Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Kentucky put on an offensive clinic during Saturday’s 117-95 win over Alabama. Defeating the No. 13 Crimson Tide could help the Wildcats’ positioning in March.
Joe Lunardi posted a glimpse of his next updated NCAA tournament bracket projections. The ESPN analyst listed Kentucky among the “next four teams” after the No. 1 to 4 seeds.
The Wildcats are second behind Wisconsin and ahead of Clemson and Washington State in that category. Lunardi forecasted Kentucky as a No. 6 seed in his last update from Friday.
Lunardi had tacked a down arrow on Kentucky’s outlook before the weekend win. John Calipari’s team had lost five of its previous nine games, starting with a 17-point defeat at South Carolina.
Yet Kentucky got back on track with a huge SEC win Saturday at Rupp Arena.
Freshman guard Justin Edwards made all 10 field-goal attempts to score a career-high 28 points. CBS Sports noted that it was the most field goals by a Kentucky player without a miss since Calipari joined the program in 2009.
Yet Edwards was more impressed by his team’s defensive effort. The Wildcats tallied 11 steals, seven blocks, and limited a high-octane Crimson Tide offense to six threes on 17 tries.
“We’ve really grown. We locked in defensively,” Edwards told Bill Raftery after the game. “It shows, even with a high-scoring game, they’re a really good offensive team. Just the last couple games, we’ve shown that we can really play defense.”
Kentucky has four regular-season games remaining, starting with a trip to Mississippi State on Tuesday night.