March Madness bracket busters 2024: 5 high seeds who will go down early

Kentucky Wildcats

Fewer teams have been more frustrating to watch in college basketball this season than the Kentucky Wildcats. There have been incredible highs, such as a neutral-court win over North Carolina to go along with huge SEC wins against Alabama and at Tennessee, but those have been balanced by strange efforts like a home loss to UNC Wilmington, a one-point defeat at LSU and going to overtime against St. Joseph's at Rupp Arena.

A big reason why the Wildcats are going to struggle in March is their defense, which is giving up nearly 80 points per game. KenPom rates the Wildcats as the 107th-most efficient defense in the nation as of March 16, which is far worse than teams who missed the tournament like Seattle (70th), Marist (80th), George Mason (89th) and Bryant (96th).

Head coach John Calipari has also been on a poor run in March Madness, failing to get out of the first weekend in each of the past two years, including an upset as a 2-seed to kick off Saint Peter's Cinderella run. The move of the college game away from one-and-dones anchoring dominant teams to more experienced teams has worked against Kentucky since Calipari's bread-and-butter is using top freshmen to assemble the most talented rosters possible.

After dealing with Oakland in the first round, Kentucky will tangle with either a rugged defensive group in Texas Tech or red-hot NC State in the Round of 32. Marquette would be the Wildcats' Sweet 16 opponent if chalk holds, which features both a dominant defense and a team capable of winning a shootout with Kentucky if Tyler Kolek is healthy.