Tyler Bell (Vicky Graff Photo)
It’s no fluke that shortstop Tyler Bell became the first player Kentucky coach Nick Mingione has named to the All-SEC Freshman Team or became just the ninth player in school history to be invited to USA Baseball’s Collegiate National Team Training Camp.
Bell was expected to be a special player at UK after being selected 66th in the Major League Baseball Draft by Tampa Bay before Bell opted to attend Kentucky this year instead.
Mingione revealed Tuesday that Bell was voted the hardest working player on the team by teammates in the fall. He went on to reach base in 51 of 53 games this season going into Friday’s NCAA Tournament play. He leads the team with 17 doubles and 29 extra-base hits.
He also has 10 home runs, the first time a UK freshman has reached double digits in home runs since 1993.
Mingione’s pre-NCAA Tournament press conference Tuesday gave him a chance to explain more about why Bell has had such an outstanding season.
“I really believe this, and I’m going to share this with our team today, there are two pains in life, and there’s the pain of discipline and the pain of regret or disappointment. I can tell you right now that Tyler Bell is the hardest worker on our team,” the UK coach said.
“But isn’t that weird, how he’s also the most talented? So, the most talented guy is the hardest worker on the team.”
Recently Mingione had shared how he heard something in the baseball complex one night about 10:30 when he thought he was there alone. It was Bell who had been downstairs in the batting cage when the UK coach locked the locker room door.
It was the same way Monday night just a few hours after UK found out it would be playing in the Clemson Regional and would face West Virginia Friday in the first round.
“He is the hardest worker on our team. So when the most talented guy is also the hardest worker on the team, like Tyler Bell, he can rest in his preparation, because he knows how hard he works,” Mingione said.
“So I’m not surprised, and I would tell you that I don’t think any of the players are surprised by the amount of success he has, because not only talented, but like he’s actually working.”
Kentucky finished 13th in the SEC but Mingione said that only shows how difficult conference play is.
Mingione shared that message with his team after it went out in the first game at the SEC Tournament.
“What I told them was I believed in what we accomplished during the regular season, and we had proved that we could play with any team and every team. Therefore, if you can do that in the Southeastern Conference, you can beat the best teams and you can play with the best teams, you’re clearly one of the best teams,” Mingione said.
“But we were going to wait and see — and I’m sure for them, it was a bit of a roller coaster, but my message to them was really clear the whole time. It was just like, ‘I still believe in this team, and I believe that we’re going to keep playing, but we put it in other people’s hands.’ But I still believed in our track record and our resume.
“I mean, we played one of the toughest schedules in the entire country, and we beat some of the best teams in the entire country.”
