Kentucky was the biggest winner of the wacky first week of the NCAA Tournament

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March 19, 2018 2:48 PM

After a wild first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, the Kentucky Wildcats are left with a clear path to the Final Four.

Kentucky was already on a roll heading into the NCAA Tournament, and now the Wildcats have been dealt a seemingly easy hand to reach the Final Four.
The highest seed Kentucky would face before the Final Four is No. 7.
Kentucky could also reach the championship game without having to face any of the top eight teams entering the tournament.

Kentucky wasn't the best team entering March Madness, and it isn't the best team left after the wacky first two rounds of the men's NCAA Tournament. But thanks to how the chips have fallen, the Wildcats are probably the tournament's biggest winners so far.

Thanks to a slew of upsets during the first weekend of the tournament, the fifth-seeded Wildcats now have what looks like an incredibly easy path to the Final Four, as the South region has already lost its top four seeds. If Kentucky does get that far, these are the teams it would have beaten to get there:

Of those teams, Nevada (19) was the only one among the RPI's top 20 teams heading into the NCAA Tournament.

And if Kentucky manages to get to the Final Four, its good fortune will continue. Because the West region also lost its top two teams, the highest-seeded team Kentucky could face in the Final Four would be No. 3 Michigan or No. 4 Gonzaga. No. 7 Texas A&M and No. 9 Florida State are also still alive in the West.

Kentucky was already on a roll heading into the NCAA Tournament. The Wildcats had won seven of their final eight games, including three straight in the SEC Tournament. Their run included two wins over Alabama and a win over Tennessee, which entered the NCAA Tournament as a 3 seed.

Kentucky's top six players are five freshmen and a sophomore. Not only do they appear to be peaking at the right time, but thanks to some old-fashioned good luck, they look poised to make a run deep into the tournament.