No. 9 Sooners will have hands full vs. Duke in NCAA Norman Regional

The No. 9-seeded Oklahoma Sooners are at home at L. Dale Mitchell Park this weekend serving as one of 16 regional sites for the 2024 NCAA Baseball Tournament.

The Sooners (37-19) will open double-elimination regional play taking on Duke out of the Atlantic Coast Conference, at 6 p.m. CT on Friday. Earlier on Friday, UConn (32-23) will be matched up against Oral Roberts (27-30-1), champions of the Summit League.

Duke is the No, 2 seed in the Noman Regional, UConn is the No. 3 seed and Oral Roberts the 4 seed.

The Big 12 regular-season champion Sooners are making their third consecutive appearance in the NCAA Tournament and 41st all-time. This is the fourth time in program history that the Sooners have hosted a regional at L. Dale Mitchell Park and the first since 2010.

The winner of the game between OU and Duke will play the winner of the UConn-Oral Roberts game at 8 p.m. on Saturday night. The losers of those two opening games will play an elimination game at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Oklahoma has appeared in the College World Series 11 times in program history and won two national championships (1951 and 1994). The Sooners were runners-up in the CWS in 2022.

What fans need to know about Duke in NCAA Norman Regional

• Duke has seven players on its roster who hit .300 or better and have considerable game experience this season. Ben Miller leads the Blue Devils in hitting with a .375 batting average, including 81 hits and a .453 on-base percentage. Zac Morris and Chase Krewson are both hitting .328 and Logan Bravo has a .322 batting average.

• Zac Morris, with 18 home runs, is one of four Duke players with at least 15 home runs. Three different Blue Devils (Morris, Bravo and Alec Stone) have 59 runs batted in each.

• Duke had the third-best pitching staff in the ACC this season with a 4.61 ERA. The Blue Devils' best starter is Jonathan Santucci with a 6-1 record in 12 starts, a 3.54 ERA and 86 strikeouts, an average of a little over seven per game.

• Charlie Beilenson has 12 saves on the season and is one of the best closers in the ACC. He has a team-best 1.98 ERA and an opponents' batting average of .175.

OU-Duke statistical national comparisons

(National ranking in parentheses)

Oklahoma Duke

Scoring: 8.30 (30) 8.60 (22)

Batting average: 3.13 (14) 3.12 (16)

On-base percentage: .412 (30) .416 (24)

Slugging percentage: .506 ( 47) .550 (12)

Home runs: 68 (119T) 112 (11T)

Earned run average: 5.22 (73) 4.55 ( 26)

Fielding percentage: .966 (214T) .981 (6T)