The Oklahoma softball season came to a crashing end on Sunday, but less than 24 hours later, the Sooners learned that the baseball season is still alive and the OU team is headed to the Atlanta Regional of the NCAA Tournament, hosted by No. 2 overall seed Georgia Tech.
The Sooners (32-21) will be making their fifth consecutive NCAA postseason appearance. Oklahoma is slotted as the No. 2 seed in the Atlanta Regional and will face No. 3 seed The Citadel in its opening game on Friday. The second game on Friday will feature Georgia Tech, the top seed, going against No. 4 seed University of Illinois-Chicago.
Oklahoma enters the NCAA Tournament ranked No. 24 in NCAA Division I RPI and with the country's sixth-best strength of schedule. The Sooners have six wins against RPI top-25 teams and 10 top-50 wins.
Sooners among most consistent postseason participants in college baseball
Oklahoma is making its sixth NCAA regional appearance under head coach Skip Johnson and its 43rd in program history, the eighth most of any team in Division I baseball. The Sooners have a 101-86 record in NCAA postseason play with 11 trips to the College World Series and two national titles over 40 years apart (1951 and 1994).
The Sooners and The Citadel have played just once previously, a 9-7 Oklahoma win in 2014. OU owns a 6-1 record in games against Georgia Tech, but lost 2-0 in the most recent matchup against the Yellowjackets in 2017. If Oklahoma and UIC meet in the Atlanta Regional, it will be for the first time.
This is the seventh time in Oklahoma's last nine NCAA regional appearances that the Sooners will play a regional at a school from the Atlantic Coast Conference. In the six regionals at ACC schools, OU has advanced to the Super Regional round twice.
Oklahoma is one of 12 SEC teams that will be participating in this year's NCAA Baseball Tournament, the same number of teams from that conference made the NCAA Softball Tournament. The dozen SEC teams in the baseball tournament are No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Auburn, No. 6 Texas, No. 7 Alabama, No. 8 Florida, No. 12 Texas A&M, No. 14 Mississippi State, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Kentucky.
Seven SEC teams are serving a regional host sites between Georgia, Auburn, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Texas A&M and Mississippi State.
The winner of the Atlanta Regional will face the winner of the Kansas Regional with Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri State Northeastern in the Super Regional round on June 5-8.
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