It’s fair to say that the Kentucky Wildcats have been the preeminent men’s basketball school in the SEC for a long time. They have won the regular season championship 49 times. The next closest school has won it 11 times. UK has won the SEC Tournament 31 times, while the next closest is at 8. They have dominated the competition in the conference.
This year, though, the Wildcats are finding themselves in the relatively rare position of looking up at the competition. They are fifth in the SEC standings, and have struggled against the good teams in the conference. On Saturday, they play one of those teams in 13th ranked Auburn.
In most seasons, Kentucky enters SEC match-ups as the favorite, but that won’t be the case on Saturday. The Tigers are favored by seven and a half points in this one.
The Wildcats haven’t been underdogs by that margin very often, but with their inability to beat good teams, they find themselves in uncharted waters. If they pull off the upset, they could find themselves back on the favorite list for future opponents. Another loss, though, and they’ll be big underdogs against some of the other teams they face this season.