Sports Illustrated lists Kentucky as one of eight teams that will win the 2022 national championship.
The Wildcats are on the list with Gonzaga, Arizona, Auburn, Baylor, Duke, Texas Tech and Ohio State. Several notable teams did not make the cut.
Here is an excerpt about Kentucky:
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Kentucky (21–5, 10–3 SEC)
What stands out most about the Wildcats right now is their role allocation. Kentucky has been unbelievably impressive since mid-December. The team has just three losses in that stretch, all on the road against top-20 KenPom teams. And in all three games, one of the UK’s top guards missed a significant portion of the action due to injury. When everyone is on the floor and healthy, Kentucky checks every box. It has the dominating force on the interior in Oscar Tshiebwe, who almost single-handedly has made the Wildcats one of the best rebounding teams in the sport. Sahvir Wheeler and TyTy Washington Jr. are both dynamic with the ball in their hands. Kellan Grady is perhaps the nation’s best outside shooter and Keion Brooks Jr. is a steady glue guy.
Beyond earning the Wildcats extra possessions, Tshiebwe’s dominance on the glass has downstream implications for everything else Kentucky does. Kentucky has to commit fewer numbers to the boards, which means more time to set its defense on one end and more opportunities to leak out and push in transition on the other. And given how good Wheeler is in the open court, good luck stopping Kentucky once it gets out and runs. The combination of talent and cohesion that UK has right now should be a scary sight to the rest of the country.
