KSR Today: Kentucky baseball eyes SEC title
Kentucky baseball finished the 2006 season 44-17 and ended the year in the NCAA Regional. Despite not making it out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, John Cohen’s team recorded a historical accomplishment winning the program’s only regular-season SEC title with a 20-10 record in league play.
Nick Mingione’s 2024 Kentucky team has a chance to do the same thing 18 years later.
After consecutive series losses to Tennessee and South Carolina, the Bat Cats bounced back in a big way at home this weekend against No. 2 Arkansas. Kentucky took the last two games of the series after an 11-3 win on Saturday and a 7-4 victory on Sunday. The Wildcats now have an SEC title and a top-eight national seed in their sights.
Kentucky (35-10, 18-6) currently leads Arkansas (17-7), Tennessee (17-7), and Texas A&M (16-8) in the SEC standings with two weekends remaining in the regular season. The Wildcats have remaining series against Florida (10-14) and Vanderbilt (11-13). The path is there for this program to win a conference title and secure a national seed in the NCAA Tournament. Mingione’s ballclub enters the final two weeks ranking No. 2 in RPI with a 17-5 Quad 1 record.
Get ready to see some postseason baseball at Kentucky Proud Park in June. The Wildcats could be hosting a Super Regional for a chance to get to Omaha for the first time in program history. The Big Blue Nation could be catching some baseball fever very soon.
Waiting for more transfer developments
The transfer portal is officially closed for football and men’s basketball, but that does not mean that roster-building has stopped. In Lexington, both Mark Pope and Mark Stoops have some work left to be done, but we now must play the waiting game.
For Kentucky football, the Wildcats recently hosted Grand Valley State defensive lineman Jay’viar Suggs for a visit. Stoops’ program could also be looking for help at quarterback, tailback, and punter. We should start to see some decisions made this week. Former Kentucky wideout Shamar Porter committed to UConn on Sunday night. Last year, Kentucky added five players to the roster beginning on May 7. There is still time to find some last-minute additions.
Kentucky basketball sits with nine scholarship players on the roster but now is all about playing the NBA Draft waiting game. Invites were just sent out for both the NBA Draft Combine and the G League Elite Camp. BYU wing Jaxson Robinson will be the most popular name that Big Blue Nation will be following at the draft combine, but there are some big names to monitor at the G League Elite Camp. Florida State big Baba Miller and Miami wing Wooga Poplar are both Kentucky transfer targets going through the draft process.
Expect decisions to be made later in the month, but commitments could always come at any point. Sunday was a big day on the basketball wire with Khalif Battle (Arkansas to Gonzaga), Norchad Omier (Miami to Baylor), and Cliff Omoruyi (Rutgers to Alabama) all finding new homes.
Both sports are in a holding pattern, but we should see some transfer portal activity pick up sooner rather than later.
Kenny Brooks is loading up
Buzz continues to build for the Kentucky women’s basketball program. Former Virginia Tech head coach Kenny Brooks is building quite the roster. On Sunday, the Wildcats added another big piece.
Charlotte transfer Dazia Lawrence committed to Kentucky on Sunday.
The 5-foot-8 guard posted 18.2 points, 4.2 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 1.8 steals per game last season on 42.6 percent shooting. Lawrence is a career 34 percent three-point shooter and has started 61 games during her collegiate career.
The first-team All-AAC guard picked the Cats over Marquette, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Florida State. The Charlotte transfer will reunite with former coach Ciara Gregory in Lexington. Brooks has now added six transfers to his first Kentucky roster, and that is not even counting a pair of high school recruits who were former Virginia Tech commits.
The hype continues to build for Kentucky women’s basketball.
Kentucky softball will be No. 12 seed in SEC Tournament
Kentucky softball finished the season with a 30-21 (8-16) mark under head coach Rachel Olson. Things have not gone well for the Wildcats in league play, but the squad will have one more shot at making a run at a postseason bid this week in Auburn.
The SEC Tournament begins on Tuesday, and Kentucky will be the No. 12 seed.
Kentucky will face No. 13 seed Ole Miss in the play-in game at 7:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. CT. The game will be broadcast on the SEC Network with the winner moving on to face No. 5 seed Missouri in the first round on Wednesday.
We’ll see if Kentucky can make a postseason run this week.
The Tom Brady Roast
If you went to bed early on Sunday, odds are that you missed what looked like a very lively being streamed on Netflix. The streaming service hosted a Tom Brady roast, and that is all the internet was talking about.
Kim Kardashian was booed, there were numerous jokes about Brady’s divorce, nearly everyone was making fun of Rob Gronkowski but perhaps the biggest moment was when Kevin Hart got Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick to take a shot together. These two men do not like each other.
What a sport.
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