Media Day was held for No. 18 Kentucky Baseball on Tuesday, Feb. 3, and head coach Nick Mingione was highly optimistic for his 10th Wildcats team and their developments throughout the offseason.

The 2x SEC Coach of the Year discussed managing the tough ask of acquiring a top 25 recruiting class and a top 10 portal class, his pride and appreciation for BBN – as he glosses over some of the other successful head coaches in Lexington and MLB prospect Tyler Bell improving as a player more than anybody thought he would.

One of the bigger topics that came around during Mingione’s press conference was about incoming freshman Matt Ponatoski, a two-sport star from Archbishop Moeller in Cincinnati, OH, who was praised heavily as both a quarterback, a pitcher, and a hitter during his recruiting stages.

You rarely see young athletes succeed in multiple sports the way Ponatoski did, but as he picked up Ohio’s Gatorade Player of the Year in both football and baseball during his junior year, Kentucky took the chance and brought him in under two coaches.

It’s hard enough for a young athlete coming into college to accept the pressure of two SEC-team workloads, but what about the coaches who have to work with him?

Fortunately, Mingione and the newly hired Will Stein (who recruited Ponatoski during his time at Oregon) look to be working together diligently to make sure the dual prospect succeeds in every position he plays.

“You just have to take your daddy goggles off or your mommy goggles off and just ask some people that you trust,” Mingione said. “The game of baseball and football has not told Matt Ponatoski to stop playing one or the other.”

Kentucky opens its season with three games in three days at UNC Greensboro. The first matchup is stamped for Friday, Feb. 13 at 4:00 p.m. ET.

Traveling to Knoxville, TN, it was quite the underwhelming game all around for the No. 11 Wildcats (17-4, 4-3 SEC), as they fell 60-58 to the No. 17 Lady Volunteers (14-3, 6-0 SEC) on Thursday, Jan. 22.

A top-20 matchup is one that most fans would call a “must see” game, however, this one proved to be anything but that.

Lack of Scoring, Abundance of Turnovers

To end the first quarter, both teams were shooting 25 percent or lower from the field, and between the two ranked teams, only a total of seven field goals were made in the first quarter.

Clara Strack, the Wildcats’ leading scorer for the season, only tallied nine points on 2-7 shooting. Although she did contribute 15 rebounds, it was balanced out by her 4 turnovers that benefited Tennessee greatly.

So great, in fact, that the Lady Vols scored 21 points off of Kentucky’s 21 turnovers.

The final turnover total added 10 on to the Cats’ normal average and would ultimately be the nail in the coffin late in the game.

In the final two possessions, the Wildcats inability to take care of the ball was the reason they didn’t even get a chance to shoot a potential game-tying or game-winning shot.

First, Asia Boone fumbled it up, leading to jump ball in favor of Kentucky. And secondly, with no options, Tonie Morgan was forced to try to bounce the ball off a Volunteer defender during an inbound pass, but Tennessee reacted quickly and snatched the ball away.

Was This Game Destiny?

Historically, games in Knoxville never go the Wildcats’ way. While Kentucky has grabbed four wins in Knoxville, they have fallen short 29 times now.

Last year, in this same matchup, it was the Cats that were the underdogs and celebrated their win as if it was the Super Bowl.

For now, the Wildcats can only focus on their mistakes and return back to the team Big Blue Nation is used to seeing. Up next for Kenny Brooks and the Cats is a home game versus unranked Georgia (17-3, 3-3 SEC) on Sunday, Jan. 25 at 12:00 p.m. ET.

The Wildcats’ return to Historic Memorial Coliseum will stream live on SEC Network.

Only 54 seconds were left in the game. Suddenly, Jordan Obi pokes the ball out, getting the ball to Asia Boone, who hit a pull-up jumper to put the Wildcats up three points!

The very next play, Florida inbounds the ball to the corner, with a chance to tie the game, but a block by Clara Strack basically sealed the game for the blue and white.

That is how the most important sequence of the game went for the Wildcats as No. 7 Kentucky women’s basketball (17-2, 4-1 SEC) held up against the Florida Gators (12-8, 0-5 SEC) by a score of 94-89, in what was supposed to be an easy win at home on Thursday, Jan. 15.

The Wildcats came into the game off a top-five win versus No, 13 Oklahoma while the Gators hadn’t won a conference game yet.

So who would have thought it would come down to Asia Boone hitting a mid-range pull up dagger to give the Cats a three-point lead? And how did UK find themselves in that spot in the first place?

Three-point shooting and foul trouble is what would gave the Cats the most headache, along with some miscommunication on the offensive end. Fouling caught up to Kenny Brooks’ squad when star center Clara Strack fouled out late in the fourth after her clutch block, when her defensive presence was still needed in crunch time.

Key players like Boone, Jordan Obi and Amelia Hassett also came close to coming out the game themselves, each totaling three or more fouls.

Though Kentucky started shooting the lights out from three, the team would get stagnant as the game went on, only shooting 7-23 from deep in the final three quarters.

Kentucky started the fourth quarter down seven, but they gave BBN many reason to get loud quickly, tying the game three times and changing the lead on seven different occasions.

Brooks was unenthusiastic about the win, but this game was one fans in attendance will not soon forget.

Up next, the Wildcats will take on Mississippi State (14-5, 1-4 SEC) on Sunday, Jan. 18 inside of Humphrey Coliseum, streaming live on SEC Network+ at 3:00 p.m. ET.