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KSR Today: Will Riley visits, Kentucky Baseball's Super Regional is set

On3 imageby:Tyler Thompson•06/04/24•

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Kentucky Baseball coach Nick Mingione and five-star forward Will Riley - KSR
Kentucky Baseball coach Nick Mingione and five-star forward Will Riley - KSR

Good morning, friends. Summer may have started, but things aren’t slowing down on the Kentucky Sports front. Today, the men’s basketball team hosts a very important visitor, the football team continues summer workouts, and, oh yeah, the baseball team is getting ready to host the first-ever Super Regional at Kentucky Proud Park.

Let’s start our rundown there and work our way around.

Game times released for Lexington Super Regional

To get to Omaha, the Cats will have to take down the Beavers. Oregon State beat UC Irvine for the second time on Monday to win the Corvallis Regional and advance to the Super Regional in Lexington. The Beavers are the No. 15 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament to Kentucky’s No. 2 seed and boast one of the best players in college baseball, Travis Bazzana. Bazzana, one of the top prospects in the MLB Draft, has a .419 batting average this season with 16 doubles, 28 home runs, and 65 RBI. Slowing him down will be paramount to Kentucky’s quest of making the College World Series for the first time in program history.

Game times for the Super Regional will be announced in one hour, so 10 a.m. ET. The best-of-three series will begin on either Friday (through Sunday) or Saturday (through Monday). All-session tickets went on sale yesterday and single-game tickets go on sale Thursday at 9 a.m. ET (based on availability) at UKBaseballTix.com.

Daniel Hager, Derek Terry, and Jonathon Bruner discussed Kentucky’s wins in the Lexington Regional and the path to Omaha on a new episode of “Bat Cat Beat” yesterday afternoon. If you missed it live, catch up below.

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Will Riley arrives on campus for official visit

Kentucky’s 2024-25 roster consists of 12 players following last week’s addition of Jaxson Robinson. That leaves one scholarship remaining. It could go to Will Riley, a 6’9″ 180 lbs. five-star small forward who is in the 2025 class but could reclassify. Riley begins his official visit to Kentucky today. Yesterday, he visited Illinois and on Thursday, leaves Lexington for Alabama. His list of finalists also includes Arkansas, Arizona, and the NBL in Australia.

Riley, who was originally recruited to Kentucky by John Calipari, is considered one of the top scorers in high school basketball, ranking fifth in the EYBL in points per game (21.9). He was one of the first high school recruits to hear from Mark Pope once he took the job. Kentucky would take him in either class. How today’s visit goes could have a big impact on that decision.

If you see him around campus, wave. But don’t be creepy.

Want more Kentucky Basketball roster and recruiting intel? Join KSR Plus for access to bonus content and KSBoard, KSR’s message board, to chat with fellow Cats fans and get exclusive scoop.

Kentucky Basketball move-in week continues

Riley will have at least three current players to meet when he tours campus. Kerr Kriisa was the first Kentucky Basketball player to arrive on campus over the weekend, followed by Andrew Carr. On Monday, Ansley Almonor joined them, moving his belongings into the Wildcat Coal Lodge.

Who’s next? We’ve got a running list on KSBoard. Otega Oweh (who sat down with KSR+’s Jacob Polacheck on Monday for an exclusive interview) arrives tomorrow.

Freshman orientation begins for Perry, Noah, and Chandler on June 7, followed by the first day of summer classes for everyone on June 10. Workouts begin on June 17. Practice reports are just around the corner.

Riley can also meet two new staff members. On Monday, Kentucky announced the addition of Nick Robinson as Director of Operations and Randy Towner as head strength coach. The former comes from BYU after serving as an assistant coach under Pope from 2019-2024 while the latter was previously with the Milwaukee Bucks. You can read more about each, including quotes from Pope, here.

Kentucky Football Summer Workouts have begun

Kentucky Football’s camp season is underway, with the Sunday Showcase camp taking place on, you guessed it, Sunday, and the Wildcat One Day Camp on Monday. KSR had boots on the ground at both to bring you the latest on who the staff was watching and talking to. A new batch of offers even went out for a lucky few. The next camp isn’t until tomorrow, giving you the perfect opportunity to catch up on our coverage:

Over at the football training facility, the current Cats are putting in work too. Yesterday, summer workouts began, bringing with them plenty of photos and videos from the Kentucky Football Twitter account.

Nick Roush has a rundown of what you need to know about the first day of workouts here. One very cool piece of news is former Kentucky linebacker DeAndre Square joining the staff as a volunteer assistant. He’ll be working with the inside and outside linebackers as he waits for a graduate assistant spot to open up. We knew something was up when Square was spotted with Kentucky Joe at Friday’s baseball game:

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2025-02-15