With Selection Sunday just over one week away, most teams’ seeds are pretty much accounted for. The Kentucky Wildcats fall pretty much between a 3 seed and a 4 seed given their body of work despite a rocky conference play and a plethora of injuries.
I simulated the Wildcats’ NCAA tournament draw 121 times on Evanmiya.com — where the Wildcats are a projected 3 seed in what I am assuming would be the West region with Alabama as the No. 1, Wisconsin as the No. 2, and Arizona as the No. 4.
In my 121 different simulations, I got an astounding amount of results, and here are some fun notes on how many times Kentucky advanced or didn’t.
- Round of 64 – 9 times – This means that Kentucky was upset in the first round against projected 14-seed Lipscomb 9 times.
- Round of 32 – 37 times – Kentucky made it past the first round 37 times before eventually falling to either projected 6-seed Oregon or, projected 11-seed Oklahoma.
- Sweet 16 – 45 times – By far the most common, therefor most expected result for Kentucky going into March. In the simulations, Kentucky routinely ran into No. 2 Wisconsin or No. 7 Ole Miss in the S16 and lost the majority of those battles.
- Elite Eight – 21 times – This is where we get to the overachieving part for Kentucky. If they were to make an Elite Eight run given the stroke of bad injury luck, it would be considered a success. In the sims, Kentucky ran into Alabama and Arizona the most, losing the majority.
- Final Four – 9 times – In the sims, Kentucky made a run to the Final Four just as often as they were upset by Lipscomb, whom the Wildcats have already beaten this season. Of the nine times Kentucky made the Final Four, eight of those losses were to the Auburn Tigers in the National Semi-final, with one of those losses coming to VCU, who made a run of their own.
Kentucky did not reach a title game or win a national title in all 121 simulations.
Going by simple math based on the number of times summed and this particular draw of Lipscomb, Oregon/Oklahoma, Kentucky would have around a 37% chance of making it to the second weekend of the tournament.
They would have a 30% chance of making it past the Round of 32, a 17% chance of making it to the Elite Eight, and a 0.07% chance of making it to the Final Four, but also a 0.07% chance of being upset by a double-digit seed in the Round of 64.