The whole idea of the NCAA tournament is that it's a gathering of the hottest teams in the country, right?
Well, mostly.
To get to 68 teams, though, the committee had to embrace some teams that aren't exactly peaking. Let's take a look at both types of tournament entrant. Call it with and without momentum.
Here are the 10 hottest teams in the field:
John Calipari's guys haven't lost a game in 342 days, and good luck finding a weakness in the Wildcats' game on either side of the ball because, in effect, there is none. That is not to say UK is unbeatable. Actually, a bounce here and a shot there and this is a group that could have lost games to Ole Miss, Texas A&M, LSU, or even all of the above. But it is true that no team in the nation has displayed the same kind of balance on offense and defense that we've seen with Kentucky. People love to say things like "Arizona is gifted athletically," or "Wisconsin won't beat itself." Both statements apply with equal accuracy to Willie Cauley-Stein, Karl-Anthony Towns, the Harrison brothers and the rest of Calipari's rotation.