Teams traveling to Lexington Regional will stay in UK dorm rooms due to hotel issue

The three teams traveling to Lexington as Kentucky baseball prepares to host an NCAA Baseball Tournament Regional will have to stay on campus in dorm rooms, it was revealed Monday. According to Ben Upton of the 11Point7 Podcast, there is not enough room in local hotels to accommodate the coaches and players due to Railbird Music Festival also set to take place in the city this weekend.

West Virginia, Indiana and Ball State are the teams set to join the Wildcats in the Regional. But while Kentucky will allow the players and coaches from those teams to stay on campus, there is still the question of where their families traveling to see them as well as fans of the teams might stay.

BREAKING:
Lexington, Kentucky Regional

No hotels within an hour of Lexington because of a country music festival

West Virginia, Indiana, and Ball State players and coaches are staying in UK dorm rooms…

Read what was sent out to teams. pic.twitter.com/dcpqAEaVqK

— Ben Upton (@Ben_Upton5) May 30, 2023

Kentucky sent out a message to the teams to give them an idea of what to expect with their visit. The athletes will stay in four-person suites with a shared restroom, but will have the option to convert to two-person suites for additional space. Coaches will stay in on person suites with a private restroom.

UK also said that it will have staff on hand to clean the rooms daily, and will provide hotel-quality linens. Additionally, the Wildcats will provide meals to the visiting coaches and players both in the dorm building and at Kroger Field, the school’s football stadium.

Kentucky and Ball State are set to kick off the Regional action at noon ET on Friday. After that, Indiana and West Virginia face each other at 7 p.m.

Nick Mingione previews Kentucky’s Regional field

This year marks the first NCAA Tournament appearance for Kentucky since 2017. Not only that, but it is also just the third time in program history the Wildcats have been picked to host a regional.

Still, their road to Omaha won’t be easy with how things will start off in Kentucky Proud Park later on this week. As head coach Nick Mingione pointed out, several high-quality teams will be coming to the bluegrass to try to keep the Wildcats from advancing to the Super Regional.

“At this time of year? You guys know this. All the teams are good,” Mingione said. “Like, Ball State? I mean they’re on fire. They just won their tournament. Huge, clutch home run, won 35 games. You win 35 games in college baseball? You’re doing something good, right?

“And then you sit there and you look at West Virginia? I mean they stole 122 bases. Two weeks ago they’re in talks for a national seed, right? So they’re clearly a host-worthy team,” continued Mingione. “And then, obviously, Indiana? They won over 40 games. You do that in college baseball and you’ve got a special team. (It’s) definitely a difficult regional and one that’ll definitely be a challenge for us.”

On3’s Sam Gillenwater contributed to this report.