Wildcats free-fall in rankings following Ohio State thrashing

The Kentucky Wildcats are plummetting down the rankings after a disaster performance at Madison Square Garden in the CBS Sports Classic against the Ohio State Buckeyes. While the new AP Rankings haven't officially come out yet, the NET and the KenPom rankings have shown that it may not be pretty. The fall may be dramatic.

Kentucky is now 17th in the NET rankings, and they were 9th going into the game. They fell not simply because they lost to the 32nd NET-ranked team but because they were pummelled by them. They lost by 20 points on a neutral court; this affects things more than you would think. While it is still a Quad 1 loss, and Ohio State may have a decent season, it's not encouraging if you are a Kentucky fan.

KenPom rankings also dropped Kentucky from 11 to 26 in a pretty dramatic fall. KenPom moved the Buckeyes up to 28 after they beat down the Wildcats. The Buckeyes haven't looked good against good competition at all this year, and they came out and rattled Kentucky so much that even the layups weren't falling. It was bad.

KenPom has lost some of the hope it had earlier in the Wildcats. The analytics it uses to predict games now thinks Kentucky has a .500 record in SEC play. Which is a far cry from being one of the favorites to win it. The holes have been exposed in the Wildcats, and getting thrashed on national TV at Madison Square Garden by a not-very-good Power 5 team has caused many analysts to change their tune on the Cats.

It will be interesting to see how the AP voters handle the Kentucky loss; while they will assuredly be ranked as they still have two of the best NET wins in the country right now, they will drop dramatically as they did in the NET and the KenPom.

Most major bracketologists, including Joe Lunardi of ESPN, projected Kentucky to be one seed in the tournament before this Ohio State game. The first one to drop their update has them now as a three-seed. It was a game the Wildcats will look to forget, and they have one more non-conference game before they get to take on the undefeated Florida Gators for an amazing opportunity to right the ship.