Oklahoma baseball: Sooners begin at bottom in their Big 12 Championship bracket
By Chip Rouse
Seeded seventh, the Oklahoma baseball team draws No. 2 seed Baylor as its opening-round opponent when the Big 12 Baseball Championship gets underway on Wednesday at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City.
The Sooners head into the double-elimination conference tournament with a 33-21 overall record and with hopes of making it into NCAA postseason play still alive. But OU needs to avoid an early exit from the conference championship to secure its postseason chances.
Baylor was also Oklahoma’s opening-game opponent in last season’s Big 12 Tournament. Although the Sooners were seeded higher a year ago, at No. 4, they suffered a 4-0 setback to No. 5 Baylor that sent them to the loser’s bracket. OU staved off elimination with a pair of wins over Texas and Kansas, before meeting up again with Baylor in the semifinal round.
The Bears defeated OU 10-3 in the rematch and went on to win their first Big 12 Tournament championship.
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Oklahoma won as many games this season as Baylor (33), but the Sooners have six more losses.
Baylor won the series with Oklahoma this season, winning two of three in Waco and owns a 5-3 advantage over the Sooners in Big 12 Tournament games. OU is 46-41 against Baylor all-time.
The winner of the OU-Baylor first-round matchup will face the winner of the game between No. 3 Oklahoma State and No. 6 TCU in Thursday’s night session. Conversely, the losers will play each other in an elimination game earlier in the day on Thursday.
Neither second-round matchup is a particularly good omen for the Sooners: OU is 1-3 against Oklahoma State this season and lost two of three games to TCU at home.
Baylor led the Big 12 in hitting during the regular season with a .315 team batting average and comes into the Big 12 Championship with the third-best pitching staff (3.87 earned run average). The Sooners ranked second in the conference with a staff ERA of 3.61.
Oklahoma is one game over .500 (38-37) in the 22-year history of the Big 12 Baseball Championship and owns two tournament championships (1997 and 2013).