Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Bourbon Day Edition

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Big Blue Nation, and welcome to the Tuesday Quickies. Today is National Bourbon Day, and as an avid drinker of the brown water (along with many a denizen of A Sea of Blue), I encourage you all to celebrate with me with a nice tot of Four Roses Single Barrel, or whatever your favorite bourbon may be. Not now, of course… oh wait, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere…

Today’s lead Kentucky Wildcats story is the hiring of a new baseball coach at Kentucky, and his name is Nick Mingione. Jason has the full skinny here.

Mingione has been an assistant under former UK head coach and current Mississippi State head coach John Cohen. He was an assistant coach for two years at UK under Cohen, and has been with him at MSU since Cohen left UK to take the job at his alma mater.

I don’t know enough about baseball coaches to critique the hire in detail, but John Cohen is an outstanding coach, and not a day has gone by since he left that I didn’t wish we had him back. I hope all of Cohen has rubbed off on Mingione.

I’m sure most of your first thoughts, like mine, went to recruiting. The Clarion-Ledger has that angle covered for us:

Mingione coached third base for MSU but his greatest strength was his ability to recruit. Two weeks ago, he spoke about talking with SEC Freshman of the Year Jake Mangum nearly every day for two years during his recruitment. When Mangum arrived on campus, Mingione coached him in the outfield. He developed the skill of converting high school infielders into outfielders, including Mangum, Reid Humphreys and Brent Rooker.

Encouraging, to be sure. Also, HailState has a long and interesting piece on Mingione here.

Tweet of the Morning

"It's never easy to take over for a #bourbon #legend. but here is a fair go at it https://t.co/P19w8IVMKW pic.twitter.com/EQrzHjdF7Y

— Stuffalo Trading (@StuffaloTrading) June 14, 2016

Me likey.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Biggest position of need for Kentucky: Quarterback.

Kentucky basketball

• Coach Cal has been selected to be on the ad hoc committee for NCAA Tournament selection, seeding and bracketing:

  Calipari will represent the Southeastern Conference on the committee that includes head coaches representing all levels of Division I, NCAA and NABC staff. NABC Executive Director Jim Haney and former SEC Commissioner Mike Slive are co-chairs.

  According to Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News, Calipari is the reason that this committee was formed:

  It might not surprise you to learn Kentucky coach John Calipari does not worry about this, and his agitation has led to the National Association of Basketball Coaches forming a committee to examine NCAA Tournament selection, seeding and bracketing.

  The group will include 13 Division I head coaches, including Calipari, Gonzaga’s Mark Few, Georgetown’s John Thompson III and West Virginia’s Bob Huggins. The committee includes representatives from mid-majors and high-majors, as well as former committee members Doug Elgin of the Missouri Valley Conference and Dan Guerrero of UCLA. It will be co-chaired by former SEC commissioner Mike Slive and NABC executive director Jim Haney.

  In related news, Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart was selected as a member of the NCAA Man’s Basketball Committee for a five-year term.

• Aaron Harrison’s 3-pointer to beat Wisconsin named the top play of the Calipari era. It is certainly worthy, and would probably be my pick, all things considered. Having said that, Anthony Davis’ block against North Carolina probably sticks more in my mind, despite the far lower stakes.

• Despite reports that UK was higher on his list, top 5 2017 recruit Wendell Carter says he has no leader at the moment.

• Three 2017 5-star recruits looking at Big Blue Madness.

• Projecting the suspension of Derek Willis. I think a couple of games is most likely.

• UK target (2017) Romeo Langford misses Team USA cut.

• Dominique Hawkins is in a familiar situation — fighting for minutes in a loaded back court.

Other Kentucky sports

• Kentucky baseball relievers Sean Hjelle and Justin Lewis have been named Freshman All-Americans by Collegiate Baseball.

• Jasmine Camacho-Quinn wins the NCAA 100 meter hurdles as a freshman, the first in NCAA history.

• Matthew Mitchell has written a note to the Big Blue Nation thanking them for their support. I hope Mitchell can turn around the sudden raft of bad news from his program and get everything going back in the right direction.

• Gary Henderson’s departure has led to the decommitment of Tennessee star Ryder Green.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Lou Holtz talks college football issues. Holtz is an interesting man.

College basketball

• Vanderbilt’s new head coach, Bryce Drew, lands 2017 4-star point guard Saben Lee. Off to a good start, I’d say.

• With the addition of former UK player Marcus Lee, Cuonzo Martin is building his Cal team around big guys.

Other sports news

• Some talk about the Chicago Bulls taking Tyler Ulis. Ulis would probably love that, since he’s from Chicago.

• Colin Cowherd is in the news again, and as usual, for all the wrong reasons.

• Former Detroit Piston Lindsey Hunter has been hired as an assistant coach at Buffalo.

Other news

• Managing distractions while working from home. Those of you who have done this or are doing it will appreciate any advice in this regard, I’m sure.

• Hubble uncovers a mysterious dwarf galaxy.

• All 12 Star Trek movies ranked. I don’t think #1 can be seriously disputed, but I think the Undiscovered Country is too high and Insurrection too low. I also think Into Darkness was better than the original Star Trek movie, which I consider the worst of the lot.