In the N.C.A.A. Tournament, It's Kentucky and a Pack of 15 Several Kentucky players are expected to be N.B.A. draft picks, including Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. When No. 2 Duke lost in the N.C.A.A. tournament on Friday, the predictable themes of parity in college basketball reappeared. They disappeared as quickly over the weekend, however, as only two teams from outside the six power conferences advanced to the Round of 16. That is the fewest since 2003, meaning that the darlings have mostly left the field to the sport's boldest brand names. All four No. 1 seeds advanced and just three teams with double-digit seeds survived the opening weekend. The field has evolved to the point where it would be surprising if Kentucky did not win the national title. With key players dropping for other contenders and the Wildcats bulldozing opponents at full throttle, the Final Four in New Orleans is shaping up to be a Wildcat coronation. "If they make jump shots, no one beats them," said the Iowa State associate head coach T. J. Otzelberger. That's the bottom line. The two teams that were considered the most vexing foils for the Wildcats, Syracuse and North Carolina, are handicapped for the rest of the tournament. The news that the starting Tar Heel point guard Kendall Marshall broke his right wrist - he is left-handed - could spell doom for North Carolina. It is uncertain if Marshall will play against Ohio on Friday in the Round of 16; he had surgery on Monday morning. But even though the injury is to his off wrist, there will be significant mental and physical hurdles to overcome. Syracuse's latest off-court concern broke before the start of the tournament when academic problems ended the season for the starting center Fab Melo. The Orange played poorly against No. 16 North Carolina-Asheville in their opener and rebounded with a better showing against Kansas State. But there is no denying the Orange are a different team without Melo, and will struggle once they face elite competition. 4 Wisconsin awaits, in Boston on Thursday. With its potential opponents in the national title game wounded, Kentucky faces fourth-seeded Indiana in the South regional semifinal, a rematch of Kentucky's only regular-season loss. After using a blitzkrieg second-half run to blow away ninth-seeded Iowa State in the second half on Saturday, Kentucky Coach John Calipari did not mince words. "That's about as good as we can play," Calipari said. I have a good team. My job now is to let them look at all this and be happy, but not satisfied. Kentucky is obviously the country's most-talented team: years from now people will look back in wonderment that a single college team included such talent. The Web site Draft Express projects the star freshmen big men Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist to be the No. 1 and No. 2 picks in the coming N.B.A. draft. The inconsistent sophomore Terrence Jones projects at No. 20 and the sophomore Doron Lamb projects early in the second round. The freshman point guard Marquis Teague had been Kentucky's most mercurial player, but he appears to have figured things out after scoring 24 points against Iowa State, whose strategy revolved around living with Teague and Kidd-Gilchrist shooting from the perimeter. "Teague made us pay in a big way," Otzelberger said. If he plays the way he did and makes shots that way, they're almost unguardable. While Kentucky will be the center of attention until it loses, its geographic region is also the heartbeat of this Round of 16. There are four teams from Ohio along with the Wildcats and Louisville in the Round of 16. Of the Ohio four - Ohio University, Cincinnati, Ohio State and Xavier - the majority of the attention will go to Xavier and Cincinnati. They engaged in an on-court brawl in December that scarred the college basketball season. A flurry of suspensions, endless highlights and opinions resulted. Cincinnati Coach Mick Cronin was asked by at least four reporters about the brawl after beating Florida State on Sunday night, mostly giving nonanswers. "Great for our city," Cronin said of both teams advancing. But I don't make as much of that. That situation is long gone, it's over with. Young people make mistakes every day across America; it's just not always on television. The other interesting geographic note is that there are no teams remaining from the Mountain and Pacific time zones. Basketball was poor out West this season, particularly in the Pac-12. The Big East and the Big Ten, which were regarded as the best leagues, each have four teams in the Round of 16. The biggest disappointment of the opening weekend may have been the Mountain West, which had one team - New Mexico - win a tournament game. The team farthest West remaining is Baylor, which is one of the few survivors athletic enough to play with Kentucky. The Bears are a potential opponent for the Wildcats in Atlanta in the regional final, but would need a better performance from the talented big man Perry Jones, who combined was 4 for 14 with just 9 points in Baylor's two games. For Kentucky to be challenged, a lot must happen. As the focus of this tournament shifts toward the heavyweights, the field can be viewed as Kentucky and everyone else.