Good morning, folks! This isn’t usually a time of the year when the sports calendar is busy, but there is no such thing as an offseason in college sports anymore. Let’s start our Sunday off right by talking about the latest in UK Athletics.
And of course, we have to start with Kentucky baseball. The Bat Cats are just one more win away from making the program’s fourth Super Regionals appearance. After opening the Morgantown Regional with a thrilling 6-5 win over Wake Forest on Friday, Kentucky went out and beat the host school West Virginia 11-9 in another drama-filled game on Saturday. UK took an early 6-0 lead against the Mountaineers before coughing up the lead. But a massive three-run eighth inning from the Bat Cats broke an 8-8 tie.
Luke Lawrence finished the big win 2-5 at the plate with his 13th double of the season and two RBI, drilling the biggest hit of his collegiate career in the eighth inning. His score put Kentucky up 9-8 and set the stage for Hudson Brown‘s two RBI single just three pitches later.
“There was not a single doubt in the dugout. I’ll tell you that right now,” Kentucky pitcher Jack Bennett told KSR about Lawrence. “We knew we wanted him at the plate and we knew he was going to do it and he delivered…Every single guy in the dugout had faith in him.”
Kentucky now awaits the winner of West Virginia-Wake Forest with a chance to make the Super Regionals on the line. The Mountaineers and Demon Deacons will go head-to-head in the elimination game today at noon ET on ESPN2. The winner will take on UK at 5:00 p.m. ET. And since the Bat Cats are 2-0 so far in this regional, they’ll have two chances to make the Supers. If Kentucky can’t pull off the win today, they’ll go again on Monday against the same team.
It’s gonna be a great day to cheer on the Bat Cats. As always, we’ll have live updates and reactions on every KSR platform you can think of.
Waiting on Milan Momcilovic…
The wait for Milan Momcilovic‘s decision continues. Kentucky, Louisville, and Arizona remain the finalists. The expectation has been that an announcement would come sometime this weekend. Well, it’s Sunday now. The Iowa State transfer, who shot 48.7 percent from deep last season, could pop at any moment.
Kentucky was the team mentioned most often once news broke of Momcilovic’s decision to pull his name out of the NBA Draft on Wednesday night. St. John’s quickly bowed out of the race after signing Baylor’s Tounde Yessoufou. Arizona has been considered a distant third, with Louisville not far behind UK. KSR’s Matt Jones provided a quick update on the situation yesterday afternoon.
“As of 5 pm (which is the last update I got before the baseball game), neither Kentucky nor Louisville knew for sure where Milan was going,” Jones wrote on Saturday. “I have no idea what Arizona does or does not know. I do get the sense that both schools think they are in it.
“I was also told that the deal for Milan for either Kentucky or Louisville is set and not going to change. He has both offers (again I don’t know about Arizona) and once he picks, an announcement comes immediately thereafter.
“I think both Kentucky and Louisville gave their ‘final offers’ to Milan yesterday. Louisville ended up raising theirs but I still think it’s slightly behind Kentucky’s. The wildcard is Arizona. Nobody I have talked to has any idea where they are in it and if they are in ballpark.”
At this point, there’s nothing left to do but wait.
Two more Wildcats are heading to the NBA Finals
Karl-Anthony Towns and the New York Knicks have been locked into the NBA Finals for a while — and now they finally have their opponent. It won’t be the back-to-back MVP, though. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the OKC Thunder came up short in last night’s Game 7, losing 111-103 to the San Antonio Spurs. SGA went for 35 points and nine assists, while Cason Wallace added 17 points of his own, but there just wasn’t enough offensive firepower down the stretch.
That means we’ll have De’Aaron Fox and Keldon Johnson taking on KAT and the Knicks in the Finals. Both former ‘Cats played well in Game 7, too. Fox went for 15 points and five assists. He was aided by 11 points and three rebounds from Johnson, who hit a pair of huge three-pointers in the fourth quarter that helped extend the Spurs’ lead. Victor Wembanyama, who was named Western Conference Finals MVP, went for 22 points and seven rebounds in his 42 minutes.
The Finals begin this Wednesday in San Antonio. Game 1 is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC. This should be another great series of playoff hoops.
Jake Nawrot turning heads at Elite 11
Kentucky QB commit Jake Nawrot is one of 20 players in Los Angeles this weekend for the Elite 11 Finals. Nawrot, looking for his fifth star, was named the third-best performer from Friday’s opening day by Rivals’ Charles Power. On Saturday, he was on target with 17 of his 20 throws, cooling off a bit after hitting each of his first 10. He even hit the field goal crossbar from 50 yards out. Powers named Nawrot the fourth-best performer from Saturday.
“This is another strong showing for Nawrot, who’s in the process of assembling one of the better weekends we’ve seen to this point,” wrote Powers.
Nawrot will take the field again on Sunday for the final day of the camp. He’s already considered the No. 2 overall QB (No. 27 nationally) in the 2027 cycle by Rivals. Another impressive showing today could boost his stock even more. Will Stein might just be on the verge of having a five-star quarterback locked in before even coaching a game at Kentucky. That’s fun to say out loud.