As the Kentucky Wildcats prepare to host the Lexington Regional of the NCAA Baseball Tournament, players and coaches of visiting schools will be forced to stay in University of Kentucky dorm rooms as all hotels in the surrounding area are booked.
By the "surrounding area," we should be clearer. There are no hotels within an hour of Lexington, where the University of Kentucky is located, per Ben Upton of 11Point7, a college baseball podcast. Part of the reason? The Railbird Music Festival, headlined by Zach Bryan, is taking place on the same weekend.
By forcing NCAA athletes to stay in dorms, and making the schools pay to do so, the NCAA is dropping the ball.
BREAKING:
Lexington, Kentucky RegionalNo hotels within an hour of Lexington because of a country music festival
West Virginia, Indiana, and Ball State players and coaches are staying in UK dorm rooms?
Read what was sent out to teams. pic.twitter.com/dcpqAEaVqK
— Ben Upton (@Ben_Upton5) May 30, 2023
As mentioned, players and coaches will stay in the dorm rooms, but parents and fans will need to travel about an hour to attend the games. The three other teams besides Kentucky in that regional are Ball State, Indiana and West Virginia.
Upton's tweet featured an "On-Campus Housing Guide," detailing room types and cost, linens, common areas, housekeeping, team meals and security. The residential suites are $92.50 per night. These are two adjoining rooms that share a bathroom. And, oh yeah, it's $1.50 to wash and $1.50 to dry a load of laundry!
Granted, who knows how much of an upgrade this is compared to a standard hotel room, as Stephen Schoch points out, but the shared bathroom is a big deal.
Kentuckys regional doesn?t have any hotels so the visiting teams are staying at dorms on campus and I don?t know how any of these dudes are gonna play well without a plate full of wet hotel eggs in the morning. But in all seriousness this is sucks for those guys.
— Stephen Schoch (@bigdonkey47) May 30, 2023
This saga has spurred on some fantastic memes, including those featuring Pawn Stars, a show that, over the years, has become a gold mine for "best I can do" related content.
Teams traveling to the Lexington Regional: ?Hey what are our hotel options for this weekend??
The University of Kentucky: pic.twitter.com/hbe3Q6Kdxw
— Pregame Empire (@PregameEmpire) May 30, 2023
For those unsure of where to stay this weekend, Aria Gerson, a Vanderbilt beat writer for the Tennessean, offers some tips, including Elizabethtown and Bardstown.
Lexington high key has one of the worst hotel situations in the SEC. I usually stay in Elizabethtown or Bardstown, both an hour+ away, but that's much more tolerable when it's football or basketball + you're just popping back down I-65 the next day rather than an entire regional https://t.co/E1HnbLvJ0D
— Aria Gerson (@aria_gerson) May 30, 2023
In addition to this tournament and the music festival, even more events are happening, as Aaron Gershon of TheCatsPause247 mentions.
- State High School Baseball Tournament
- State High School Softball Tournament
- State High School Track Meet
- Rail Bird with Zach Bryan and other big names
- NCAA Tournament Regional
Lexington is going to be insane. https://t.co/WqkwqYGaYQ
— Aaron Gershon (@agershon99) May 30, 2023
So, while it may not be a hotel room, at least visiting coaches and players will have their rooms cleaned daily, hotel-like linens, and meals provided to coaches and players throughout this endeavor. But how did this all happen?
How the NCAA, Kentucky Dropped the Ball in Lexington
Kentucky infielder Jake Plastiak (26) in a game between the TCU Horned Frogs and the Kentucky Wildcats on March 05, 2022, at Kentucky Proud Park in Lexington, KY. (Photo by Jeff Moreland/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Kentucky was chosen to host a regional because it's one of the best teams in the country, undoubtedly. The Wildcats, 36-18, owned the second-best RPI in all of college baseball thanks to a difficult schedule.
But given the fact that the school can't properly accommodate teams when hosting a regional, maybe the NCAA shouldn't have awarded them it.
By rule, this should have excluded the Kentucky regional. Charging for the dorm room is over the top @NCAABaseball https://t.co/xIfrkatEj2
— Andy Morales (@AndyMorales8) May 30, 2023
The NCAA awards regionals based on merit, but considering how much money can be made at each site absolutely comes into play, according to NBC Sports.
That would explain why the SEC contains a record eight of the regional hosts — Alabama (40-19), Arkansas (41-16), Auburn (34-21-1), Florida (44-14), Kentucky (36-18), LSU (43-15), South Carolina (39-19) and Vanderbilt (41-18) — which is half of the 16 sites. SEC schools are generally well-equipped for this sort of thing.
Clearly, though, Lexington did not make sense as a regional host regardless of the program's performance this season. Some think this regional could've been awarded to a school like Campbell, who went 44-13 and ranks 14th in RPI. However, Campbell's stadium can only seat less than 1,500 people. Kentucky's $49 million stadium can hold more than 7,000 people for NCAA Tournament games. That's on par with many other host stadiums.
And considering the team is already tweeting that tickets are selling fast, it seems Kentucky is a better choice to make more money. So the only real losers in this situation? The players, coaches and staff members for Ball State, Indiana and West Virginia, who will be crammed into dorm rooms after embarking on the journey to Lexington.
The Regional beings Friday, June 2 at noon ET. Kentucky will take on Ball State before Indiana and West Virginia have the nightcap at 7 p.m. ET.
