KSR Today: Bring On The Madness, Bring On The Peacocks

Bring on the Madness! Follow along with the KSR crew throughout the postseason as we bring you behind the scenes coverage in the most ridiculous manner possible. Welcome to our Justice Dental March Game Day Central! 

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Good morning from Tampa, Florida, where there are still a few stragglers in Big Blue Nation wandering the hotel lobbies on Water Street before Monday flights home. The entire Kentucky Sports Radio radio show crew is among the BBN lingerers and here in an hour, we’ll do the show in Tampa before flying back later this afternoon. You should tune in. It’ll be a good time.

But first, the Monday morning news and notes…

The NCAA Tournament field is set

Just in case there is a human being who hasn’t already seen the bracket, here’s the entire field in the official bracket from NCAA.org. Click it, open it, print it, put it on the fridge.

Kentucky got the first game of the Thursday night session

We’ve known for a while that Indianapolis would be the location of Kentucky’s first weekend, but it was a pleasant surprise to see the Cats draw the first game of the evening session. Kentucky will tip off its tournament run at 7:10 p.m. in Gainbridge Fieldhouse with Ian Eagle and Jim Spanarkel on the call for the CBS broadcast. The opponent? The Peacocks of Saint Peter’s University from Jersey City, New Jersey. They’re the MAAC tournament champ, known for defense.

See March Madness’s entire TV schedule.

The spread is 15.5 points.

Moments after the selection committee released the bracket into the wild, Las Vegas released its opening lines for all of the games. In Indianapolis, the Wildcats are laying 15.5 points to Saint Peter’s with the total on the game set at 133 points.

Tomorrow, I’ll reveal KSR’s best bets in the tournament’s opening round. I might even be accurate on some of them.

No complaints about Kentucky’s path from John Calipari

You know it’s a good draw when John Calipari has nothing to gripe about on his Selection Sunday media tour. Normally a Calipari tradition each year, he instead focused on the team and how they’re preparing for the postseason rather than complaining about the Wildcats’ path.

Hear John Calipari’s thoughts on the draw in his Sunday evening press conference from his home office:

Calipari has one regret.

We aren’t looking backward to the SEC Tournament (and definitely not mentioning who won it) but we do need to mention what kept Calipari up Saturday night. While doing his Sunday interviews, he admitted the Kentucky Wildcats did not have a pregame shootaround before losing in the SEC Tournament semifinal.

“We hit a hot team in Tennessee and I kind of screwed up. We didn’t do a shoot-around,” Calipari said. “My gut said, ‘We got to go shoot around. We’ve done it all year.’ And we don’t go shoot around and we have some of the guys play as bad as they played. A lot of it was Tennessee.”

The news did not go over well with the fan base, but it is what it is at this point. We’re only looking ahead.

Kellan Grady and Jacob Toppin spoke on Sunday too.

Joining John Calipari in his office, Kellan Grady and Jacob Toppin also took questions from the media after learning Kentucky’s path. Tune in below to hear comments from two of the players who are excited for their first March Madness as Wildcats.

The Murray State draw sucks.

Calipari was pleased with his tournament draw, but Western Kentuckians like myself aren’t thrilled with a potential run-in with Murray State in the second round. We want to cheer for the Racers to be a Cinderella story in the tournament, not a team in Kentucky’s path. It would’ve been much better to root for Murray against Duke or any other team in the field; instead, Kentucky will likely end Murray’s season, if the Racers advance against a very good San Francisco team.

Texas A&M should’ve gotten in.

My other main takeaway from Selection Sunday: the SEC got hosed. Tennessee should be a No. 2 seed and A&M should be in the field, but the committee saw it differently. With NINE Big Ten teams in the field, I’m wondering if the committee even watched last year’s tournament. Get ready for the Big Ten to fail again.

Kentucky Women’s Basketball is a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Women’s Tournament.

A Selection Sunday 2-for-1, we also learned Kentucky Women’s Basketball’s NCAA Tournament draw on Sunday. Kyra Elzy’s Wildcats are a No. 6 seed with an opening round game against the Princeton Tigers in Bloomington, Indiana.

They’re hungry.

Watch the moment the Cats learned their spot.

#BBN, We're dancing our way to Bloomington!

No. 6 Kentucky 🆚 No. 11 Princeton

Let's do this 😼#CommitToIt pic.twitter.com/2MjYvuTrcB

— Kentucky WBB (@KentuckyWBB) March 14, 2022

The hotel lobby is calling.

As much as I’d love to stay and chat, it’s time for me to get the equipment downstairs so we can do the radio show. Tune in to hear our takeaways on the SEC Tournament and what’s next for Kentucky Basketball in March Madness.

Go Cats.