Exactly. They didn't look at it match-up wise. Just went with what Cal said. AS they always do. They had beaten UT. AZ was terrible defensively, and won a terrible Pac 12. Cincy won a very top heavy AAC. UVA struggles with long, athletic, driving teams. Guess what UK is?
But it was easier to follow Cal instead of thinking for themselves.
I don't have a problem with anything but that. They were 31-2 their only two losses in rivalry games. And had the best season in ACC history. Statistically Virginia was the strongest favorite since 2015 UK.
Also Zona had the number 1 pick and he had looked unstoppable for the better part of the last two months. There only loss in the last two months was a road game with no head coach.
And yeah the PAC 12 did indeed turn out to be garbage. But that's a really hard thing to know for sure during the season. We've seen plenty of conferences get crapped on all year and then put a bunch of teams in the s16 or better(sec just last year).
UT had beaten us 2 of 3.
The only thing UK fans did wrong was we all underestimated Tony Bennett, Rick Barnes and Sean Millers propensity to suck in March. And we weren't alone. Zona was a trendy pick for the FF.
Cronin is kind of an unknown. This was his first rodeo as a heavy weight.