Although he was not going to shy away from his program's lofty goals after reaching its first College World Series a year ago, Kentucky head coach Nick Mingione knew this was a rebuilding season for the Wildcats.
That made seeing Kentucky's name pop up during Monday's NCAA Tournament selection show even more gratifying as the Cats, who entered the season with 31 new players, earned a spot in the field of 64 for a third consecutive year.
"Just to recap what all this team was tasked with," Mingione said on Tuesday at Kentucky Proud Park, "... we literally had (catcher Devin Burkes and utility man James McCoy) back, and every other spot was wide-open. There were a lot of people who never gave this team a chance to even make the postseason.
"I'm super-proud of them because look what happened. They became a team... and now we're five wins away from going back to the College World Series."
Kentucky (29-24) found itself in a precarious position after being swept in its final regular-season series at Vanderbilt and falling to Oklahoma in the opening round of the SEC Tournament. Some national analysts thought the Cats could wind up on the outside looking in as the NCAA Tournament field was announced.
"We put our season in other people's hands," Mingione said. "... But what I told them was, I believe in what we accomplished in the regular season, and that we proved we can play with any team and every team."
The NCAA Tournament selection committee agreed, and Kentucky earned a 3 seed in the Clemson Regional based on its strong RPI, schedule, and Quad-1 resume. The Cats held a lead in 28 of their 31 SEC games, including all three matchups with eventual No. 1 overall seed Vanderbilt in the sixth inning or later.
The Cats will open the regional on Friday at Noon ET against 2 seed West Virginia (41-14). The other opening-round matchup features 1 seed Clemson (44-16) against 4 seed USC Upstate (36-23) with a double-elimination format in place for the weekend.
"A super-balanced team," Mingione said of the Mountaineers. "They do a little bit of everything -- and I talk about this all the time with some of the best teams -- but they have speed, they have power, they can steal bases, they can pitch, and they defend at a really good level."
The winner of the Clemson Regional will advance to play the winner of the Baton Rouge Regional in a best-of-three series for a trip to the CWS in Omaha.
To get there, Kentucky will need big contributions from many of the new faces on the roster.
"Thirty-one new players," Mingione said. "I wish I could tell you I knew how it would work out, but I didn't. What I did do is, we were very intentional about how we tried to mesh and build our team... But I knew it would be a grind."
