Battle-Tested Kentucky Still Ready to do Something Cool in Postseason Play

Vicky Graff Photo

Kentucky lost five of its final seven games but coach Nick Mingione remains “very confident” that UK will be hosting a NCAA Tournament regional when the baseball tourney pairings are made.

Kentucky lost 4-0 to Alabama in the Southeastern Conference Tournament this week and is 36-18 overall going into NCAA Tournament play. The Cats were 16-14 in SEC and ninth in the SEC but still could be one of 16 teams hosting a NCAA regional because of a strong RPI and winning record against top 25 teams.

“They’ll reward us for it,” Mingione said about the NCAA Tournament selection committee.  When you think about our RPI, where it’s at, we have the No. 1 strength of schedule in the country. We played 40 percent of our games against top 25 RPI teams. Forty percent.

“There are teams out there that they’ve played two against the top 25. We’ve played 40 percent. We have the No. 1 non-conference RPI in the country, non-conference strength of schedules under 10.

“There’s a lot of things that the committee looks at, and I know sometimes they can get accused of moving the goalpost and things like that. But one thing that has never changed is they’re looking at scheduling intent. Right? You have to. And we have the best. We have the absolute best. They’ll reward us for that.”

Mingione wasn’t done making the case for his team hosting a regional.

“Another thing they (selection committee) look at, and you guys know this, it’s like how do you do against the teams in the field? How do you do against the teams that are actually in the field? And we’ve tied for the second most quad 1 wins in the country,” Mingione said.

“It’s definitely been the foundation of what we’ve been able to do, and not only do you do that, you’ve got to go out and win, and I give our team a lot of credit. We’ve won a lot of games against a lot of really good teams.

“That’s one of the reasons why I believe in this team. We’re battle tested, and we’ll have a chance to do something really cool in the postseason because of the schedule we played.”