March. The most anticipated time for basketball fans around the country. Every D1 basketball season ends with the NCAA Tournament. 

March Madness is a tournament that features 68 college basketball programs that compete in a single elimination format, which determines the national champion.

The tournament starts with Selection Sunday, where teams are seeded off of their production throughout the season. Those teams are divided into four regions. The regions are composed of teams seeded from 1 to 16. 

As many know the March Madness bracket has come out. Every basketball fan is rushing to get information and stats about the teams in the tournament. The only problem with having notes is that they never help.

The tournament is so unpredictable because of the thrilling upsets. Nobody has ever made a perfect bracket or have even gotten close. 

March is also a huge time for Kentucky Basketball fans, as the team is always held to high expectations to make a deep run in the tournament.

Kentucky Basketball is one of the most decorated tournament teams in history, but they have been struggling for the past couple of seasons. 

Kentucky has underachieved the past 4 years in the tournament and the fans are tired of it. 2021 was the beginning of the end for the unsuccess under John Calipari, not even making the tournament.

In 2022 the Wildcats lost in the first round to 15 seeded Saint Peters, being huge underdogs. In 2023 the Cats lost in the second round, but to a higher seeded team, Kansas State. Last year in the tournament Kentucky lost in a huge upset to Oakland being a 14 seed. Before those 4 seasons, the Wildcats made it to the Elite 8.

Kentucky started off really hot in the beginning of the season, beating then ranked six, Duke. Then, they went to Seattle and won a close overtime game against seventh ranked Gonzaga.

After that, the Cats faced unranked Louisville at home and took another win. The last huge win for Kentucky early in the season was against fifth seeded Florida.

Later in the season, Kentucky went on to beat eighth ranked rival, Tennessee twice in three weeks. But those weren’t the only huge wins for Kentucky, because every SEC win was important.

After having little success in March, Kentucky’s program needed to reset. John Calipari decided to leave the team and the Wildcats restarted and hired a new head coach in Mark Pope. Pope promised the fans of Kentucky for success in the postseason. 

Coach Pope is willing to do anything to bring a championship back to Lexington. He went to the extent of paying for the first 100 fans’ gas as they travel to the first round in Milwaukee. 

With that promise from Coach Pope, the Wildcats are heading into their first game with huge odds against 14th seed Troy, at -11.5 (ESPN). 

After the first round I think Kentucky has the easiest region to make it out of. The first challenge that we would chase would be playing Tennessee in the Sweet 16, who Kentucky has already beat twice. Then they would probably have to play the number one seed, Houston, who is the weakest number one seed in the tournament.

After that it will be a tough battle to get to the championship, because they would have to play the best team out of the East region. That winner will most likely be Duke and we have also already beat them earlier in the season.

An easy round of 64 win. A close round of 32 win. A tight Sweet 16 win. Then a hard fought win to get to the Final Four. Sounds easy enough, right?