Seth Davis of The Athletic picked the Kentucky Wildcats to make it to the Elite Eight and he is sticking with them to make the Final Four.
Kentucky (-3) vs. Auburn, 2:20 p.m., CBS.
Since these two share a conference, we have a pair of meetings during the regular season from which to draw our analysis. In the first, at Auburn on Jan. 19, Kentucky shot 54.2 percent and got 20 points each from Keldon Johnson and Tyler Herro in an 82-80 win. When the two teams played again in Lexington on Feb. 23, it wasn’t nearly as close. The Wildcats shot 54.5 percent and were led by P.J. Washington’s 24 points and Johnson’s 17 rebounds in an 80-53 drubbing.Auburn has not lost since, reeling off 11 straight wins, including over Tennessee, Kansas and North Carolina by a combined 51 points. The Tigers are obviously playing fabulous basketball, but while Kentucky got a surprising contribution from injured sophomore forward PJ Washington against Houston Friday night (16 points, two rebounds and a decisive block in the final minutes), the Tigers lost their best frontcourt player, 6-8 sophomore forward Chuma Okeke, who had 20 points (including three 3-pointers) and 11 rebounds in 25 minutes in the win over North Carolina before sustaining an ugly knee injury with a little over eight minutes to play. Given that Kentucky’s perimeter defense is considerably tougher than North Carolina’s, it would have been hard enough for Auburn to win this game at full strength. Without Okeke, the mountain is too steep to climb. The pick: Kentucky
