Nick Mingione Wants to Have Pitching Staff Fresh for NCAA Play

Trey Pooser (Vicky Graff Photo)

Kentucky wants to win this week’s Southeastern Conference Tournament. Do not doubt that.

However, Kentucky coach Nick Mingione also knows his No. 3 Wildcats have a great chance to do significant damage in the upcoming NCAA Tournament and won’t do anything to jeopardize having a healthy roster when that starts the following week.

“Because our sport is so different as it relates to pitching, you have to have your pitching fresh, rested and healthy,” Mingione said on WLAP Sunday Morning Sports Talk. “It’s just an unnatural motion. You can’t throw every day.

“We have got to get our guys healthy. If they are not 100 percent and not feeling great, I am not going to play them.”

Kentucky has that luxury after sharing the SEC regular-season championship with Tennessee at 22-8. Kentucky is going to host a regional no matter what happens in the SEC Tournament and should be hosting a super regional if it advances out of the region. That would give a healthy UK a great chance to reach its first College World Series.

That’s why Trey Pooser will not start on the mound when UK opens double-elimination play Wednesday. He went five innings in Thursday’s win over Vanderbilt and Mingione wants his starting pitchers to have a normal week of rest between starts going into NCAA play.

“I am not bringing back a starter on a short day of rest again (like he had to do against Vanderbilt because the three-game series started on Thursday and not Friday like normal),” Mingione said. “We are not in a do-or-die position. I am going to give those guys their proper rest as starters but our bullpen guys should be ready to go.”

The SEC has five teams — No. 1 Tennessee, No. 2 Arkansas, No. 3 Kentucky, No. 4 Texas A&M and No. 8 Georgia — in the top 10 of the USA Today coaches’ regular-season final poll. Mingione knows other SEC teams will be fighting to keep their season and NCAA hopes alive at the SEC Tournament.

“This is the time you got to end people’s seasons. Some are fighting for their lives and need more wins. You gotta beat them and end their season,” Mingione said. “Do we want our season to end or do we want to end people’s seasons? We want to try and end people’s seasons because if not, our season is going to end.”