Oklahoma baseball: Sooners have up and down Big 12 Championship history

The Oklahoma baseball team begins chapter three of the 2018 season as the No. 4 seed in the 22nd Big 12 Baseball Championship.

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The Sooners’ 14-10 record in conference play earned them an early morning matchup with No. 5 Baylor on Wednesday in the opening game of the five-day, double-elimination postseason tournament.

The conference tournament begins 2018 postseason play for the Sooners, the third and final leg in a long season that began back in mid-February. Oklahoma was 20-11 against non-conference opponents this season and finished the regular season with a 34-21 overall record and a fourth place finish in the Big 12 standings.

A little more than a month ago, Oklahoma was ranked No. 11 in the Collegiate Baseball Top 25.

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Baylor (33-19, 13-11), the Sooners’ first-round opponent in this year’s Big 12 Championship, finished a game back of Oklahoma in the league standings. OU has won eight of its last 10 games against Baylor, including a three-game home sweep this season. This will be the seventh time the two teams have faced each other in the conference tournament. Each team has won three times, with the Sooners winning the last three.

Also in Oklahoma’s side of the bracket is the No. 1 seed, Texas, the Big 12 regular-season champion, and No. 8 Kansas, which defeated the Sooners in two of three games last weekend. OU was a combined 4-5 against the three teams.

The other side of the conference tournament bracket features No. 2 Oklahoma State, the two-time defending tournament champion, against No. 7 West Virginia, and No. 3 Texas Tech vs. No. 6 TCU. All opening-round games will be contested on Wednesday.

Oklahoma’s conference tournament history can best be described as very middle of the road, at least insofar as the Big 12 and Big Eight Conferences are concerned. The Sooners own a 36-35 record in the Big 12 Baseball Championship and fared about the same when they were members of the Big Eight, crafting a 38-34 record in the postseason conference tournament.

The Sooners have never won a Big 12 regular-season conference crown, although they have won the Big 12 postseason championship twice. They were the tournament champions in the very first Big 12 postseason tournament, and won again in 2013, a year in which, ironically, they entered the tournament with a 13-11 record and as the No. 4 seed.

A year ago, Oklahoma was the first team eliminated in the conference championship. losing to Texas in the opening round and then to TCU.

This will be the first Big 12 Baseball Championship for Sooner head coach Skip Johnson, who is in his first year at Oklahoma. Johnson replaced Pete Hughes, who resigned in 2017 after five seasons coaching the Sooners. Hughes was the pitching coach for one season under Hughes, and before that was an assistant at the University of Texas for 10 seasons.