KSR Gameday: Bat Cats take on Florida in College World Series elimination game

Good morning, folks! And a Happy Juneteenth! Let’s try this again, shall we?

Kentucky baseball was supposed to take on the Florida Gators last night in its third game of the College World Series in Omaha. But Mother Nature had other plans. Bad weather in the area was expected throughout the day, and a few hours before the scheduled first pitch, the game was postponed to Wednesday morning — which is today!

Our rescheduled first pitch is now set for 11:00 a.m. EST on ESPN. A loss for the Bat Cats would end its historic season, but a win would move them into another elimination matchup against Texas A&M — which beat Kentucky 5-1 on Monday — later tonight. First pitch for game two would happen around 7:00 p.m. EST.

But let’s keep our eye on the prize. Taking down Florida is a must.

These two teams are familiar with each other. Back in May, Kentucky went into Gainesville and won two of three games against Florida (both wins coming in extra innings), taking the first series against the SEC foe since 2016. UK will have its hands full with Florida DH/1B Jac Caglianone, a high-level MBL prospect who has 74 career homers to his name — tied for the most in program history. He’s also not a huge fan of Kentucky’s dugout “nonsense”, as he referred to it.

It should be a fun one today at Charles Schwab Field. Follow along on KSBoard while you’re pretending to knock out some mid-day work (if you have work today, that is).

For a full breakdown of this morning’s showdown with the Gators, check out Daniel Hager’s preview right here. If you prefer to watch your previews, a fresh episode of the Bat Cat Beat dropped yesterday with Daniel and Steven Peake in front of the camera.

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A change in the KSR Radio schedule

With the baseball game starting at 11:00 a.m., it’s caused a conflict with the regularly scheduled KSR Radio show. The show will still run at its normal time from 10:00-noon, but you’ll need to flip stations about halfway through. At 10:45 a.m., 630 WLAP in Lexington and 790 WKRD in Louisville will jump to the UK Sports Network baseball pregame show and then to the actual game broadcast at 11:00.

We’ve got some good stuff coming on the radio show, too. Joining Ryan Lemond, Shannon the Dude, and Billy Rutledge at 10:30 will be class of 2025 five-star point guard/Lexington native/priority Kentucky recruit, Jasper Johnson, who will be on the air for about 30 minutes to talk about his unofficial visit to UK on Tuesday, his impressive summer so far, what’s ahead for his recruitment, and much more.

After that, Tyler Ulis will join the program around 11:30. Why Ulis? Well…

Tyler Ulis coaching La Familia

The Kentucky alumni team in this summer’s The Basketball Tournament is absolutely loaded — coaching staff included. On Tuesday, former Wildcat point guard turned student assistant, Tyler Ulis, will lead La Familia into the winner-takes-all $1 million tournament. Rupp Arena will host a TBT regional from July 19-23.

“I’m very excited to be named La Familia’s first head coach,” Ulis said in a release from La Familia. “We’ve assembled a great group of Kentucky basketball legends, and I’m really looking forward to being able to work with everyone. Playing these games at home in front of our fans is an incredible honor for our group, and we’ll make sure the guys are focused this summer to go win that $1 million grand prize!”

I mean, just look at this roster:

• Eric Bledsoe (2009-10)
• Daniel Orton (2009-10)
• Doron Lamb (2010-12)
• Marquis Teague (2011-12)
• Willie Cauley-Stein (2012-15)
• James Young (2013-14)
• Andrew Harrison (2013-15)
• Reid Travis (2018-19)
• Nate Sestina (2019-20)
• Kellan Grady (2021-22)

Former ‘Cat Twany Beckham is serving as the team’s general manager.

La Familia will be one of 64 teams chasing the TBT grand prize of $1 million. They will be joined by seven other squads in the Lexington Regional. The bracket and matchups will be announced on June 26. Tickets for the Lexington Regional are now on sale at thetournament.com/tbt/tickets.

Nine Wildcats named preseason All-SEC

Phil Steele is back and he’s dropping some preseason football knowledge on SEC fans. Along with Steele projecting nine Kentucky Wildcats to make All-SEC, he also has a pair of ‘Cats — Deone Walker and Barion Brown — cracking All-American teams as a defensive lineman and kick returner, respectively.

• DL Deone Walker, First Team (Defense)
• KR Barion Brown, First Team (Special Teams)
• DB Maxwell Hairston, First Team (Defense)
• WR Dane Key, Second Team (Offense)
• LB Jamon “Pop” Dumas-Johnson, Second Team (Defense)
• OL Eli Cox, Third Team (Offense)
• LB D’Eryk Jackson, Third Team (Defense)
• OL Marques Cox, Fourth Team (Offense)
• DE JJ Weaver, Fourth Team (Defense)

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The cameras are always watching…

The ESPN cameras recently caught Kentucky junior infielder Patrick Herrera twerking in the dugout. And his teammates wasted no time making sure he’ll never forget that moment. Herrera’s offseason weights coach traveled 1,300 miles to watch him play in the CWS, but he also wanted to get every Kentucky player to sign pictures of Herrera’s twerking in action.

His reaction is priceless.

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Important mid-week football visitors

This month of June has already resulted in a handful of commitments for Mark Stoops and Kentucky football. They’ll look to keep the dice hot this week and over the weekend with another impressive batch of 2025 recruits making their way to Lexington.

On Monday, we saw four-star linebacker Christian Gass arrive on campus for his official visit, which will end today. On Tuesday, another pair of four-star talents — wide receiver Andrew Marsh and cornerback Dawayne Galloway — made their presence known at UK. Later today, we’ll have one more prospect head to Lexington, unranked wide receiver Preston Bowman.

“They’re excited to get me up there,” Bowman told KSR+ ahead of his visit. “They feel like I can contribute to the team. I’ve been in contact with Coach [Daikiel] Shorts and Coach [Vince] Marrow. It’s just been small talk, getting ready for the visit.”

Michigan offered Bowman, a 6-foot, 195-pound Ohio product, back in May while Lousiville did the same in February. While unranked right now, there are some big-name schools vying for his services.

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