Mitch Barnhart Explains Why He's Keeping Nick Mingione

The Nick Mingione era of Kentucky baseball got off to an explosive start. Following his sixth season in Lexington, the program is just treading water.

Mingione earned SEC Coach of the Year honors when the rookie head coach took Kentucky to its first ever Super Regional in 2017. Since the 2-0 sweep at Louisville, the Bat Cats have not returned to the postseason.

The Kentucky baseball team finished the 2022 regular season 12-18 in SEC regular season play. The Cats squeaked into the SEC Tournament as the No. 12 seed and won three games before falling to Tennessee. Many believed the late SEC Tournament run would not be enough to get Mingione off the hot seat, but Mitch Barnhart is not making any changes to the program. The Kentucky athletics director explained to Jon Hale of the Courier Journal why he still believes Mingione is the man for the job and what’s next for the program.

“We’ve got to find a way to get better on the field,” Barnhart said. “We’ve talked about we were a couple wins short these last three or four years of getting in the tournament. Well, let’s not talk about two wins. Let’s talk about let’s go get six wins and leave no doubt. That’s what I told (Mingione).

“… Nick doesn’t disagree with that. There’s no disagreement there. I think there is no doubt in my mind that they want the same thing, to participate. They look around and see the landscape of Kentucky teams being successful, they want to be in that conversation. Those kids want to be in the conversation, that staff wants to be in that conversation. They don’t want to be the only ones not participating. They want to jump in the boat with everybody else. There’s not a lack of caring there. It’s an absolutely want-to.”

Barnhart attributes this season’s early struggles to injuries to the pitching rotation. Even though the team has failed to consistently fill up Kentucky Proud Park, the $49 million stadium that opened in 2019, Mingione has gained some extra rope from his boss by running a clean program.

“I look at all the things he’s done within our program, the way that our young people conduct themselves,” Barnhart said. “… The integrity of the way he runs our program, no issues.”

The only issue Mingione must deal with is the one Kentucky fans care about most: winning. If more of that does not happen next year, Barnhart may be having a much more difficult offseason conversation with his baseball coach.