It seems like it was yesterday, but it was actually three months ago yesterday when the 2025 NAIA season opened. Starting tomorrow, the Sooner Athletic Conference will kick off the postseason with the opening round of the SAC Championship Tournament.

The state of Oklahoma will have 4 squads playing in the tournament: MACU, USAO, Southwestern Christian, and OCU. The Evangels are the 2 seed, while the Drovers, Eagles, and Stars are 3, 4, and 5 respectively.

The SAC Championship is different this year in it’s format. The top 8 teams in the league made the tournament as usual, but now the opening round is a best of 3 series this weekend between those teams with the winner of each series moving on to the 4 team, double elimination tournament next weekend at USAO. The winner of that tournament will receive an automatic bid to the NAIA National Tournament unless it is Wayland Baptist who already got the other automatic bid via winning the regular season title. In that case, the runner up will get the auto bid.

The matchups are:

• 1 Wayland Baptist vs 8 Texas Wesleyan
• 2 MACU vs 7 Nelson
• 3 USAO vs 6 College of the Ozarks
• 4 SCU vs OCU

For this preview, we will only look at the teams from Oklahoma and their matchups.

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Ratings

Before we get into each matchup, we need to look at where our Oklahoma teams stack up in the 2 ratings systems put in place for the NAIA Selection Committee will use a primary guides in selecting at-large bids.

The BoChip Ratings are data driven system used to rate the teams. Think what the RPI is in NCAA baseball and basketball. The formula tabulates the numbers and assigns it to the team based on factors such as W/L record, strength of schedule, etc.

The latest BoChips Ratings released this week had our Oklahoma teams as follows:

• MACU, 22nd (4.529)
• USAO, 25th (4.387)
• SCU, 50th (4.039)
• OCU, 106th (3.425)

The ARC (Area Rankings Committee) Rankings is a group of representatives from all conferences as well as an at large rep. Conferences are grouped together to make up 5 areas from around the nation. Like the BoChip ratings, the ARC Rankings are a primary selection committee criteria.

The latest ARC Rankings (South) for our 4 squads released this week:

• MACU, 5
• USAO, 6
• SCU, 10
• OCU, N/A

What can we deduce from these?

• MACU and USAO look pretty solid for an at large bid if they don’t win the SAC Championship. However, just to be sure they need to advance past this weekend.

• OCU needs to win the SAC Championship to continue their run of consecutive NAIA National Tournament appearances.

• Southwestern Christian is firmly on the bubble. Their case reminds this writer of MACU in 2023 where they had a season similar to the Eagles. The Evangels finished 4th in the SAC and came into the postseason at or around 50th in the BoChip. MACU went 0-2 in the SAC Championship and was not selected as an at large bid to the national tournament. It is safe to say that SCU needs to advance to next week to have any chance of the national tournament and maybe even getting as far as the finals next week.

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#2 MACU vs #7 Nelson

• Records: MACU 35-13 (20-7), Nelson 23-24 (11-16)
• Season series: MACU, 2-1 (5-3, 7-8, 6-2)
• Last 10 games: MACU 8-2, Nelson 4-6
• Team Slash Lines: MACU: .343/.456/.596 (1.052 OPS) Nelson: .299/.422/.461 (.883 OPS)
• Team HRs: MACU: 85 Nelson: 38
• Team RBIs: MACU: 404 Nelson: 339
• Team Runs/Game: MACU: 9.23 Nelson: 7.94
• Team ERA: MACU: 5.75 Nelson: 6.70
• Team WHIP: MACU: 1.59 Nelson: 1.86
• Team BAA: MACU: .274 Nelson: .302

#3 USAO vs #6 College of the Ozarks

• Records: USAO 29-17 (18-9) COFO 20-26 (11-15)
• Season series: COFO, 2-1 (1-16, 4-3, 7-1)
• Last 10 games: USAO 7-3, COFO 2-8
• Team Slash Lines: USAO: .326/.420/.485 (.905 OPS) COFO: .261/.360/.405 (.765 OPS)
• Team HRs: USAO: 47 COFO: 35
• Team RBIs: USAO: 323 COFO: 223
• Team Runs/Game: USAO: 7.70 COFO: 5.72
• Team ERA: USAO: 4.74 COFO: 7.26
• Team WHIP: USAO: 1.34 COFO: 1.77
• Team BAA: USAO: .259 COFO: .299

#4 Southwestern Christian vs #5 OCU

• Records: SCU 34-14 (17-10) OCU 17-23 (12-15)
• Season series: SCU, 2-1 (6-11, 7-3, 6-3)
• Last 10 games: SCU 7-3, OCU 5-5
• Team Slash Lines: SCU: .331/.438/.503 (.941 OPS) OCU: .285/.376/.464 (.840 OPS)
• Team HRs: SCU: 36 OCU: 44
• Team RBIs: SCU: 363 OCU: 223
• Team Runs/Game: SCU: 8.21 OCU: 6.15
• Team ERA: SCU: 5.77 OCU: 7.24
• Team WHIP: SCU: 1.68 OCU: 1.70
• Team BAA: SCU: .279 OCU: .293

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