Hunter Gilliam has been a huge part of UK baseball's success this season.
The first baseman, who was recently selected for the NCAA Baseball Lexington All-Region Team, is batting .324 with a team-high 12 home runs this year. Still, the redshirt senior - who transferred to Kentucky from Longwood University this season - would tell you his individual statistics don't matter.
"Nothing is for yourself right now. We’re playing for each other," Gilliam told BBN Tonight's Maggie Davis in a sit-down interview before the team's trip to Baton Rouge.
"I think that’s the thing that’s really good right now. Individual stats don’t matter. How many hits I get tonight doesn't matter, as long as we win. We’re doing it for everyone around us."
Head coach Nick Mingione has praised the team's selflessness all season, and it's been a key talking point since the beginning of the NCAA Tournament. He's also credited Gilliam for keeping t
"There were talks late in the season about should we play games, should we not play games. And we just did a little exercise with our team. We just asked them: 'should we play this game; should we not play this game?'"
"Hunter stood up in front of our team, and I thought he made one of the most-impactful comments. He said: 'Guys, I don't know how much baseball I have in my life. And there's no team and there's no group of men that I want to be around more than you guys. So I want to play as many games as we can. As many games.'"
"I don't know how much baseball I have in my life. There's no team and there's no group of men I want to be around more than you guys. I want to play as many games as we can. As many games"
— Maggie Davis (@MaggieDavisTV) June 9, 2023
Hunter Gilliam: For the Boys
Tonight at 7:30 @BBNTonight pic.twitter.com/rTRmd96dcE
That's exactly what the Cats did last weekend.
Kentucky took care of business against Ball State in the region's opening round, but fell to Indiana on Saturday, sending them to the elimination bracket. There, they'd have to win three games in 36 hours to advance out of the region.
Again, they got it done.
A thrilling, 4-2 revenge win over Indiana sent the Cats to the Super Regionals for only the second time in program history. But before that, it sent them on a victory lap around the ball park, which was filled to the brim with a record-breaking 6,796 members of Big Blue Nation.
"It was super cool just seeing how much that meant to the boys, but what it meant to other people, too," Gilliam said.
"There was an older man in the stands that stands out to me. He was probably 75-80 years old, jumping up and down, just fired up that we had won. That was cool. That meant more than the internal feeling of excitement. That meant more."
Watch our full interview with Gilliam above to hear more about the senior's first career post-season, why Lexington will always feel like home, and three things this team WON'T do:
