College Basketball Bracketology: UK Wildcats now an 8 seed

Joe Lunardi is projecting Kentucky as an 8-seed in the latest ESPN Bracketology released Friday.

That is up a seed line from Lunardi’s Thursday projection in which Kentucky was a 9-seed.

In this projection, Kentucky is placed in the South Region, headlined by (1) Virginia and (2) Texas Tech. They would open up tournament play in Charlotte, facing off against (9) Seton Hall.

While Kentucky is certainly doing themselves no favors in terms of seeding or even securing a spot in the tournament, other projected tournament teams continuing to lose is probably helping the Wildcats.

This is a year in which the field may be as open as it has been for quite some time, as there are no clear-cut favorites and teams with several losses could end up with high seeds.

For example, Texas A&M and Alabama are currently projected as 6-seeds in the tournament with both having 9 losses. Purdue, who is currently in the midst of a three-game losing streak, is still projected as a 2 seed.

It’s just the nature of college basketball this year, and it is setting up for what could be a crazy March.

If you’re looking for reasons for optimism of Kentucky at least getting into the field of 68, the fact that so many tournament teams are also losing seems like a good sign. So many teams projected in the 4-10 seed range keep taking losses, so it’s keeping Kentucky in the running for a decent seed if they could just end the regular season on a high note and make a deep run in the SEC Tournament.