Nick Mingione named 2024 SEC Coach of the Year
On Monday, Kentucky head coach Nick Mingione was named the 2024 SEC Coach of the Year. Mingione also won the honor during his debut campaign with the ‘Cats in 2017.
Mingione led Kentucky to a 39-12 overall record during the regular season and a 22-8 mark in conference play. With a win over Vanderbilt this past weekend, Kentucky secured a share of the SEC regular-season title for only the second time in program history and the first time since 2006.
Try Fubo for FREE today and don’t miss any of the action!
Kentucky’s 22 wins against conference foes in the regular season were a program record. Altogether, Kentucky boasted a 19-6 record against Quad 1 teams during the regular season, which is five more wins than any other team in the country (Texas A&M and Tennessee each had 14 wins).
Mingione is the first head coach in Kentucky baseball history to win the award twice. John Cohen (2006) and Gary Henderson (2012) were also winners of the award. Arkansas’ Dave Van Horn, Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin, and Florida’s Kevin O’Sullivan are the only other active SEC head coaches to win the award more than once.
Kentucky will be the No. 3 overall seed in the 2024 SEC Baseball Tournament, which begins Tuesday, May 21 in Hoover, Alabama. The Wildcats will play the winner of No. 6 Georgia/No. 11 LSU on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. ET.
Nick Mingione on narrow SEC margin of victory
Mingione’s road to the top of the SEC hasn’t been easy. The conference has six teams in D1Baseball.com’s Top 25 Rankings. Further, four of the top five teams in the rankings are all SEC programs.
Mingione doesn’t complain about the high level of competition. Instead, he embraces it.
“The margin of victory, I say this all the time, is so small. It’s absolutely minimal,” Mingione said. “You’re gonna look back every weekend and you’re gonna say, ‘Hey, there was one play here, one pitch here or one at-bat here.’
“That’s why our league plays for national championships. What was it? Fourteen of the last 15 years? It’s because the margin of victory is so small in every game. This game right here feels like a super regional and you do that for 10 straight weeks in this league, it just totally prepares you.”