Nobody across the college basketball landscape expected Kentucky to be fighting for its NCAA Tournament life throughout the entirety of this 2020-21 season, but after starting 1-6, it has been the story of this year’s Wildcat squad.

Now at 5-10, John Calipari and Co. are on the brink of needing an SEC Tournament title just to scrounge up a ticket for the big dance. And that’s if they don’t require it already.

Where Kentucky currently stands

Let’s be clear: at this moment, the Wildcats aren’t anywhere near the NCAA Tournament radar. Neither Joe Lunardi of ESPN nor Jerry Palm of CBS even has them in their “Next Four Out” category, which essentially represent the projected No. 2 seeds in the NIT. Being five games below .500 – the first time Coach Cal has been since his first season at UMASS (1988-89) – this shouldn’t be too shocking.

The Cats are in only one of 35 projections surveyed by the Bracket Matrix (a No. 12 seed from the “BracketADay” blog), and listed behind more than 20 teams in the overall “bubble” on the compilation site. There’s no way Kentucky would be chosen if things ended today, which makes the lone selection certainly contingent on a turn-around.

Even if the Cats right the ship, just how high would they have to go to breach the surface?

Baselines for NCAA Tournament inclusion?

With schools allowed only a maximum of 27 regular season games this season (normally 31), it’s better to look at winning percentages in tandem with metrics as opposed to total wins and losses. Some things to note*:

          – The lowest winning percentage of a Power Conference team to make the tournament as an at-large is .563** (Arizona in 2008, Michigan State in 2011).

          – The lowest RPI – the metric primarily used to compare tournament resumes before the creation of the NET in 2018 – for an at-large tournament squad was USC in 2011 (67). Marquette the same season has the second lowest (64).

*Notes gathered from CBS Sports, as of Feb. 11, 2016.

**Alabama (2018) and Florida (2019) made the NCAA Tournament with a winning percentage of .559 (19-15). The Crimson Tide snagged a 9 seed, while the Gators were a 10 seed.

What does Kentucky have to do to get into consideration?

The answer is simple, but actually doing so has anything but so far for the Cats this year: win games. Kentucky was slated to play 25 of those in the regular season – postponements with Detroit Mercy and South Carolina knocked it down from the aforementioned 27 – but is now set for 24 following the Texas cancellation. The Cats are guaranteed one conference tournament game though, so we’ll use 25 as the baseline.

For the Cats to achieve a winning percentage of .560, they’d need to end 14-11 overall. That means they’d need to win nine of their final ten games. If those two previously postponed matchups are rescheduled, Kentucky would have to win 11 of 12 (meaning a 16-11 record) to leap over the .560 mark.

Kentucky currently ranks 77th in the NET. This is a marked improvement from where they stood when this article was initially released in print (93rd, following the Georgia loss), but still not nearly high enough for at-large consideration. Richmond – who owns a head-to-head victory over Big Blue – is 52nd in the NET, yet is in Lunardi’ “First Four Out” and not even mentioned in Palm’s latest bracketology update.

PHOTOS: Kentucky defeats LSU 82-69 at Rupp Arena

We usually see the Wildcats make the tournament with plenty of room to spare, they’ve eliminated all room for error. They’ll likely have to make the semifinals in Nashville – in addition to winning over twice as many games the rest of the way than they’ve secured thus far – to even be brought up in the committee’s conversation for an at-large bid.

Why did the Texas cancellation hurt so much? I know the Longhorns are really good, but it was only one game!

When you’re 5-10, every game matters. And the type of contests Kentucky needs at this point are ones with low risk/high reward. That’s exactly what Texas represented. A loss would sting, but not drastically hurt their metrics. On the other hand, the boost a win would have provided – not analytically, but from a confidence standpoint for players and staff – cannot properly be stated.

The other major factor in Texas being so important is that they’re not from the SEC. Right now, Kentucky has just one non-conference win, which came on opening night against Morehead State. It’s practically impossible to get in on your own accord that way.

“The path is awfully narrow after [losing to Georgia,” Lunardi told me the day after the Bulldog defeat. “Unless they beat Texas and finish in the top 3-4 of the league.”

The first half of that equation is no longer tenable because of the cancellation. A win versus the Longhorns was the “pencil” Kentucky needed to attempt the final exam. Even if they have the “knowledge” – a top four finish in the SEC – the lack of utensil essentially makes it useless.

Let’s say both Detroit and South Carolina somehow get rescheduled, and Kentucky pulls off a miracle by winning out prior to conference tournament time. Would that be enough?

Based on my analogy just a few lines above, it’s pretty clear that I’m not sold on it being such. And to be honest, I wouldn’t go through the hassle of getting the Titans and Gamecocks back on the docket (I’ll elaborate below). It’s obviously extremely unlikely/implausible for the Cats to pull off something of that magnitude.

But I’ll play along. To start, we’ll assume they don’t reschedule Detroit and South Carolina.

IF Kentucky somehow won out, they’d have picked up some absolutely massive wins along the way. Each of their next three opponents are in the top-40 of the KenPom – another highly valued metric for tournament selection – rankings (Mizzou at 37, Tennessee at 15, Arkansas at 27). The same trio is in the top-40 of the NET (Tigers: 30, Vols: 13, Hogs: 31). If the Razorbacks could push into the NET’s top-30, each of those “wins” would be of the Quad 1 – top category of NET victory – variety. The return matchup with Tennessee, as well as the home game with Florida and road trip to Ole Miss, would also qualify. Those six games would put the Cats at a solid 7-5 when facing some of the best competition the conference – and country – has to offer.

In addition to picking up strong W’s, the Cats have to not only avoid losses – I know, duh – but weak losses (Quads 3 and 4) in particular. Notre Dame was the only one of these Kentucky had suffered when this was originally printed, but after winning four of five, the Fighting Irish have pulled themselves into Quad 2 territory. If they – along with Georgia and Georgia Tech – can avoid slipping as the season ends, the Wildcats would avoid the resume stain of a true “bad loss”.

There are only two remaining contests that currently slot into these high risk/low reward Quads (at Vanderbilt, vs. Texas A&M). If Kentucky were to make up its games with the Titans and Gamecocks, that number would jump to four. When a single defeat – especially at the hands of the lower echelon teams – would officially relegate you to a conference-title-only path for prosperity, you don’t play with that fire.

There’s no sugarcoating it; the Cats face a steep climb for the minute chance at what is, in my mind, the greatest sports event of the year. They have run the regular season’s table. Even then, they likely still need an absurd amount of help.

But if they can somehow summon the offensive efforts they had against Florida and LSU, and combine them with the defense KenPom ranks 14th in the nation, they could have an opportunity to do so. As everyone who was watched Kentucky basketball this year knows though, that’s much easier said than done.

Do you believe in miracles?

*For more on the NET and Quadrant victory classifications, visit Selection 101 on ncaa.org and the Team Quadrant Tracker on bracketresearch.com.

This article was originally published in the Kentucky Kernel’s January 25th print edition. It has since been updated.