We’re less than a week into February, and the predictable storyline that Big Blue Nation -- and all of us, really -- were hoping to avoid is already starting to take form.
Will Kentucky face another ranked team before the NCAA Tournament? Does it matter?
There’s a solid chance that the Kentucky Wildcats are going to go nearly three months without playing a top-25 opponent. Is that ordinary? No. Does it really matter? Probably not.
Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports
Kentucky is 22-0 and in pursuit of becoming college basketball’s first undefeated national champion since 1976. As grand a plot as that is, there’s only so much you can say about it. So with more than a month to go before the Cats could even enter the postseason unscathed, the conversation is beginning to shift to the way that gaudy record is being achieved.
Pick a description: “sleep-walking” or “steamrolling.” Either one is an accurate portrayal of Kentucky’s march through the hapless Southeastern Conference right now. Even after being taken into overtime in their first two league contests, the Wildcats have won their opening nine games in conference play by an average of more than 16 points per game.
Even in a game like the one this Tuesday, in which Georgia trailed by just five with two minutes to play, it never really feels like John Calipari’s team is in any significant danger. Part of that is because Kentucky is deservedly a scratch favorite to cut down the nets on the first Monday of April. Another is that the teams the Cats are playing right now aren’t all that great. Let’s take that a step further: the teams they’re playing right now are, by power conference standards, bad.
There are no ranked teams in the SEC outside of Kentucky at the moment, and the only two currently receiving votes -- Texas A&M and Arkansas -- have both lost games within the last five days. The Aggies were unranked when they took UK to double overtime back on Jan. 10, which means the Wildcats’ best hope of playing a ranked team again before the NCAA Tournament is Arkansas miraculously figuring out how to win on the road consistently at some point between now and Feb. 28.
Assuming Kentucky earns a No. 1 seed and doesn’t have to face a top-25 team until, at the earliest, the Sweet 16, there is a very real chance that the Wildcats will wind up going at least 83 days (12/27/14 to 3/20/15) without playing a ranked opponent. The SEC is still a massive step above the West Coast Conference, but isn’t going through the motions in January and February the most common reason given for perennially highly ranked Gonzaga’s NCAA Tournament struggles? Shouldn’t there be at least some of the same concern being tossed in the direction of Lexington?
The short answer is probably not, both because we’ve already seen what Kentucky can do against some of the top teams in the country from other conferences (even if it was in November and December), and because there’s some quasi-precedence here.
Over the last decade, three teams from the Southeastern Conference have won national titles -- Kentucky in 2011-12, Florida in 2005-06, and then Florida again in 2006-07. None of those teams faced high-quality schedules in conference play. The 2012 Cats squared off against, and defeated, a ranked Gators squad on three separate occasions, but that was their only ranked opponent from Jan. 1 until the tournament. Billy Donovan’s two champions, meanwhile, each had minimal games against top-25 teams. The ‘06 champs lost to No. 11 Tennessee on Feb. 22 and beat No. 19 LSU on March 11, but those were the only two ranked opponents even dating back to November. The next season, after New Years had passed, they only boasted wins over No. 24 Vanderbilt, No. 20 Kentucky and No. 25 Alabama.
Maybe these extremely limited experiences against well-regarded conference opponents made the difference between disappointment and euphoria in March ... but probably not.
Still, going nearly three months without a game against a ranked team would be an unheard of attribute for a modern national champion. Here’s a quick look at the longest stretch in between ranked games for eventual title-winners over the last decade after the calendar flipped in their respective championship seasons.
Connecticut (2014) - 19 days
Louisville (2013) - 21 days
Kentucky (2012) - 37 days
Connecticut (2011) - 15 days
Duke (2010) - 27 days
North Carolina (2009) - 25 days
Kansas (2008) - 34 days
Florida (2007) - 32 days
Florida (2006) - 53 days
North Carolina (2005) - 25 days
If Kentucky does, in fact, win the title after going the entire new year without playing a ranked team before the Big Dance, they’ll be the first team in the three-point line era to achieve that feat. The last squad to do it? The 1977-78 Cats, who defeated No. 4 Notre Dame on New Year’s Eve in Louisville, and then didn’t face another top-25 team until the NCAA Tournament. The last team to do it before them? The 1965-66 Texas Western Miners, who stunned top-ranked Kentucky in one of the most famous championship games in the sport’s history.
As if Kentucky needed any more history to play for over the next two months.
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