Nick Mingione details offseason after Men's College World Series berth

College Baseball is nearly back in the Bluegrass.
Kentucky Baseball Head Coach Nick Mingione joined host Darren Headrick Monday night to discuss his offseason coming straight off of Kentucky’s first ever trip to the Men’s College World Series.
“It’s finally slowed down a bit in December,” Mingione joked. “We literally went straight from Omaha (we played on a Wednesday) and flew out that day. That’s how the NCAA does it. We played that earlier game because of the weather and went straight into recruiting and end of the year meetings. It went nonstop.”
A hectic offseason it was for Mingione and his staff, which lost 24 players from last season’s team to graduation/MLB Draft/Transfer Portal. As well as those 24 players, the Cats also lost coveted assistant coach Nick Ammirati to Georgia. To replace him, they hired former Wright State Associate Head Coach Chase Slone to assume his position.
“We started the fall with 29 new players,” Mingione told Headrick. This is completely true, as this number includes both incoming transfers and freshmen. Some of these major new additions include freshman shortstop phenom Tyler Bell (No. 59 ranked player in C/O ’24), freshman catcher Ryan Schwartz (No. 128 ranked player in C/O ’24), Columbia senior DH Cole Hage, and Illinois State junior second baseman Luke Lawrence.
The entire list of Kentucky’s newest additions is below:
- Jr. RHP Nile Adcock (Kaskaskia CC)
- So. RHP Chase Alderman (Eastern Kentucky)
- Fr. C Nolan Belcher
- Fr. INF Tyler Bell
- So. RHP Oliver Boone (California)
- Fr. RHP Bradley Ferrell
- Sr. RHP Simon Gregersen (Indiana State)
- Fr. LHP Logan Grubb
- R-Fr. LHP Adam Hachman (Arkansas)
- Sr. UTIL Cole Hage (Columbia)
- Jr. OF Carson Hansen (Milwaukee)
- Fr. RHP Nate Harris
- Fr. LHP Leighton Harris
- Sr. LHP Cole Hentschel (Richmond)
- Fr. RHP Tristan Hunter
- R-Jr. RHP Jaxon Jelkin (Houston)
- Sr. INF Dylan Koontz (Campbell)
- Fr. INF Aidan Larkin
- Jr. INF Luke Lawrence (Illinois State)
- Sr. OF Will Marcy (Memphis)
- Sr. RHP Nic McCay (South Dakota State)
- Sr. OF Shaun Montoya (San Diego State)
- Fr. RHP Cameron Owens
- Sr. C Raphael Pelletier (Kansas State)
- Fr. OF Khaleel Pratt
- Sr. RHP Scott Rouse (Radford)
- Fr. C Ryan Schwartz
- Fr. RHP Zak Spurrier
- Jr. LHP Ethan Walker (Longwood)
The 2024 SEC Coach of the Year continued, speaking to Darren about his and his staff’s philosophy when evaluating players.
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“You hear us talk all the time about the student, the person, and the player. For us, the first thing is actually the evaluation of them as a player. You watch video and then if we like what we see, we immediately get on the phone. Not only is it an evaluation of a player though, but we look at what kind of a person he is and what’s in his heart.”
This is the philosophy that has turned Kentucky into one of College Baseball’s best programs over the last two seasons (69.92 winning percentage, 7th best in NCAA).
“They’re finally getting more and more comfortable with each other with each day and it’s been fun to see their growth,” Mingione said. “After our first scrimmage, I came home that day and I was like ‘we have a really long way to go.’ By the time we got to the end of the fall six weeks later I was really pleased with the growth we’ve made. We’re not where we want to be, but thank God we’re not where we used to be.”
We’ll see this new look Wildcat squad for the first time on February 14, when Kentucky travels to Lipscomb for it’s season opener.
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