As recently as his radio show Monday night, Kentucky Coach John Calipari continued to dismiss conference tournaments as having no impact on a team’s seeding in the NCAA Tournament.
But the chair of the NCAA Tournament’s selection committee and ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi suggested otherwise on separate teleconferences on Wednesday. The chair, Stanford Athletics Director Bernard Muir, said Kentucky was one of six or seven teams in contention for a No. 1 seed.
And how Kentucky fares in the Southeastern Conference Tournament this weekend will be part of the committee’s decision-making, Muir said. That is especially true given how it’s unknown if or how well players like UK’s Reid Travis and Duke’s Zion Williamson will perform in conference tournaments.