When the Oklahoma baseball team takes the field against West Virginia on Wednesday evening at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, it will be the Sooners’ 24th appearance in the Big 12 Championship.
Only Oklahoma and Baylor have earned a spot in every Big 12 Championship tournament.
Not every Big 12 team qualifies to compete in the Big 12 Baseball Championship. This season, as has been the case in 22 of the 24 years the postseason championship has been held, eight teams make it into the tournament field. Not counting the 2020 pandemic year, when all NCAA spring sports activities were cancelled after mid-March, Oklahoma has failed to qualify for the Big 12 Championship just twice.
OU tied for second place in the Big 12 standings with a 15-9 league record this season, their best record in conference play since going 14-10 in 2018. It has been a dozen years since the last time the Sooners won as many as 15 games in conference play.
Here are 12 more things to know for Sooner fans as OU gets set to host West Virginia as the No. 3 seed in the 2022 Big 12 Baseball Championship:
- Oklahoma has two Big 12 Championship titles (1997 and 2013) and a 38-41 all-time record in the postseason conference championship. The Sooners have never won a regular-season Big 12 title but have finished second three times.
- The Sooners have played nine games at Globe Life Field (home of the MLB Texas Rangers) this season. OU is 5-4 in games played there during the 2022 season.
- Oklahoma is ranked 19th this week in the Baseball America Top-25 rankings
- Oklahoma won two of the three games against West Virginia this season (15-9, 8-9, 17-7) and leads the all-time series between the two schools 18-13. The two teams have split four games on neutral fields. The Sooners are 1-2 against the Mountaineers in the Big 12 Tournament.
- The Sooners won six of their eight 2022 series with conference opponents, including each of the last five.
- Former Sooner pitcher Jonathan Gray, who now pitches for the Texas Rangers, was the Most Outstanding Player of the 2013 Big 12 Championship. Only one other Sooner has been received the tournament MOP award (pitcher Brian Shackleford in 1997).
- Oklahoma has scored double-digit runs in eight of its last 15 games.
- Coming into the Big 12 Championship, Oklahoma is hitting .298 as a team, averaging 7.8 runs, 10.0 runs and 3.3 extra-base hits per game. West Virginia is hitting .271, averaged 6.6 runs, 8.9 hits and 3.0 extra-base hits per contest.
- Oklahoma and West Virginia are the two best base-stealing teams in the Big 12 and both rank in the top-10 nationally. West Virginia has stolen 154 bases as a team in the 2022 season; OU has recorded 130 steals in 163 attempts.
- OU shortstop Peyton Graham, a First-Team All-Big 12 selection, has 14 home runs through 53 games. That is the most by a Sooner since the 2010 season.
- If the Sooners win their opening-round game with West Virginia, their next game will be on Thursday night against the winner of the game between No. 2-seed Texas Tech and Kansas State. The two losing teams of those games will play an elimination game earlier on Thursday.
- Oklahoma won two of three last weekend against Texas Tech in Lubbock and is 9-3 against the Red Raiders in the Big 12 Championship.