KSR Today: UConn wins 5th title, Top 10 Bat Cats host Dayton

Good morning, friends. The 2022-23 college basketball season is officially over, with the No. 4 seed UConn Huskies beating No. 5 seed San Diego State 76-59 to claim their fifth national title. Like it or not, that qualifies UConn as a blueblood. The Huskies are now tied with Indiana and Duke for the most titles behind UCLA (11), Kentucky (8), and North Carolina (6).

Team	Titles	Years Won
UCLA	11	1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1995
Kentucky	8	1948, 1949, 1951, 1958, 1978, 1996, 1998, 2012
North Carolina	6	1957, 1982, 1993, 2005, 2009, 2017
Duke	5	1991, 1992, 2001, 2010, 2015
Indiana	5	1940, 1953, 1976, 1981, 1987
Connecticut	5	1999, 2004, 2011, 2014, 2023
Kansas	4	1952, 1988, 2008, 2022

UConn led comfortably through the majority of last night’s game, going into halftime up 12 points. San Diego State cut the lead to five with 5:19 left, but the Huskies went on a 9-0 run to deliver the knockout punch. They are only the fifth team since the NCAA Tournament field expanded in 1985 to win all six tournament games by double-digits. That said, they came up short of breaking the all-time NCAA Tournament record for point differential (+129), which belongs to the 1996 Kentucky Wildcats. So, ha!

It’s a little weird to live in a world where UConn has three national championships under three different coaches during the same period in which Kentucky has just one under John Calipari, but here we are. If you missed it, the Cats did make an appearance in “One Shining Moment.” We get a glimpse of Oscar Tshiebwe, a crying Bryce Hopkins, and that wild moment in the Providence game where the ball died on the back of the rim during a free throw. There’s a lot of Kansas State and Markquis Nowell, too.

Jim Nantz also signed off from the Final Four for the 32nd and final time with, “Thank you for being my friend.” (Don’t worry, you’ll see him on Masters coverage later this week.)

"Thank you for being my friend"

One final goodbye from Jim Nantz at the #NationalChampionship 👏 pic.twitter.com/mRgtmyQKU8

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 4, 2023

Now, we begin the long wait for the 2023-24 season. We’ll get to questions surrounding that in a minute, but let’s start with what’s happening on campus today.

No. 10 Kentucky Baseball hosts Dayton

The Bat Cats (25-3, 8-1 SEC) are red hot, coming off a sweep of No. 25 Missouri, their third SEC series win. On Monday, Kentucky moved to No. 10 in D1 Baseball and Baseball America’s polls, the program’s highest ranking since 2018. The Cats’ 8-1 start to SEC play is the best in school history, a mark they’ll look to add to this weekend vs. Georgia in Athens.

First, a midweek date with an A-10 foe. Tonight, Kentucky hosts Dayton at Kentucky Proud Park. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET. The game will be streamed on SEC Network+, or you can listen on UK Sports Network (630 AM WLAP).

On Monday morning, head coach Nick Mingione called into the KSR Preshow to discuss his team’s impressive start.

“They’ve been so good at just focusing on the next thing. Like, they’re not focused on the game that we had three, four, or five days ago or the day before the games we have had. They’ve done an amazing job of focusing on the task at hand. Whether that’s a practice, whether it’s a lift, whether it’s going to class, whether it’s getting hydrated, taking care of their bodies, it doesn’t matter — they’ve been unbelievable at just doing the next thing and nothing else not focusing their time and energy of anything else and it’s obviously paid off.”

The weather forecast looks good for tonight, so get on down to Kentucky Proud Park, order a cold beverage, and cheer on your Top 10 Bat Cats. What a fun sentence to write.

No. 16 Kentucky Softball avoids sweep vs. Georgia

The No. 16 Cats already dropped the series to No. 10 Georgia in Athens, but on Monday, they avoided a sweep with a 4-0 shutout win, which snapped the Bulldogs’ 11-game winning streak. Kentucky is now 22-9 on the season, 5-4 in SEC play. The Cats will hit the road again later this week for a weekend series vs. Ole Miss in Oxford.

Tuesdays with Liam

There are only a handful of spring practices left. This morning, Liam Coen and members of Kentucky’s offense will meet with reporters to share their thoughts on how the Cats are progressing. The wind made it tough to come away from Saturday’s open practice with any grand takeaways, but it was still fun to see the players in action. If you missed it live, you can catch up with the highlights below.

Subscribe to the KSR YouTube Channel for press conferences, interviews, original shows, fan features, and exclusive content.

More player announcements coming?

It’s been over two weeks since Kentucky’s season ended and we’re still waiting to hear what most of the current squad will do. Honestly, I expected more player announcements by now — at least for those who want to test the waters of the NBA Draft — but the lack of news suggests a lot of conversation over at the Joe Craft Center and Wildcat Coal Lodge.

Yesterday, Jack Pilgrim shared a little of what he’s hearing about some of the stay-or-go decisions on KSBoard and Sources Say. He’ll have an in-depth post on this for KSR later today, but essentially, Oscar Tshiebwe will announce this week he is testing the waters of the NBA Draft but is leaving all options open, whether it be going to the pros, returning to Kentucky, or yes, even transferring to a different school. Oscar’s goal is to go pro, but if he can make more money from NIL in college, whether it be at Kentucky or elsewhere, that’s an avenue he and his camp are considering.

We’re waiting for at least one more domino to fall before rolling out our Roster Tracker, but here’s the abbreviated version of the state of next year’s roster.

• Leaving (confirmed): Cason Wallace (NBA Draft), Jacob Toppin (NBA Draft), Sahvir Wheeler (Transfer Portal)
• Staying (confirmed): Brennan Canada
• Unknown: Oscar Tshiebwe, CJ Fredrick, Antonio Reeves, Lance Ware, Daimion Collins, Chris Livingston, Ugonna Onyenso, Adou Thiero
• Coming In: DJ Wagner, Rob Dillingham, Justin Edwards, Aaron Bradshaw, Reed Sheppard

With the 2022-23 season now over, the “Way-Too-Early Top 25s” are already rolling out. We’ll still pass them along because that’s what we do here, but given how little we know about next season’s roster, let this be your reminder to react accordingly.

KSBoard Thread of the Day: “What is success for Kentucky Basketball in 2023-24?”

As we await player announcements, the conversation continues on KSBoard, our new message board for KSR+ subscribers. Yesterday, Jacob Polacheck — who is doing a fantastic job on KSR+ — posed this question: “What would you consider a success for the 2023-24 Kentucky men’s basketball team?” As you might expect, “Final Four” was the most popular answer, with board members weighing in with their feelings on the current state of the program with what feels like a make-or-break season on the horizon.

Between player decisions, transfer portal rumblings, spring football updates, recruiting, and draft season heating up, now is the perfect time to try KSR+. $10 gets you access from now until football season starts.

“Best of” Week continues on the radio

KSR the radio show is on spring break this week, so there will be no new show from 10 a.m. to noon today. That said, you can hear another “Best of” episode. Yesterday, we flashed back to the gang’s trip to the White House. What will it be today? I bet Billy Rutledge will give us a hint on the KSR Preshow, which is airing live all week. It starts now on 630 WLAP.