Selection Sunday is next. What to know about Kentucky’s outlook and other bracket tidbits.

One of the best hours of the college basketball season is coming up.

After the final conference tournament games are out of the way, the 2023 NCAA Tournament bracket will be revealed during the annual Selection Sunday show at 6 p.m. on CBS.

The Kentucky Wildcats, thought by many to be on the wrong side of the bubble just a month ago, unleashed a rally to end the regular season, winning five of their final six games and going into league tournament week ranked No. 23 in the country.

UK, which lost to Vanderbilt in the Southeastern Conference Tournament quarterfinals Friday night, is still safely in the March Madness field. And the Cats will find out who, when and where they’ll play Sunday evening.

This year’s Selection Sunday show will be hosted by Greg Gumbel and features studio analysts Clark Kellogg, Jay Wright and Seth Davis. A one-hour “Bracketology” show will air at 7 p.m. Sunday on ESPN featuring further discussion of the 68-team field, and that program typically includes bracket predictions from ESPN analysts as well as interviews with college coaches. (John Calipari has appeared in the past.)

Also, remember that game times and TV designations are typically not announced until after the Selection Sunday show ends.

Here’s a look at what to watch out for Sunday night.

Kentucky’s bracketology

UK was generally projected to be a 6 seed heading into the SEC Tournament, and it’s unlikely the Cats will stray too far from that range even with an early exit.

Following Kentucky’s 80-73 loss to Vandy on Friday night, there was a slight drop in the Wildcats’ standing. ESPN, CBS Sports and Bracketville all updated their bracketology boards Saturday morning and projected UK as a 7 seed. ESPN has the Cats starting the NCAA Tournament in Des Moines, while CBS and Bracketville both slotted them in Sacramento. Those three sites all had Kentucky in different regionals — Louisville, Kansas City and Las Vegas were all represented — showing how difficult it is to predict exactly where the Cats will end up.

It now seems out of the question that Kentucky could climb to a 5 seed, and — even with the loss to Vandy — a drop to the 8 seed line also appears unlikely. (Bracketville had UK as the top-rated 7 seed, for instance, and BracketWAG.com still projected the Cats as a 6 seed Saturday morning.)

This is not an area of the bracket that UK is accustomed to.

In the Wildcats’ previous 10 trips to the NCAA Tournament under John Calipari, they have been a 1 seed three times, a 2 seed three times, a 4 seed twice, a 5 seed once and an 8 seed once.

UK has never been a 6 seed or a 7 seed since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

Final Four history

What does history say about Kentucky’s likely seed range and the possibility of a deep run?

Here’s a look at the 6 and 7 seeds, and their history in the NCAA Tournament since 1985.

The 6 seeds have a 91-57 record in first-round games and have advanced to the second week of the tournament 29.0 percent of the time. A total of 15 of those 6 seeds have made it to the Elite Eight, though only three reached the Final Four. Kansas (in 1988) is the only 6 seed to win the national title.

The 7 seeds have a 90-58 record in first-round games and have advanced to the second week of the tournament 18.9 percent of the time. Only 10 of those 7 seeds have made the Elite Eight, three have made the Final Four, and UConn (in 2014) is the only 7 seed to win the national title. The Huskies defeated 8-seeded Kentucky in the NCAA championship game that year.

NCAA title up for grabs?

Following Friday night’s loss, Calipari was asked if this NCAA Tournament looks to be as wide-open as it’s been in a while, with no real juggernaut teams in college basketball this season.

“I would say it does,” Calipari agreed. “But my concern is my team. I got to get these guys playing like we have this year to where we’re walking into the tournament in that mindset of, ‘Look, here we go together, let’s do something crazy. I got to get them to that. We had two good days here where I thought they were in a good frame of mind. We were fine until we got punched. That’s when we’re not what we need to be. But it’s going to be an interesting tournament. I don’t know where they’ll seed us. But we’re going to have a bunch of teams in from this league, and I think people will find out this league was as good as any. You talk top to bottom, I mean, there were no easy games.”

As of Saturday, the SEC was projected to land eight teams in the 68-team field: Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas A&M, Missouri, Arkansas, Auburn and Mississippi State. Going into Saturday’s games, ESPN, CBS Sports, Bracketville and BracketWAG.com all had Vanderbilt among its last four teams out of the field.

Alabama, Houston, Kansas and Purdue are widely regarded to be the four No. 1 seeds this season.

Northern Kentucky in

UK won’t be the only school for Kentucky in the 2023 NCAA Tournament.

The Northern Kentucky Norse will make their third appearance in the March Madness field since moving to full Division I status in 2017. (NKU also would’ve been in the 2020 tournament, but it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Coach Darrin Horn and Northern Kentucky (22-12) won the Horizon League Tournament, and former Henry Clay star Marques Warrick is the team’s leading scorer at 19.1 points per game.

The first time the Norse made the NCAA Tournament, they had to play 2-seeded Kentucky in the first round in 2017, losing 79-70. They lost to 3-seeded Texas Tech in the first round in 2019.

This year, NKU is widely projected to be one of the 16 seeds in the 68-team field. ESPN had the Norse playing top-seeded Houston in the first round in its bracketology update Saturday.

North Carolina out?

The Tar Heels were the No. 1 team in the preseason AP Top 25 rankings.

They almost certainly will not make the NCAA Tournament.

North Carolina (20-13, 11-9 ACC) was not included in any major bracketology updates going into conference tournament week, often listed as one of the first teams out of the tournament field. The Heels defeated Boston College in the first round of the ACC Tournament before losing to Virginia in Thursday night’s quarterfinals. That defeat likely ended any chance they had of making the NCAA Tournament, a stunning result for the nation’s top-ranked team in November.

UNC, which was the national runner-up last year, was 1-9 in Quad 1 games this season. If the Tar Heels do indeed miss out on March Madness, they’d be the first preseason No. 1 team since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985 to fail to make the NCAA Tournament.

Five other teams who were in the preseason AP Top 25 rankings but are unlikely to make the tournament field: No. 16 Villanova, No. 21 Oregon, No. 22 Michigan, No. 24 Dayton and No. 25 Texas Tech.

The NIT bracket will be announced Sunday night, after the NCAA Tournament field is revealed.

NCAA Tournament sites

The following sites will host games during the 2023 NCAA Tournament, with Columbus and Louisville being the closest first- and second-week locations, respectively, for Kentucky:

First/second rounds: Birmingham, Des Moines, Orlando and Sacramento (Thursday/Saturday).

First/second rounds: Albany, Columbus, Denver and Greensboro (Friday/Sunday).

Regionals: Las Vegas and New York (March 23 and 25); Kansas City and Louisville (March 24 and 26).

The Final Four will be played at NRG Stadium in Houston on April 1 and 3.

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