frozen emoji to a flame one.