How did the Sooners make the NCAA?
OU’s baseball team made the NCAA Tournament, and no one in crimson — literally; not one person — thought it possible. Baseball coaches are just like basketball coaches. They politic for their team’s inclusion and they list all the reasons why they should be in the 64-team field and they never publicly give up hope.
But Sunny Golloway, who in years past has shown himself quite capable of making a pitch for his on-the-outside-looking-in Sooners, didn’t even put up an argument before the NCAA selection announcement. Golloway said what everyone else believed. That OU had to win the Big 12 Tournament to make the field.
You wonder if anyone in crimson even was watching when the final four-team regional was revealed, and there was OU, a No. 3 seed sent to Tempe, Ariz., to play Vanderbilt.
Amazing. A team that finished 34-24-1 and in eighth place in the 10-team Big 12 was placed in the field. ESPN analysts made a big deal of defending NCAA champ Oregon State’s exclusion, and when you compare the Beavers to the Sooners, well, there’s really no comparison. Oregon State won series from Arizona, Arizona State and Georgia; all three are among the national top eight seeds. OU’s best series wins? Baylor, Kansas State and Texas Tech. None made the NCAA field.
Barely a week ago, OU seemed destined to not even make the Big 12 Tournament field. The Sooners made it only by beating OSU on the final Sunday of the regular season AND with Kansas State rallying to beat Kansas. Then OU beat Texas A&M and Missouri in the Big 12 Tournament and almost beat Texas in the game that determined a Big 12 finalist.
But no one believed OU had done enough to get in the NCAAs. Which makes you wonder what the NCAA committee saw. OU’s strength of schedule was decent, and it had some quality non-conference wins.
But what is there’s another answer. What if the committee just doesn’t know any better? I’m serious. The NCAA basketball selections are made under a mighty glare. If the committee screws up, everybody knows it. But who knows enough about college baseball to claim expert status? Should be, just the committee.
And that’s what makes me wonder about the inclusion of the Sooners. We don’t know who belongs in the NCAA Tournament. But people here in Oklahoma know who DOESN’T belong. OU. The Sooners were not a good team. They placed eighth in the 10-team Big 12 and were a lot closer to ninth than to seventh.
The Sooners themselves knew they didn’t belong. The committee thought otherwise. Maybe it’s the committee that doesn’t have a clue.
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Comments
I have no idea, either. look at the make up of the selection committee…no baseball ex coaches, no ex players, just a bunch of AD’s that no one has ever heard of.
By the way, look at Miami’s bracket. How does the number one seed get the only regional that has four 40+ win teams? Why send Missouri when Oklahoma was available?
These guys need a BCS.
I think that this may play right into something you wrote about recently, Berry. Wasn’t it the Omaha newspaper that ranked OU in the top ten baseball programs in America in the CWS era — back to 1947? And the good folks of Omaha know a thing or two about college baseball. I think the one way this selection makes sense is if Oklahoma made it on their name. We really are thought of as a good baseball school, and for good reason. We’ve made a lot of trips to Omaha, and in impressive fashion, putting together good streaks (5 straight once, and 3 years out of 4 in the nineties) and winning a couple of national titles. We are a perpetual tourney team. I think people see a decent overall won-loss record next to the name “Oklahoma” and just assume we’re good enough for the NCAA tourney; particularly since the Sooners ended the year with a pretty good conference tourney run. If it sounds crazy, just remember — a top-ten program over a 6-decade span of time, named by folks in Omaha. That’s a remarkable level of respect.
I try to follow Big 12 college baseball as much as possible, but I couldn’t have told anyone who would be a lock for the top eight national seeds.
OU had an extremely poor season that, to their credit, ended on a very high note. I would have to agree with David in that an impressive NCAA tournament resume helped OU get in. However, I am not sure that the Sooners’ past outweighs winning the past two NCAA championships in baseball like Oregon State did.
Another theory could be that like myself in keeping an eye on only one conference, the NCAA committee could have made their selections based on teams within their own conference. Remember OU did win the series against the other two teams that made it to the Big 12 conference tournament.
The OU vs. Oregon State debate might have never even happened…which is very concerning for any fan of NCAA Baseball.
YOU GOT ME BAFFLED THERE TOO BUB ITS AMAZING HOW THE OU BOONERS MADE THE NCAA TOURNY, THEY’LL GET PUT OUT QUICK