Kentucky basketball is a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament, playing No. 10 seed Santa Clara in the first round of the Midwest Region.
CATS ARE DANCING 💃🕺 pic.twitter.com/zV7k6HXtmV
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Santa Clara is 26-8 this season, led by head coach Herb Sendek. Sendek was an assistant under Rick Pitino at Kentucky from 1989 to 1993. The Wildcats have played the Broncos once, a 74-60 Kentucky victory at Rupp Arena on Dec. 19, 2006, in which Randolph Morris scored 23 points. The Broncos are the runner-up from the West Coast Conference, falling to Gonzaga 78-69 in the title game.
The Wildcats are 21-13 overall in Mark Pope's second season. Frequently described as a roller coaster by Pope, it has been an up-and-down year. Kentucky went 5-9 against teams ranked in the AP poll and 10-8 in SEC play, finishing ninth in the league. In the postseason, the Wildcats won two games in Nashville at the SEC tournament before falling to Florida for the third time in a month in the quarterfinals.
In Mark Pope's first season as Kentucky's head coach, the Wildcats reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019.
The Kentucky Wildcats are one of the most decorated programs in NCAA Tournament history, having appeared in the field 63 times with a record of 134-57. The Wildcats have won eight national championships in 1948, 1949, 1951, 1958, 1978, 1996, 1998 and 2012, second only to UCLA's 11 titles. The program has reached the Final Four 17 times. The 2026 NCAA Tournament Final Four will be held at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, marking the fourth time the home of the Indianapolis Colts has hosted the event. The semifinals are scheduled for Saturday, April 4, with the national championship set for Monday, April 6. The Final Four and championship game will be broadcast on TBS.
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