It doesn't seem that many weeks ago that we were following with great interest to see which teams would make it into the NCAA Basketball Tournament field. Now, with four more weekends to go in the regular season, we are seeing projections for how the brackets will unfold in the NCAA Baseball Tournament, and the Oklahoma Sooners find themselves among elite company.
Baseball America this week released its latest in-season projection of the 2026 college baseball NCAA Tournament bracket, and it had Oklahoma projected as as top-four seed, ranked No. 14 overall. The significance of that projection is that it would earn the Sooners the opportunity to serve as an NCAA regional site for the second time in the last 16 years and the fifth time overall. OU's previous four times hosting a regional were in 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2024.
Sooners could host an NCAA Regional, but there's still a tough road ahead to secure it
That could all change, though, with a month of the regular season still remaining and some important conference series Oklahoma must successfully navigate through to maintain or even improve upon its current position in national rankings.
Twelve SEC teams (out of 16) are projected by Baseball America to make the NCAA Tournament this season, and nine of those teams are projected to host NCAA Regionals, including Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi State, Florida, Auburn, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Georgia and Alabama.
The Sooners are currently under the top-16 national cutoff that would hypothetically earn them a regional host site when the NCAA Tournament begins a little over a month from now on May 29. They presently sit at No. 17 in RPI rankings. They probably must win at least three of the remaining four conference series against Auburn, Florida, Arkansas and Tennessee to secure a regional host designation.
Here's the challenge that confronts the Sooners, though. Auburn, Florida and Arkansas are also battling to gain a regional host selection, and Oklahoma has to play at Auburn this weekend and at Arkansas and Tennessee to finish out the regular season. OU faces Florida in Norman, but away from Norman, the Sooners are just 4-8 against SEC teams this season.
The Sooners are pretty much a lock to make it into the 64-team NCAA Tournament field barring a total collapse the rest of the way, but to earn a top-four seed from the tournament selection committee, they've obviously got some work still to do. And it doesn't appear to be an easy road to hoe, considering the strength of the schedule, if the current Baseball America tournament projection for the Sooners is to become reality.
Only once in the four previous times Oklahoma hosted a regional did the Sooners successfully protect their home turf and come away with the regional championship. That was in 2010. That was the last time Oklahoma won as many as 50 games, finishing with a 50-11 record and a No. 11 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.
The Sooners won the 2010 Norman Regional with a couple of one-run victories over North Carolina, then moved onto Charlottesville, Virginia, for Super Regionals, defeating Virginia to advance to the College World Series. Oklahoma was eliminated in the third round of the CWS that season by a South Carolina team that included future major league players Jackie Bradley Jr., Whit Merrifield and Christian Walker.
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