All previews: click here for the full 2015 NCAA tournament schedule
Kentucky Wildcats
Seed: 1
Record: 34-0
Conference: SEC
vs.
Hampton Pirates
Seed: 16
Record: 17-17
Conference: Metro Atlantic
Date: Thursday, March 19
Time: 9:40 pm Eastern
Location: Louisville, KY
Region: Midwest
Channel: CBS
Undefeated Kentucky faces Hampton, a program that pulled off one of the biggest-ever upsets in tournament history. This one would be the biggest.
Kentucky Hampton
SportsRatings Power Ratings
Strength: #1 Strength: #283
Median play: #1 Median play: #282
Road/Neutral Rank: #1 Road/Neutral Rank: #285
Other Power Ratings
Sagarin(predictor):#1 Sagarin: #278
Pomeroy: #1 Pomeroy: #250
Offense: #5 Offense: #302
Defense: #2 Defense: #170
LRMC: #1 LRMC: #235
BPI: #1 BPI: #288
Power Rating Derivatives
2nd half/season: #2 2nd half/season: #256
Last 6 games: #4 Last 6 games: #193
Injury correction: #1 Injury correction: #283
Consistency: #275 Consistency: #190
Deep Run Rank: #1 Deep Run Rank: #68
Best Shot: #1 Best Shot: #68
Schedule Strength: #41 Schedule Strength: #342
Not much comparison here; it's interesting mainly to note where Kentucky isn't #1—they haven't done quite as well in the 2nd half of the season, and in the last 6 games they're a pedestrian #4. Their consistency isn't good, either, but no matter how we manipulate that, it doesn't change the fact that they're a heavy, heavy favorite to win it all.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (13): Buffalo+19, =Kansas+32, Providence+20, Texas+12, North Carolina+14, =UCLA+39, @Louisville+8, Mississippi+OT, Georgia+11, @LSU+2, Arkansas+17, @Georgia+8, =Arkansas+15
- Losses to tournament teams (0): None
- Other losses (0): None
Key Info: The chart and the 13 tournament team wins—and the lack of losses, tournament or otherwise—speak for themselves. Not only is it pretty amazing, but it refutes the last possible objection to Kentucky's march to going 40-0—consistency. The team has become perhaps the most consistent team in the country over the last 9 games or so. They dipped to #4 over the last six games, but playing at that high level without variation is something else. It looks exactly like Louisville's chart before they won the tournament two years ago—except without any red in it. What else can we say about Kentucky? They have too many good players to even address, so we'll wait until game results to highlight them.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (1): =Manhattan+10
- Losses to tournament teams (2): @Iowa-34, @North Dakota St.-8
- Other losses (15): @Syracuse-18, @Appalachian St.-8, American-4, @Illinois-18, @Northern Illinois-32, @USC Upstate-14, North Carolina A&T-3, North Carolina Central-7, @Savannah St.-2, @South Carolina St.-9, @Norfolk St.-3, @NJIT-19, Delaware St.-3, @Delaware St.-10, Norfolk St.-11
Key Info: Hampton was 12-17 and quite frankly, they sucked, before the MEAC tournament started. Then—naturally, without their best player—they won four games to take the MEAC crown and automatic bid. Relegated to a play-in game, they—like many teams with losing records have over the years—won the 16-seed play-in to advance to the "real" tournament. It's remarkable how decent they suddenly became, and how consistent after such an up and down year—especially without their leading scorer and rebounder, Dwight Meikle (13/7.5) who's been out with an ankle injury the past four games. Guards Quinton Chievous and Reginald Johnson stepped up with 15 points each against Manhattan.
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Game Analysis: Hampton's history includes a win as a 15-seed over 2-seed Iowa State, which at the time was only the 4th such occurrence. Those are becoming more common due to the expansion to 68 teams, and since then there have been 3 more such upsets. But at the time it was huge. Nothing would compare to a 16 beating a 1-seed, and if that 1-seed were undefeated Kentucky, it would probably be called by some the biggest upset in sports history.
Vegas Line:
No line yet
Power rating: spread
Kentucky by 37.0
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Kentucky: 99.7%
Hampton: 0.3%
The game-comparison system numbers—actually 99.75% for Kentucky—is based on 34 games for each team, cross-compared. Of those 1,156 comparisons, Hampton wins only 3. Looking at the charts, you can see that Hampton's best game—#25 on the chart, Morgan State, 93-65—is higher-ranked than 3 of Kentucky's games (Columbia 56-46, and their two overtime wins). That's after spotting Kentucky home court advantage since they are playing so close to home. We make the Wildcats a 37 point favorite, but for our final prediction we'll use a measure that takes into account Hampton's sudden recent improvement. The Vegas line isn't out but will probably be close to 30 points.
Bottom line: We're with Kentucky all the way, no question. There hasn't been this strong a favorite to win it all since 2005 when North Carolina and Illinois were obvious co-selections—and that took two teams to be as strong of a favorite as Kentucky is now.
Final prediction: Kentucky 77, Hampton 54
More previews: click here for the full 2015 NCAA tournament schedule.
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