Kentucky opened the season 32 days ago with a 79-71 loss to Duke inside New York’s Madison Square Garden. Since then, the Wildcats have played zero power-conference schools or anybody from any level of the sport ranked in the top 100 at KenPom.
It’s been boring.
But a fun little stretch is on deck. Over the next 12 days, John Calipari’s Wildcats will play a road game against an ACC school ranked 51st at KenPom (Saturday vs. Notre Dame), a neutral-court game against a Big Ten school ranked 20th at KenPom (next Saturday vs. Ohio State in Las Vegas) and a home game against a rival ranked 45th at KenPom (Dec. 22 vs. Louisville in Rupp Arena).
Kentucky is a 4.5-point favorite vs. Notre Dame on Saturday. According to KenPom, right now, the Wildcats would be 1-point favorites over Ohio State, and 8-point favorites over Louisville, in the subsequent two games, which suggests extending this seven-game winning streak in a way that creates a 10-1 record heading into the SEC opener against Missouri is very possible. That said, the idea that Kentucky could lose two of the next three, or even three of the next three, isn’t too far-fetched either.
Most people think Kentucky is good.
I’m among those people.
But the truth is that there’s no way to know for certain, at this point, whether Kentucky is good or great or just OK. The Wildcats have, so far, only played one game against a top-100 KenPom team (Duke), and they trailed by 15 points in that game before ultimately losing by eight. So how good is UK, really?
The good news is that we should all be better-positioned to answer that question intelligently after this three-game stretch that starts Saturday at Notre Dame concludes. For now, based on preseason expectations as much as anything else, Kentucky remains No. 8 in Saturday morning’s updated CBS Sports top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings,
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