Kentucky Baseball Unranked in Preseason Top 25
On Tuesday afternoon, D1 Baseball revealed its Preseason Top 25 rankings.
Coach Nick Mingione’s Kentucky baseball program, however, was nowhere to be found.
The SEC had an impressive nine teams make the Top 25, seven of which rounded out the top ten: LSU, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Florida, Arkansas & Texas A&M. But the Wildcats, not too surprisingly, were nowhere to be found.
Kentucky is coming off a 29-23 season in 2022, where they finished 12-18 in SEC play (good for sixth place in the East). The ‘Cats made a miraculous run in the SEC Tournament as a 12-seed, losing to the #1 overall seed Tennessee in the Final Four. They knocked off #5 Auburn, #8 Vanderbilt & #4 LSU along the way.
There was an outside hope that Mingione’s group would make the NCAA tournament, but the miracle tournament run was not enough to get the ‘Cats into the Big Dance.
Kentucky Baseball hasn’t made the NCAA tournament since 2017, coach Nick Mingione’s first year as head coach. The ‘Cats made it all the way to the Louisville Super Regional that year before falling to #7 Louisville 5-2. The Bat ‘Cats are still the only member of the 14-team SEC to never reach the College World Series
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Some believe that Coach Nick Mingione’s seat may be a little warm, and others even believe that last year’s SEC Tournament run saved him from being let go this past offseason. Safe to say, this is a very important season for the former SEC Coach of the Year. Year seven may be make or break for his time in Lexington.
Kentucky transfers OF Ryan Waldschmidt (Charleston Southern), OF Kendal Ewell (Eastern Kentucky), INF Grant Smith (Incarnate Ward) & INF Patrick Herrera (Northwestern) were all ranked in D1 Baseball‘s SEC’s Top 50 transfers list, which also dropped Tuesday afternoon.
Be on the lookout for KSR’s 2023 Kentucky Baseball Preview coming in early February.
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