What Kentucky needs to do to clinch SEC baseball championship, NCAA No. 1 overall seed
Seating capacity at Kentucky Proud Park has been expanded for what could be three historic weekends for the UK baseball program.
The party starts Thursday when Kentucky hosts Vanderbilt for a three-game series to close the regular season with an SEC championship on the line. At this point, Kentucky has to be considered a lock for one of the top eight seeds in the NCAA Tournament, which means the Wildcats will host a regional in the tournament’s first weekend and would host a super regional if they advance from the regional.
“Yesterday when I spoke to the team we went over exactly what this weekend entailed and what was on the line,” coach Nick Mingione said Wednesday. “The reason we did that is because they have all this information in their hands, so I wanted to make sure they understood, that it was accurate.
“But also, we kind of reminded them when you’re climbing a mountain you don’t just stare at the mountaintop. You just go one step at a time. So, just reminding the reason why we’re in this spot is we’ve just done an amazing job of doing whatever is next and whatever that day called for.”
With a one-game lead in the SEC race heading into the final regular season series, the No. 3-ranked Wildcats (37-11, 20-7) can clinch just the second SEC title in program history this weekend. Tennessee (42-10, 19-8) and Arkansas (42-10, 18-9), the two teams ranked immediately ahead of Kentucky in the coaches poll, remain in contention but face more difficult matchups against No. 23 South Carolina and No. 4 Texas A&M, respectively.
Kentucky can clinch an outright regular season title by sweeping Vanderbilt, regardless of what Tennessee and Arkansas do. Winning two of three against the Commodores would clinch at least a share of the regular season title, even if Arkansas or Tennessee sweeps their weekend series.
Ties are not broken for determining a regular season champion but are for SEC Tournament seeding purposes.
UK holds the head-to-head tiebreaker for the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament against Arkansas but does not against Tennessee. In the event of a three-way tie, the tie-breaker would depend on the teams’ records against the common opponent that finishes highest in the SEC standings.
Winning an SEC championship would seemingly put Kentucky in the driver’s seat for the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament thanks to its No. 1 ranking in the RPI. Both Baseball America and D1Baseball.com had Kentucky as the top seed in their latest bracket projections.
In his breakdown of last week’s bracket projection, Baseball America reporter Teddy Cahill noted the top seed hasn’t gone to a team outside the top two in the RPI since 2015 and has not gone to a team that didn’t win its regular season conference title since 2016.
Among the SEC contenders, Tennessee has the most work to do in the RPI to meet that threshold with a current No. 6 ranking. Texas A&M is No. 2 in the RPI but would need to sweep Arkansas, have Vanderbilt sweep Kentucky and Tennessee to drop two of three against South Carolina to win a share of the conference championship.
North Carolina looks like the biggest threat for the top seed outside the SEC with a No. 5 ranking in the RPI and three-game lead in the ACC race.
“If you can be No. 1, you want it,” Mingione said. “Let’s not dance around it. If you can be the one, be the one, but obviously being a top-eight seed is super important because now the path to Omaha is in your hands and it’s at your place.”
Regardless of the outcome this weekend, Mingione looks like the clear favorite to win national coach of the year.
Kentucky was not even ranked in the major preseason polls. SEC coaches picked the Wildcats to finish fifth in the East Division and selected just one UK player to the preseason All-SEC teams (second-team catcher Devin Burkes).
Mingione and his staff have led UK to the verge of an SEC championship without a surefire first-round MLB draft pick — though a recent report from The Athletic suggested outfielder Ryan Waldschmidt was working his way into contention for a first-round selection.
Of course, Kentucky has its sights set on bigger goals now.
The 2006 Wildcats, the only other team in program history to win an SEC championship, were eliminated in the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. UK has never hosted a super regional and has never reached the College World Series.
Clinching an SEC championship this weekend against Vanderbilt makes all those possibilities more likely. And the temporary bleachers built beyond the left-field wall, which should help Kentucky break the attendance record for a third time this season, should allow for a more raucous home-field advantage.
“We experienced that last year having to go to Baton Rouge (for the super regional),” Mingione said. “It’s a tough place. There’s no place like home. You want to be able to play at home.”
This weekend
Vanderbilt at No. 3 Kentucky
Thursday: 6:30 p.m. (SEC Network+)
Friday: 6:30 p.m. (SEC Network+)
Saturday: Noon (SEC Network)
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