Kentucky’s Toughest Game Would Not Be The Championship

Like everyone else, we’ve been keeping a close eye on Kentucky’s odds of finishing as undefeated national champions. Currently we give them a 41% chance to pull it off.

Of course, with the data we have to generate optimized bracket picks for you, we can dig much deeper than just a single number.

Kentucky’s Odds by Round

With the 2015 bracket now out, we’ve released round by round survival odds for each team that made the tournament. Here are the latest results for Kentucky:

Kentucky's Odds to Win By Round

Some indications from the chart above:

  • Kentucky’s toughest game is actually not expected the be the National Championship game. Instead, they will probably have their biggest challenge in the semifinal when they are likely to face Arizona or Wisconsin, the teams essentially tied for second place in our predictive ratings.
  • Kentucky’s odds of winning their Elite 8 game and cutting down the nets at the regional final are 85%. For reference, that is higher than the odds we give either Wisconsin (84%) or Duke (83%) just to win their Round of 32 game.

Kentucky’s Odds against the Midwest

Using our matchup tool, we can examine the odds of a team to win against any other opponent. Charting Kentucky’s odds against their opponents in the Midwest gives us the following:

Kentucky's Odds to Win By Midwest Opponent

Key points of note here:

  • Only four teams in the Midwest have better than a 10% chance to beat Kentucky: Kansas, Notre Dame, Wichita State and Texas.
  • Based on their seeds, all four of those teams are in the bottom half of the region. As a result, Kentucky can only face one of them at most.

Kentucky’s Odds against the Top Seeds

We can also look at Kentucky’s odds against the top seeds in the tournament:

Kentucky Odds to Win Against Top Seeds

The highlights:

  • Kentucky will have better odds if they face #4 Maryland in the Sweet 16 than if they had played any other 4 seed.
  • Similarly, they will have a much easier challenge in an Elite 8 game if they face #2 Kansas then if they were to face any other 2 seed.
  • All four teams awarded the 3 seeds are roughly comparable, though Kentucky’s odds would have been slightly better if Baylor were in their region.
  • Kentucky would face the West winner in the National Semifinals. West #1 seed Wisconsin and #2 seed Arizona both project as stiffer opposition for the Wildcats than any team in the East or South that Kentucky would have to face in the Championship. If Wisconsin and Arizona lose early, watch out.

The real question, though, is this: Doesn’t picking Kentucky to win it all actually give you the best chance to win your bracket pool? Here’s how to find out.