Nick Mingione previews Kentucky's regional field

Kentucky will be playing postseason baseball for the first time since 2017. They will also be hosting a regional in Lexington for just the third time in the history of the program.

Still, their road to Omaha won’t be easy with how things will start off in Kentucky Proud Park later on this week. As head coach Nick Mingione pointed out, several high-quality teams will be coming to the bluegrass to try to keep the Wildcats from advancing to the Super Regional.

“At this time of year? You guys know this. All the teams are good,” Mingione said. “Like, Ball State? I mean they’re on fire. They just won their tournament. Huge, clutch home run, won 35 games. You win 35 games in college baseball? You’re doing something good, right?”

“And then you sit there and you look at West Virginia? I mean they stole 122 bases. Two weeks ago they’re in talks for a national seed, right? So they’re clearly a host-worthy team,” continued Mingione. “And then, obviously, Indiana? They won over 40 games. You do that in college baseball and you’ve got a special team.”

“(It’s) definitely a difficult regional and one that’ll definitely be a challenge for us,” said Mingione.

Kentucky earned its right to host with a 36-18 record this season. They were able to accomplish that by playing the nation’s most difficult schedule as one of the leaders in RPI.

Still, while Kentucky has experienced what it’s like to compete against difficult competition, they’ll now have to do it against the Cardinals, Mountaineers, and Hoosiers with the added pressure that comes with baseball in the NCAA Tournament. All three potential opponents will be vying for their shot at the next weekend too as each member of the trio had just as many wins, or more, than UK, albeit on easier schedules.

Mingione made sure to show each of UK’s possible opponents the respect that they deserve. That’ll eventually turn into competitiveness, though, once things get going for the Wildcats against Ball State inside KPP on Friday.

Kentucky baseball has favorable odds to make the College World Series

For the first time since 2017, Kentucky baseball is hosting a regional in Lexington. Even better, the ‘Bat Cats, which picked up the No. 12 national seed, have a favorable path to making its first-ever College World Series.

According to @statsowar on Twitter, Nick Mingione’s squad has a 30.0 percent chance of making the CWS — the sixth-best odds from the 64-team field. That percentage is based on 10,000 simulations of the 2023 NCAA Tournament. The same account also gives Kentucky a 58.1 percent chance to make it out of the Lexington Regional, which consists of West Virginia (2), Indiana (3), and Ball State (4).

Wake Forest (44.7%), Vanderbilt (35.6%), Florida (35.1%), LSU (32.3%), and Virginia (30.4%) are the only teams with a higher percent chance than Kentucky of making the College World Series.