It took 11 games into its season, but Kentucky finally got its banner win. John Calipari now has a victory that will have distinct significance on Selection Sunday.
The 103-100 thriller of a victory in the CBS Sports Classic on Saturday over seventh-ranked North Carolina should amount to the best game we'll see until March and one of the 10-15 most impressive victories any team lands prior to Selection Sunday. That is so long as North Carolina remains a very good team, a group that stays in the top 15 of the polls most/all of the season.
I do think that will happen.
And so now Kentucky can formally enter the 1-seed conversation alongside the teams with the best NCAA Tournament resumes so far. We're more than a month into the season, and I'm now posting weekly updates on the best dossiers in the sport. Last week, Kentucky didn't clear the bar.
As of just a few days ago, I wrote this: Kentucky will crack the top five in our next edition with a win over UNC on Saturday in the CBS Sports Classic and a win at Louisville next Wednesday. Split the games? Then it's going to be interesting. UK is just 1-1 vs. top-50 competition, and the one win came against a shorthanded Michigan State team. These next two games will go a long way toward UK establishing its profile nationally. MSU, Valpo and Arizona State are Kentucky's three best wins. It needs these next two in a big way in order to help land a big seed down the road, because the SEC will not be overflowing with opportunities to bolster the resume.
All of that remains true, only now Kentucky has two wins against teams ranked in the KenPom top 50 to go with a 10-1 record and a lone loss -- at home -- to undefeated UCLA. One game can change a lot when your sample size is a dozen or few.
But while the UNC win is very good, when you compare Kentucky's resume to the likes of Baylor, UCLA, Villanova and Gonzaga (the four teams I'd have as 1 seeds right now), Kentucky doesn't have a claim to that table yet. The Wildcats are in the mix for a No. 2, as they now have the advantage over UNC, not to mention Indiana, which is a two-loss team that fell to Butler on Saturday.
Here's how to map it out. Kentucky is right there with Butler (10-1), Kansas (10-1), Louisville (10-1) and Creighton (11-0) for the 2 line. Right now, I'd rank all those teams ahead of UK, with Kentucky being the best No. 3 seed option. Don't buy it? Creighton's still undefeated (and still underrated), and that should count for something. Plus, all those teams except Kansas have road wins (Kentucky doesn't; UNC was neutral court), and Kansas' best win is Duke, which you can claim is a better win than this NOrth Carolina victory.
I'm not a big RPI backer, but if you want to use that metric, Kentucky ended Saturday night at No. 14 in the rankings, putting the Cats behind Kansas (10-1), Louisville (10-1) and Creighton but ahead of Butler (and UCLA for that matter; again, the RPI is not optimal).
It's fun to take a snapshot in the here and now, and I wanted to do that with Kentucky. The Wildcats are trending up, but their next game could very easily make them a two-loss team. There's so much season to go, and the bottom line is if UK wins at Louisville on Wednesday, it will have a legitimate placement as the definitive No. 4 resume in America (behind Baylor, Villanova and UCLA).
