You will hear a lot about Kentucky over the next three weeks. This is because Kentucky is undefeated and the odds-on favorite to win the national championship. The present author predicts the Wildcats will win the national championship, much like many others will and, in good conscience, probably should. The foundation of this predictions post has been established.
NCAA bracket predictions 2015: You will hear a lot about Kentucky
The ratio of Kentucky’s screen time-to-non-competitive basketball will be out of proportion. Be prepared to hear a lot about Kentucky’s players.
Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
But because the Wildcats are in such a luminous spotlight, and because some of Kentucky’s games may not be particularly close in critical statistical categories such as score, on-air conversation may shift away from the Wildcats more often than the other 61 games in this year’s tournament. For instance: Kentucky will play either Manhattan or Hampton in the round of 64. During its regular season, Kentucky played seven games against Division I mid-major schools and won each by an average of 34.6 points. The Wildcats also played the No. 2 seed in their region, Kansas, on a neutral floor and won 72-40.
So you, the reader, must brace for the barrage of non-basketball stories Jim Nantz and others will have prepared for the final however-many minutes of at least a few of the Wildcats’ predicted six NCAA Tournament games. Some will be entertaining, some will be folderol. Among them, surely, will be:
- Karl-Anthony Towns, the Wildcats' starting big(gest) man and possible top pick in this year's NBA Draft, has an imaginary friend with whom he regularly engages named Karlito.
- Willie Cauley-Stein, the Wildcats' other starting huge guy and possible top-ish pick in this year's NBA Draft, played wide receiver in high school at 6'10, and he even seemed pretty good at it. You can spot him in his highlight reel below by HOOOOO MY GOD LOOK HOW TALL.
- Andrew Harrison and Aaron Harrison are the first-ever identical twins to play basketball, probably
- If the Wildcats put in their walk-ons at any point, be on the lookout for Sam Malone. He wears a headband and does not let his career total of four knee surgeries slow him down one bit during Walk-On Time, when all eyes are affixed on him. Walk-On Time is Sam Malone Time, and it’s worth sitting through 38 1/2 of basketball for the 90 seconds when Malone might try to do something he saw Steph Curry do the night before. If you think I am kidding, please be advised: I am not kidding. Nor is Sam Malone.
Other stories will emerge, and that’s good. It will be nice to humanize the science fiction brand of college basketball Kentucky plays. It will also get horribly tiresome. College basketball tropes sometimes take over entire broadcasts. Remember how gritty Aaron Craft was? Remember how young Jarnell Stokes was when he first got to Tennessee? Forget it all, because did you know Karl-Anthony Towns has an imag——
Oh yeah, by the way, I think Gonzaga will make its first Final Four and will lose in the championship game to Kentucky, and the other two Final Four teams will be Wisconsin and Villanova, and Belmont is a dang good No. 15 seed and will beat Virginia in the round of 64, and poor Boise State, because Dayton playing in its own arena in the First Four will be one of the most fun games of the whole tournament, and Notre Dame will give Kentucky a good game in the Elite Eight but still won’t beat the Wildcats, and all of the stories I outlined above may not make it to broadcast because if Jim Nantz is stuck with Kentucky for a few weeks, one of his broadcast partners will be Bill Raftery, and he’s really good at talking about any kind of basketball game, and may we all be so lucky to finally hear Raftery call a Final Four on television and be one of the voices we hear as the tournament ends with what may well be, six forecasted wins from now, the best team in the history of college basketball.
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