Kentucky basketball: Preview, prediction vs Buffalo NCAA Tournament

This column was supposed to be about how those idiots on the NCAA Tournament Selection committee set up a scenario when two of the most athletic, talented teams in the field were meeting in the second round, at least one round too soon.

Pushing the pace and hounding Arizona into submission, 13th-seeded Buffalo pulled off the NCAA Tournament’s biggest upset of the opening round, rolling to an 89-68 victory over the fourth-seeded Wildcats in the South Region on Thursday night. “I’m trying to redeem myself a little bit”, said Clark, per Kentucky.com’s Jerry Tipton.

That allows UB’s good guards – especially point guard Wes Clark and Massinburg – to drive into the lane. In that time, United Kingdom defeared his teams in all four meetings. Kevin Knox was on point, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who struggled early, got his game on track in the second half.

“I played them a lot and they dominated me”, Clark said. “We got beat. And we got beat by a good team. Hard-nosed, tough, swagger, chip on their shoulder … that’s what I see in them”.

But I thought before the tournament started that United Kingdom would get back to Atlanta for the South Region semifinals and see no reason to change my mind about that today.

The Buffalo locker room in Taco Bell Arena was a happy, friendly place.

This season, Arizona hadn’t been beaten this badly since it lost 89-64 to Purdue in the Battle 4 Atlantis seventh-place game on November 24.

“We’re a team that plays very hard”, said Harris, the 6-foot-5 wing who was able to lure Ayton out to the perimeter. Are we not on the floor?’ If you’re in the post, you better fight for the position, because they’re not going to give it to you.

Buffalo (27-8) is a self-described of hard-working players. “The team that plays the hardest is going to come out with the win”.

When Hamidou Diallo was asked about the comments, he said, “I feel like we’ve been getting that statement all year”.

“That’s what we do. We have blue collar guys”.

Although many were surprised by Buffalo’s shocker over Arizona, Kentucky forward Wenyen Gabriel wasn’t shocked by the Bulls’ impressive victory and cautioned against looking ahead following Kentucky’s win over Davidson.

The MAC’s Bulls have a decided size disadvantage against the Pac-12’s Wildcats and their pair of their 7-footers. If the Pac-12 divides it equally among all members, it’s a whopping $68,250 per school.

The pitiful season adds to the financial issues already drowning the Pac-12. “They certainly had a lot to do with that”. He was an inefficient volume shooter with the Tigers two years ago but has upped his shooting to 48-percent from the field and 40-percent from three at his new home.

– NBC Sports (@NBCSports) March 16, 2018Teams from Olean, Syracuse, and Buffalo just took out the three PAC-12 teams. Nor did the Bulls embrace the idea of being giant killers Thursday night with the chance to do it again on Saturday.