Kentucky pulled Florida into a cancellation excuse fans immediately questioned

We highlighted last week how Florida Baseball was sticking to its guns and still playing their midweek games despite a rash of other teams around the country canceling theirs. The unspoken reason other teams are finding ways not to play is because of RPI and the fear that their rating in the computer metric will drop even with a win.

Heading into the final weekend of the regular season, Florida is in good shape when it comes to RPI and is in a position where it should wind up as a host for Regionals, with an outside shot at Super Regionals. The same can not be said about Kentucky, and they are trying to use their series against Florida as cover for why they canceled their midweek game this week.

Kentucky cancels after series against Florida

Kentucky took to social media to announce that it was canceling its midweek game against Northern Kentucky. They tried to use the delays that took place during their series against Florida as an excuse for why they couldn’t play the game:

“Our team faced multiple extended delays over the weekend, extensive travel days, and challenging rest and recovery periods. We play a critically important conference series beginning Thursday that demands putting our student-athletes in the best position possible.”

Both the Friday and Saturday games were delayed due to weather, and Sunday’s game was moved up to 10 AM to avoid weather issues. Friday’s game got over after midnight, and Saturday’s game was around 11 PM.

So yeah, Kentucky had a minor inconvenience during their time in Gainesville, but this excuse reeks of desperation. Once all three games actually started, they went straight through and were all standard-length. They still had 24 hours between Friday and Saturday's game to rest up.

Yes, their rest for Sunday was shorter than normal, but Sunday’s game got over around 1 PM, and there was no rain in Gainesville afterward, so unless Kentucky’s plane had issues, which is unclear at this time, it feels weird to blame “Extensive travel days.”

Also, Northern Kentucky would have to take a 1:40 bus ride to get to Lexington, so does that not count as “Extensive travel”?

It follows in the footsteps of Miami’s excuse last week when they deemed their playing field “unplayable” after rain from the previous night. The real reason is that Kentucky doesn’t want to risk a drop in RPI, since Northern Kentucky’s RPI is 276.

But since the NCAA is allegedly trying to crack down on these late cancellations, the Wildcats have to come up with this comical excuse as to why they can’t play a baseball game at home over 48 hours from the time their previous game ended.

Do you Kentucky, do you.

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