Kentucky Wildcats look to move past first round against former teammate

The Kentucky Wildcats (21-11) have a date with the Providence Friars (21-11) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The Wildcats finished the season 12-6 in SEC play and earned the No. 6 seed in this year’s tournament.

The Friars landed a 13-7 record to finish its season and were given the No. 11 seed.

Kentucky Wildcats look to move past first round against former teammate

Heading into Friday’s game, Kentucky won three out of its last five games with the two losses coming to the Vanderbilt Commodores on March 1 and March 10.

The March 10 loss was in the quarterfinal round of the SEC Tournament as the Commodores defeated Kentucky 80-73.

Despite the loss, Illinois State transfer Antonio Reeves scored 22 points, making it his fifth straight game with at least 14 points.

Reeves scored his career-high in points two games ago against Arkansas, he had 37 in Fayetteville on March 4.

If Kentucky is going to avoid another unbearable upset they are going to need Reeves to shoot the lights out once more and they are also going to need to have other players step up and finish from behind the three-point arc.

The final stats from the loss to Vanderbilt showed that Kentucky shot 24% from behind the three-point line as they only sank six out of its 25 attempted threes.

The Cats also made 42.4% of its shots from the field, going 28-66.

I am no expert, but when it comes to wins and losses these numbers will not get you very far, especially with the best of the best in the NCAA Tournament.

Providence was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament by the UConn Huskies, 73-66.

Former Kentucky forward Bryce Hopkins led Providence in points that game with 16.

The loss to UConn marked Providence’s third loss in a row as they were defeated by Xavier and Seton Hall to close out the regular season.

Therefore, Providence is coming into the big dance on a three-game losing streak which is very beneficial to Kentucky.

The Wildcats will have to keep an eye on its former teammate as Hopkins is leading Providence in points per game as he is averaging 16.1.

Hopkins played for John Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats last season before making the move up to Rhode Island.

Hopkins is just shy of making half of his attempted field goals this season as he has made 45.7% of them.

Kentucky needs to be more efficient when near the rim. Senior’s Oscar Tshiebwe and Jacob Toppin are going to really need to step up and get the team over that first game hump.

The game will tip-off on Friday at 7:10 P.M. EST in Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, N.C.