Nick Mingione reflects on strength of schedule while awaiting NCAA Tournament seed
Kentucky Wildcats skipper Nick Mingione believes his team’s strength of schedule will work towards their advantage come NCAA Tournament time.
It’s no secret the SEC is the top baseball conference in the nation, which makes Kentucky’s 36-18 overall record, as well as their 16-14 conference record, all the more impressive. When the selection committee looks into it, Mingione believes the Wildcats will be rewarded.
“They’ll reward us for it,” Minion hypothesized. “When you think about our RPI, where it’s at, we have the No. 1 strength of schedule in the country. We played 40 percent of our games against top 25 RPI teams. 40 percent. There are teams out there that they’ve played two against the top 25. We’ve played 40 percent. We have the No. 1 non-conference RPI in the country, non-conference strength of schedules under 10.
“There’s a lot of things that the committee looks at, and I know sometimes they can get accused of moving the goalpost and things like that. But one thing that has never changed is they’re looking at scheduling intent. Right? You have to. And we have the best. We have the absolute best. They’ll reward us for that.”
In addition to his team’s strength of schedule, Mingione believes the way Kentucky has performed against their toughest opponents, teams who will likely be in the field come time for the NCAA Baseball Tournament, will work in their favor when the time comes.
“Another thing they look at, and you guys know this, it’s like how do you do against the teams in the field? How do you do against the teams that are actually in the field? And we’ve tied for the second most quad 1 wins in the country,” added Mingione. “It’s definitely been the foundation of what we’ve been able to do, and not only do you do that, you’ve got to go out and win, and I give our team a lot of credit. We’ve won a lot of games against a lot of really good teams.
“That’s one of the reasons why I believe in this team. We’re battle tested, and we’ll have a chance to do something really cool in the postseason because of the schedule we played.”
Alas, there aren’t many programs who are going to want to draw the Kentucky Wildcats come NCAA Baseball Tournament time. Nick Mingione has an impressive squad this season, and they’ll be looking to prove they’re one of the best over the next couple of weeks.