After 50-55 games with 30 of them coming in conference, the regular season is over for the Big 12 Conference schools.
Starting Tuesday, the Big 12 Championship will be held at Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX with four games on the opening day.
Only 10 teams made the tournament with Baylor, Houston, and BYU finishing 11th, 12th, and 13th in the conference (Iowa State does not have a baseball program).
Before we look ahead, let’s take a look at how the teams finished in the standings and how the team’s did statistically.
Final Standings
The Sooners won the regular season title by 2.5 games over OSU. OU swept 6 of their 10 opponents this season, but did lose series to OSU, Texas, and West Virginia when they were playing their worst baseball of the season.
Oklahoma State finished 2nd playing 1 game less than Texas due to weather in Houston and couldn’t make up the game (not saying OSU would’ve lost the game).
Both OU and OSU receive byes and don’t play until Wednesday.
Texas and West Virginia finished 3rd and 4th respectively and most would agree the top 4 (OU, OSU, UT, and WVU) were definitely ahead of everyone else.
Cincinnati finished in 5th place surprisingly after being picked to finish last in the preseason poll.
Kansas State, Kansas, UCF, and TCU are all separated by 1 game with TCU the surprise here. The Frogs were picked to finish 1st in the preseason poll.
Texas Tech at #10 is also shocking since they were picked to finish 4th and will need to win the tournament to make the NCAA tournament.
Team Hitting
It has been a long time since we’ve seen this kind of offensive season from the Sooners. They led the league in AVG and OBP and were 4th in slugging. Combine that with the “CHAOUS” offensive style they do and you can see why they were 2nd in runs scored.
Team Pitching
What kind of bizarro world do we live in where the Cowboys lead the conference in pitching and the Sooners lead the conference in hitting? That’s what we have here.
OSU leads UCF just barely in the ERA metric, but they did give up 10 more runs in 52 games compared to UCF’s 51. The point is they are both pretty equal but that much better than the rest of the conference this year.
Teams’ NCAA Tournament Outlook
Locks
– Oklahoma
– Oklahoma St
– Texas
– West Virginia
Oklahoma is almost assuredly a lock to host a regional and they are playing to be a top 8 seed so they can host a super regional should they get that far. D1 Baseball currently has them the #7 overall seed.
Oklahoma State still has a chance to host a regional and the farther they can go in the Big 12, the better. D1 Baseball has them currently at #16.
Texas and West Virginia are both locks for the tournament with both looking like solid #2 seeds in a regional with Texas at #39 in RPI with a 3rd place finish and West Virginia sitting at #33 in RPI with a 4th place finish.
Bubble Teams That Look “OK”
It is generally though that the Big 12 will get 7 teams in the NCAA Tournament. So with the 4 locks above, that leaves only 3 spots left.
TCU and UCF look to be the most “safe” of the remaining teams.
- TCU is 40th in RPI and they have a non-con RPI of 13 at a 17-3 record. They are also 3-0 in neutral games.
- UCF is 41st in RPI and they sit at 18 in non-con RPI with a 19-3 record.
Of course, if both of these teams go 0-2 and other conferences tournaments are “blown up” with upsets, they could be on the outside looking in (think OU basketball this year).
Bubble Teams Needing Help
If TCU and UCF makes it and the Big 12 gets 7 in, then the last one to make it will come from either Cincinnati or Kansas State.
- Cincinnati looked to be “in” before the OU series, but with their rainout to UConn earlier in the week and getting swept the way they did on Thursday’s double header, they need help. The Bearcats are 55th in RPI and their non-con RPI is a horrible 124. They did finish in solo 5th in the league 2 games ahead of 6th. You’d think if Cincinnati can win at least 2 games in the conference, they should feel “good” about making it.
- Speaking of the 6th place team (at least one of them), Kansas State is right back where they found themselves last year – firmly on the bubble and most likely on the wrong side at this point. They do have a higher RPI than UC at 42, but the Wildcats finished 2 games behind Cincinnati while losing their series vs the Bearcats at home. K-State also has only 1 more quad 1 win than UC while playing 3 more quad 1 games. Got to think the Wildcats need to make a deep run in the tournament.
Teams That Need to Win the Tournament
– Kansas
– Texas Tech
There is no other way to put it, both the Jayhawks and Red Raiders need to win the Big 12 Tournament to keep their season going.
Scoreboard
Tuesday
- Game 1/9:00: #7 Kansas 2 #6 Kansas State 1
- Game 2/12:30: #9 TCU 5 #4 West Virginia 2
- Game 3/4:00: #8 UCF 6 #5 Cincinnati 5
- Game 4/7:30: #10 TX Tech 4 #3 Texas 2
Wednesday
- Game 5/9:00: Kansas State 8 West Virginia 4
- Game 6/12:30: OU 4 TCU 0
- Game 7/4:00: Cincinnati 8 Texas 7
- Game 8:7:30: OSU 7 Texas Tech 2
Thursday
- Game 9/9:00: TCU 9 Kansas St 4
- Game 10/12:30: OU 7 Kansas 5
- Game 11/4:00: Cincinnati 5 TX Tech 10
- Game 12/7:30: OSU 6 UCF 7
Friday
- Game 13/9:00: Kansas 11 TCU 10
- Game 14/12:30: OU vs Kansas
- Game 15/4:00: Loser 12 vs TX Tech
- Game 16/7:30: Winner 12 vs Winner 15
Saturday/Championship Game
- Winner 14 vs Winner 16
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