Kentucky
Kentucky Wildcats’ potential road to the Final Four starts with Oakland in Pittsburgh
Clark Kellogg picked the No. 3 seed Kentucky Wildcats to reach the NCAA tournament Final Four during CBS’ Selection Sunday show, and Jay Williams and Seth Greenberg picked UK for the Final Four on ESPN’s Bracketology show.
UK has been a popular Final Four pick on social media as well, despite Houston and Marquette being higher seeds in the South region.
Which teams stand in the way of University of Kentucky’s first Final Four appearance since 2015?
What to know about UK in the Big Dance:
Kentucky will face Oakland on CBS on Thursday night at 7:10 p.m., in head coach John Calipari’s hometown of Pittsburgh.
The broadcast team at PPG Paints Arena is Andrew Catalon, Steve Lappas and Evan Washburn.
Calipari is good friends with Greg Kampe, who has been the Golden Grizzlies’ head coach since 1984. Kampe has been at Oakland longer than any Div. I head coach has been at his current school.
It’s the first-ever meeting between the two schools, and UK’s first NCAA tournament appearance in Pittsburgh.
UK is 23-9 overall, and went 13-5 in the SEC. Oakland is 23-11 overall, 15-5 in the Horizon League.
Oakland is 1-3 in four NCAA tournament games, with its only win as a 16-seed in the 2005 play-in game.
The Kentucky-Oakland winner faces No. 5 Texas Tech or No. 12 N.C. State on Saturday, also in Pittsburgh.
The winner of the Round of 32 game will reach the Sweet 16, and play its next game in Dallas.
Kentucky hasn’t played an NCAA tournament game in Dallas since 1996, but the Wildcats did play in the Final Four in nearby Arlington in 2014.
Calipari has won the NCAA tournament with the Wildcats once, in 2012.
UK reached the title game two years after winning the championship, and reached the Final Four in 2015 as well.
The Wildcats haven’t been back to the Final Four since 2015, but have reached the South region final in 2017 and 2019.
They’ve won just one game in the Big Dance, their first-round game last year against Providence, since 2019.
The team that emerges from the South region will play in the Final Four in Phoenix on TBS.
The South region teams and seeds are as follows:
- Houston
- Marquette
- Kentucky
- Duke
- Wisconsin
- Texas Tech
- Florida
- Nebraska
- Texas A&M
- Boise State/Colorado
- NC State
- James Madison
- Vermont
- Oakland
- Western Kentucky
- Longwood
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