The Kentucky Wildcats throughout their non-conference schedule seemed to dominate their opponents. On track to have the lowest points allowed per possession ever along with a top 15 offense, many fans as well as analysts believed Kentucky to march through their SEC opponents with ease, ending up as an undefeated overall #1 seed in the Big Dance.

In reality, they have struggled to dominate, as their SEC opponents have given them much games than what was originally thought. Kentucky’s first 2 conference games resulted in 3 overtimes, abruptly changing their projections. Many Kentucky fans, myself included, gave a decent portion of the cause of these games’ outcomes to the extended winter break they were given. Another cause may be the underestimation of SEC athleticism and length, as both the average and effective heights of their SEC opponents are greater than their non-conference opponents.

As the reasons why don’t matter, Kentucky seemed to get back in a small groove, before heading to Gainesville and Baton Rouge. These two arenas and their respective teams and fans almost blemished the Wildcat’s resume. Due to these close games, many Kentucky adversaries have compared Kentucky’s regular season to the regular season of Florida State’s football team. Although I would love to argue many reasons why it is an unfair comparison, I will try to remain as unbiased as possible.

Now I do not follow football as much as I do basketball, and definitely didn’t follow FSU’s football season, so I will try my best to not talk out of my ass. Clearly FSU had a less than dominating season, having several second half comebacks, resulting in many people beliefs that they got lucky, a lot. As neither ACC football nor SEC basketball claim the top few conference ranking in their respective sport, the comparisons further as Kentucky also has had several games come to the wire.

Enough with the fluff, Kentucky has come much less close to losing than FSU. Using PredictionMachine, Florida State played 794 minutes and 46 seconds. They have been the estimated underdog for 166 minutes and 13 seconds. Prediction Machine did not have their OSU and Citadel games, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed they never were the underdog in those games. These numbers also do not include their game against Oregon as that was post season, and they were the underdog for the entire game. Using Kenpom, Kentucky has played 975 minutes, and had a less than 50% chance of winning for 2 minutes and 56 seconds. Those minutes came from the Texas A&M game and the LSU game. In neither the Ole Miss game nor the Florida game was Kentucky predicted to lose.

Adjusting for total minutes played:

So in the end, Kentucky’s undefeated record has been much more secure than Florida State’s regular season run. But now that I’ve written all this, their chance of losing has skyrocketed… *Knock on wood*