over not wanting to travel to The Bart, we need to find an opponent with similar credentials to continue to help our SOS out. We used to play Louisville twice a season, so going back to a second game with them would be just fine. Louisville had a down season compared to what they usually have, but still maintained a Quad 1 RPI ranking.
With UK opting out of the annual series with IU...
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There was no reason given that I've seen except they simply don't want to make the trip north to Bloomington. They are perfectly okay with us going down there to play them, but forget the return trip. We went down there to play them this season during a midweek game and evidently that's the end of the series.
Here's a quote from Alec Busse's Hoosier Daily:
"Kentucky canceled the series last year, so Kentucky-Indiana is no longer a series," Mercer said. "They called and canceled it. It's done. It's the last time we're playing unless we're playing in the postseason. They asked if we want to keep coming down here, I'm not coming down here without a return trip, so it's done."
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Mangione has grand illusions of being an LSU, Florida, or Mississippi St and not travel north of the Mason Dixon. Let's see how that strategy plays out for him. He's an unethical doof.
If Mercer is playing SEC schools with no return trip then it needs to be a program that is clearly superior to ours...that's definitely not uk.
If Mercer is playing SEC schools with no return trip then it needs to be a program that is clearly superior to ours...that's definitely not uk.
It's also pretty telling that Mangione cancelled the series in 2022 after a 20-7 beatdown at the Bart.
This information came from IU's play-by-play guy Austin Render and I paraphrase some but it's accurate about what happened.
Some guy with Kentucky Sports Radio by the name of Matt Jones tweeted that "Indiana baseball coach refuses to play Kentucky again."
The guy conveniently left out that Kentucky called and canceled the series because they didn't want to travel north to Bloomington anymore. What Coach Mercer said was that if the Wildcats won't come to The Bart then we were not going to play them down there. Talk about half-truths.
The guy then tweeted this:
"UK players went towards the Indiana dugout to shake hands with their players and Hoosiers wouldn’t leave the dugout. UK players then just turned around and shook each others hands."
He again failed to say that right after the game was over with and after the UK players did a quick celebration in the infield, they started a celebration tour around the entire stadium celebrating with the fans instead of doing a handshake line right after their brief infield celebration.
They spent about 10 minutes on their celebration tour around the stadium while letting the IU players stew in their dugout, forcing IU to watch what they were doing. It was after their long tour that they decided to approach IU's dugout area and wanted to do the handshake line then. IU said screw you by not coming out.
If IU had come out, there just might have been a brawl after trying to show IU up after the game.
Ky has now “caliparied” out of three sports with IU after being beaten in Btown
I talked to a family member of one of the players and he told me some things that show there is more to not scheduling them anymore. When UK bid for the regional, they assured the NCAA that players would have 24-hour access to their dorm accommodations. After one of the night games, the IU team found themselves locked out of their dorm until 2 am. They were also assured that all teams would have access to practice facilities to view film. Our team ended up doing film review on the bus.
Definitely sheds some additional light on the back and forth between the teams and coaches.
Nick kicking Derek’s son out of the dugout after losing Saturday night was probably what it was more about Sunday night
Nick had already refused to come to Bloomington before this regional was ever played. He cancelled it after the blowout.
I wonder if they can opt out of traveling to Baton Rouge next year after losing by two touchdowns yesterday.
I read where LSU has a pitcher who struck out 12 in a regional tilt there. I think LSU wins today too for a 2-0 sweep.
That pitcher likey was this guy
“Kentucky has plenty of company in struggling against Skenes, the top-ranked pitcher in the 2023 MLB Draft class, this season, but any optimism resulting from the fact Kentucky scored more earned runs than any other team against him in the regular season quickly proved misplaced. The Wildcats managed just four hits in 7 2/3 innings against Skenes while striking out nine times and walking once. No Kentucky batter tallied multiple hits. Only two Wildcats reached second base.”
https://www.kentucky.com/sports/college/kentucky-sports/uk-baseball/article276257251.html
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UK was ousted today as LSU took game two also, 8-3. UK managed to put a runner on in the bottom of the 8th on a hit batter which was their 133rd hit batter of the season, ranking them 3rd in the nation on that stat.
Watched that game and that mentioned HBP was a high pitch that looked to me to be out of the box and may have been a strike if it were lower.
The batter faked a bunt and leaned in and then didn't attempt to pull back.
The NCAA really needs to take a look at HBP in the off-season.
As it was brought up in the regional, they admit they practice getting hit and their coach said something to the effect that he has a special group of players that are willing to get hit in practice. In our first two games of the regional against UK, they reached 14 times after being "hit" by pitches.
