The Kentucky Wildcats will advance to the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament after their Friday night win over the Troy Trojans, a 3-seed versus a 14-seed matchup. The Wildcats would go on to win by nineteen, 76-57.

With the First Round win — just their second time doing so since 2019 — they would get past the PTSD from the fanbase of losing in the first game of the tournament, looking forward to the run in the rest of the bracket with that now out of the way. In the same Midwest Region, Xavier would defeat the Texas Longhorns in the First Four to take on Illinois in the First Round. The Xavier Musketeers would end up closing out their season there with a loss, sending the Fighting Illini to face the Kentucky Wildcats in the next round.

The matchup will take place on Sunday at 5:15 PM ET, broadcasted on the CBS network. The 3-seed and 6-seed matchup will be just the 5th time these two teams have played each other in the NCAA Tournament, and the 15th matchup all-time. Overall, Kentucky is 11-4 versus the orange and 4-0 in the NCAA Tournament.

Illinois is led by Kasparas Jakucionis, who is averaging 15.0 points and 4.8 assists a game. The team as a whole averages 83.9 points per game, just shy of Kentucky’s 85.0 (PPG) a night. They’ve also won 5 of their last 6 games, playing some of their best basketball of the year. Their 13-point win over Xavier was sparked by a 22-point performance from Will Riley, including 20 from Tomislav Ivisic, Zvonimir’s (Big Z) brother.

Before we officially move forward to Illinois, we should also recognize that Kentucky”s win over Troy was Mark Pope’s first NCAA Tournament win as a head coach, ironically coming with Kentucky. The school with the most tournament appearances and second-most tournament wins, somehow we found ourselves with a coach who didn’t own a NCAAT win on his resume, but finally all of that is out of the door. It was just another stepping stone to surpass and the head coach has done so. I also want to note that every time he’s been asked about that milestone (leading up to the game and after), he’s quickly shut it down saying that these wins are not about him nor does he want them to be, that no coach’s success is bigger than the school’s success.

Kentucky’s performance against the Trojans was led by Otega Oweh, who finished with 20 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists with some contribution from Koby Brea, Brandon Garrison, and Andrew Carr, who each scored 13 points.

If Kentucky was to win over Illinois, they’d find themselves advancing to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 2019, when they made it all the way to the Elite Eight before losing to Auburn. With under 24 hours out from the game, the Wildcats are currently 1.5-point underdogs on DraftKings, so the bettors aren’t predicting a UK win.

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