NCAA bracket 2015: Midwest Region to host the Kentucky Wildcats’ bid for perfection
This is Kentucky’s region to lose, something the Wildcats haven’t done since last year’s national championship game.
The No. 1 Kentucky Wildcats' quest for a perfect season will go through the Midwest Region, and everything else happening in the bracket -- there is plenty-- is secondary in the pursuit of college basketball's first perfect season since the Indiana Hoosiers pulled it off in 1976 under Bob Knight. The working assumption since October has been that wherever Kentucky ended up in the regional round would simply be a pit stop on the way to the Final Four in Indianapolis, a thought only strengthened as the season has gone on and Kentucky has won each of its 34 games.
You may recall an undefeated team entered the NCAA Tournament last season, too, the Wichita State Shockers, and it was the eighth-seeded Kentucky team that pulled the upset in what Sports Illustrated later deemed the best game of last year's NCAA Tournament. If the Wildcats were to similarly end their undefeated run in the round of 32, it would be at the hands of either the Cincinnati Bearcats or Purdue Boilermakers, and it would happen with the Wildcats playing within their state boundaries an hour away from campus in Louisville's KFC Yum Center.
The No. 2 seed in the region are the Kansas Jayhawks. Kansas and Kentucky played on Nov. 18 in Indianapolis, a game Kentucky won, 72-40.
1 Kentucky
16 Manhattan/Hampton
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8 Cincinnati
9 Purdue
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5 West Virginia
12 Buffalo
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4 Maryland
13 Valparaiso
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6 Butler
11 Texas
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3 Notre Dame
14 Northeastern
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7 Wichita State
10 Indiana
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2 Kansas
15 New Mexico State
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