The Arkansas basketball team would not have been favored or predicted to beat Kentucky on Saturday regardless of how the team’s last several games worth of outcomes.
But when the Razorbacks lost to lowly Vanderbilt on Tuesday at home, Kentucky’s chances of beating Arkansas grew even larger. Now, according to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index, the Wildcats have a 93% chance of winning Saturday’s matinee.
Arkansas had been playing good basketball until the Commodores arrived in Fayetteville. Vanderbilt left Bud Walton Arena with its first road win in almost a whole calendar year and left Arkansas in danger of its worst season in more than a decade.
Kentucky meanwhile is climbing. The Wildcats are projected as a No. 4-seed in the NCAA Tournament in Joe Lunardi’s most recent Bracketology for ESPN. They own wins over Auburn, Alabama and Mississippi State over the last two weeks – all teams also projected to make the Dance.
Arkansas hasn’t beaten a team that is currently “in” Lunardi’s projections in since November when the Razorbacks beat Duke.