Where things stand with Kentucky baseball’s NCAA Tournament hopes after cold stretch
Kentucky baseball needs a momentum switch.
Since a series sweep of Missouri rocketed the Wildcats into the top 10 on April 3, Nick Mingione’s team has lost three consecutive weekend series. Included in that stretch was a respectable showing at No. 1 LSU where Kentucky won one game and just missed a series victory on Sunday, but the other two series losses came against unranked Georgia and Texas A&M.
After dropping two of three games at home against Texas A&M over the weekend, Kentucky fell to No. 15 in Monday’s updated Baseball America top 25.
And the schedule does not get any easier from here.
On Tuesday, Kentucky (30-9, 11-7 Southeastern Conference) hosts Louisville, which has bounced in and out of the top 25 for most of the season but is currently unranked after being swept at Duke. A series at No. 5 Vanderbilt looms on the weekend. The following weekend, Kentucky hosts three games against No. 2 South Carolina.
The Wildcats’ lone remaining SEC series against an unranked opponent is at Tennessee, which opened the season at No. 2 in the Baseball America poll and is coming off a sweep of Vanderbilt. Kentucky closes the regular season with a three-game series against No. 4 Florida in Lexington.
“This is where our fans and the people of Lexington and our state, if I could just plead with you to come on out, be a part and watch our guys,” Mingione said last week before the Texas A&M series.
The good news is Kentucky’s stellar first half of the season built enough of a cushion that it appears any worries about missing the NCAA Tournament are still premature, even if the Wildcats struggle over the final month.
No SEC team with 14 regular-season conference victories has missed the NCAA Tournament since 2017. Kentucky already has 11 SEC wins. Even after the recent cold stretch, Kentucky is ranked No. 2 in the RPI. Teams ranked in the top 30 of the RPI on Selection Monday are generally considered safe bets for an at-large bid.
Of course, the strong start to SEC play elevated Kentucky’s goals past simply making the NCAA Tournament field. A top-eight national seed looked possible. Hosting a first-weekend regional seemed likely.
Entering the Texas A&M series, D1Baseball.com and Baseball America slotted Kentucky 10th overall in their NCAA Tournament projections and as a regional host just outside one of the top eight national seeds, who are guaranteed to host a super regional if they advance out of the tournament’s first weekend.
Now, Mingione’s squad likely needs at least a couple more SEC series wins to reenter the national seed race. Simply avoiding sweeps as it has done the last three weekends might not be enough to ensure a regional hosting bid, either.
Kentucky lacks the offensive firepower of the top teams in the SEC, but Mingione’s “total chaos” style of play has been enough to score at least six runs in six of the nine SEC games during the three series losing streak. The pitching staff has surrendered an average seven runs per game in that stretch, though.
Considering none of the three SEC teams Kentucky has recorded series wins against (Mississippi State, Alabama and Missouri) are currently ranked in the top 25 and are a combined 17-37 in SEC play, it is possible the increase in quality of competition has exposed the flaws of a team that was picked to finish sixth in the East Division by the league’s coaches entering the season. Mingione saw the performance at LSU as further confirmation that his team is a legitimate contender, though.
The pressure is now on to back that assessment up with more wins.
“As this season continues to go on, it’s really going to come down to execution,” Mingione said last week. “… It’s not always the best teams that win. It’s the teams that play the best and execute the best that win, so execution will be a huge thing for us moving forward.”
Tuesday
Louisville at Kentucky
When: 7 p.m.
TV: SEC Network
Radio: WLAP-AM 630
Records: U of L 26-13, 8-10 ACC; UK 30-9, 11-7 SEC
This story was originally published April 24, 2023 at 11:35 AM.