Common ground doesn’t come easy in college basketball, especially not in this month. This is the sport that somehow doubles as both the most egalitarian and the most unfair: All 351 teams get a shot at the national title at the end of the season by playing until they lose. Yet, the setup is so subjective that it can’t help but leave almost every party unsatisfied.
We don’t deserve Kentucky vs. Wichita State in the second round. This feels familiar
Welcome to the rematch no one asked for — at least not yet.
Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
That’s part of the reason Sunday’s second-round NCAA tournament matchup between the Kentucky Wildcats and the Wichita State Shockers feels so rare: There’s a consensus here, and it’s that this game should not be happening. Not yet, at least. Both of these teams are way too good to be playing each other on the first weekend.
John Calipari hasn’t been shy about sharing his feelings on the matter.
“We’re a No. 2 seed playing a No. 4 seed in the second round,” Cal told reporters on Saturday.
He isn’t wrong.
When the bracket was announced on Selection Sunday and the Shockers were hit with a No. 10 seed, it flew in the face of objective and overwhelming evidence that the decision was unjust. After all, Wichita State was ranked No. 8 in the country on KenPom after blitzing through the Missouri Valley and hammering co-champion Illinois State by 20 points in the conference tournament title game.
Wichita and Kentucky will have the second round rematch neither coach wanted and no one asked for.
Calipari isn’t the only one who thought the Shockers should be a No. 4 seed — Dayton’s Archie Miller said the exact same thing.
Of course, a screw job by the selection committee is nothing new for Wichita: At this point, it may be the most disrespected program in the history of the NCAA tournament. There is one shining example of this that sticks out above the rest, and it serves as the dramatic subtext on which Sunday’s game will be played.
Kentucky and Wichita State have been here before. Back in 2014, Calipari’s Wildcats were the team that was wildly underseeded. Kentucky was the preseason No. 1 that failed to click out of the gates with a young roster and lost a number of close games late in the campaign. And so Cal’s Cats were hit with a No. 8 seed only to be paired in the same region with Gregg Marshall and the Shockers.
At the time, Wichita State was 35-0 and had the longest single-season unbeaten streak the sport had ever seen. The goal was to become the second undefeated champion ever, joining Bob Knight’s historic 1975-1976 Indiana Hoosiers. The Shockers might have done it too if the selection committee didn’t decide to match them up with Kentucky.
The game was a classic — perhaps one of the best in the recent history of the tournament. Cleanthony Early played like a superstar for Wichita, and the sophomore tandem of Fred VanVleet and Ron Baker were just as good. Kentucky had blue chip talent at every position, most notably in freshman forward Julius Randle, who felt like a full-grown man even at 19 years old.
Wichita led by six at halftime, but Kentucky would roar back. The game came down to the final possession, Wichita ball, Kentucky leading by two. VanVleet took a deep three-pointer that clanked off the back iron, and the dream season was over. For Marshall, it stills stings:
Go back and read about that game and it will still make you upset. Wichita didn’t deserve to see UK in the second round in 2014, and neither team deserves to see each other now. This is why Wichita may be looking for a bigger conference and why Calipari will never stop going in on the committee. If you care about the sport even 1 percent, this so obviously doesn’t make sense.
This game should not be happening. Not yet, at least.
Instead, Wichita and Kentucky will have the second-round rematch neither coach wanted and no one asked for. It will likely be a great game: There are only four squads in the country ranked in the top 20 of both offensive and defensive efficiency, and these are two of them. It’s a shame that stat can’t be as meaningful as it sounds.
A win for Wichita won’t erase the pain of 2014, especially when it will still possibly have to go through both UCLA and North Carolina to reach the Final Four. The path in the South region would be comically hard if, to quote Marshall, it wasn’t so ironic and sad.
There is only one party here that can count itself as a winner, and that’s us: the people who love watching college basketball. We’re about to see a big time game. It’s just unfortunate that we have to see it right now.
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