Nick Mingione makes emphatic case for Kentucky to be a top seed in NCAA Tournament

As Kentucky took on Alabama in the first round of the SEC Tournament, coach Nick Mingione made a strong case for his team being a top seed. Mingione was asked about the case the Wildcats had made for the NCAA Baseball Tournament selection committee — which prompted him to sarcastically rattle off a list of achievements his team had put together this season.

Prior to the third inning, Mingione was interviewed by the broadcast crew about whether or not they deserved to be a team hosting in the tournament. Kentucky put together a season with the second-best RPI in D1 play, a metric that means everything to the Wildcats.

“I mean, you said it right there. That’s the metric. There’s other ones but guys, we have the number two RPI in the country,” joked Mingione. “Can you imagine if Alabama football had the number two thing and they weren’t in the college playoff? What are we talking about?

“I don’t know what else to say, alright how about Quad 1 wins? How do they do against good teams? Second most in the country, tied for best in the SEC. Alright, how about bad losses? Zero Quad 3 and 4 losses, only team in the SEC. I mean, I don’t know. I just love our guys and want them to keep playing hard.”

Kentucky earning a top tournament seed

Earlier in the day, the Kentucky coach went into further depth on how the Wildcats’ schedule was a deliberate choice by Mingione to prepare them for the College World Series. Their tough schedule was reflected in their record, but the experience gained is worth it completely in his eyes.

“Well, you know I’ve got all the stats, right? It’s the time of the year where you’re just looking at your resume and you have all the stuff. But we played 39.6 percent of our games, so basically 40 percent of our games against top-25 RPI teams. Let that sink in. 40 percent of our games were against top-25 RPI teams.

“And you guys know this, but when you go through a gauntlet like that and the teams you play, over and over and over again — they’re just amazing. Much like the team we’re going to play today [in Alabama]. They’re an awesome baseball team. But after a while, after you play that many good teams you just start getting used to it, you know? As crazy as that sounds.

“But we played a lot of really good teams, we’ve beaten a lot of good teams, we’ve been beaten by good teams. But I believe that’s how you get ready. And I told our team I don’t get any joy or satisfaction out of beating up teams that you know, we’re just quite frankly dramatically better than. And I just, I wanted to challenge them. Because I believe that’s how you get better and that’s how ultimately you win the whole thing — by being challenged.”

Unfortunately, the challenge proved to be a difficult one for his team to open the SEC Tournament. After the top of the 8th inning on Tuesday, Alabama had a 4-0 lead over Kentucky as they threatened to send them home early to await their final bracket position.