LEXINGTON — Kentucky basketball will begin its quest for a ninth national championship in Pennsylvania.

The Wildcats (23-9) will head to Pittsburgh as a 3-seed in this season's NCAA Tournament. UK, which was placed in the South Region, will square off with 14th-seeded Oakland in the first round at PPG Paints Arena.

If the Wildcats survive the first weekend for the first time since 2019, they will head to Dallas, where the South Region's Sweet 16 and Elite Eight matchups will be held at the American Airlines Center.

This will be Kentucky's 61st appearance in the Big Dance, extending its all-time record. It's the 12th time in John Calipari's 15 seasons leading the Wildcats the team has earned an NCAA berth. (If the coronavirus pandemic had not canceled the 2020 tournament, UK would have been in the field that season.)

The matchup with Oakland will be a virtual home game for Calipari, who grew up in Moon Township, barely 10 miles north of Pittsburgh. Kentucky also has two players from Pittsburgh: senior forward Tre Mitchell and sophomore guard Adou Thiero.

The Golden Grizzlies (23-11) went 15-5 in Horizon League play this season. Oakland beat Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 83-76, in the conference tournament championship game.

The Wildcats began the 2023-24 season unlike any other in the Calipari era: outside the top 15 in both major polls: They were No. 16 in the USA TODAY Sports preseason men's basketball coaches poll as well as the AP Top 25 preseason rankings. Prior to this season, the lowest UK ever started in the coaches poll was No. 11 in 2021-22. And Kentucky never had started a season below No. 11 in the AP rankings, either. Since Calipari’s first season in 2009-10, the Wildcats were part of the AP’s preseason top 10 on 13 occasions and in the top five 11 times.

Those rankings in the preseason polls carried into conference predictions: UK was picked to finish fourth by the USA TODAY Sports Network’s SEC beat writers and landed in the same position at the conference media day.

Kentucky dropped its first marquee matchup of the season to Kansas (in Chicago at the Champions Classic on Nov. 14), but bounced back to maul Miami in the first-ever ACC-SEC Challenge on Nov. 28. That triumph over the Hurricanes, who were coming off a Final Four last season and an Elite Eight appearance in 2021-22, lost its luster as the months went on; Miami finished 15-17 overall and just 6-13 in the ACC.

After a stunning home loss to nonconference foe UNC Wilmington to begin December, UK posted one of its signature victories of the season, topping North Carolina in a CBS Sports Classic tilt in Atlanta. Five days after that win, Kentucky cruised past in-state rival Louisville, 95-76, at the KFC Yum! Center.

The Wildcats jumped into conference competition in January, starting 2-0 (beating Florida on the road and Missouri at home) before dropping its first game in overtime at Texas A&M.

Kentucky ripped off three wins in its next four outings (Mississippi State, Georgia and Arkansas) before it reached its roughest stretch of the season: It lost to Tennessee, Florida and Gonzaga in consecutive games at Rupp Arena – the first time since the venue opened in 1976 the Wildcats lost three in a row at home.

But UK closed the regular season on a hot streak, winning seven of its last eight contests, including high-profile road victories over Auburn and Tennessee, respectively.

Yet that momentum didn’t carry into the SEC Tournament, where Kentucky went one and done for the second straight season (and the third time in its last four appearances), falling to Texas A&M, 97-87, at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee, earlier this week.

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky's March Madness opponent is Oakland in 2024 NCAA Tournament