Embarrassing weekend for OU baseball
The state of Oklahoma never has hosted an NCAA super regional in baseball. The super format arrived 10 years ago, about the time both OSU and OU fell from their lofty perches of the 1980s and 1990s.
This year could have been different. The NCAA gave OU a No. 7 national seed, which means win its regional at Mitchell Park, and the Sooners would get a super regional at home.
Uh, no chance. The Sooners suffered embarrassing 11-run defeats to Arkansas on consecutive nights and are out of the NCAA Tournament.
It’s one thing to lose. It’s another to be non-competitive. The Sooners were the latter. They lost 17-6 on Saturday night, then 11-0 on Sunday night, when the moral victory was a ninth-inning infield single that kept Arkansas’ Drew Smyly from throwing a no-hitter.
College baseball is one of those mid-level sports that struggles to draw mainstream fan support — but it is possible. And the NCAAs are a place to do it. Curious fans will turn out for an NCAA regional, and some will stick with you. It’s a tried and true method to building a fan base.
This regional turned off fans for OU baseball. The Sooners drew 3,176 for a Friday night opener against Wichita State, then 3,064 for the Saturday night Arkansas game. Those numbers dipped to 1,439 (vs. Washington State) and 2,333 (Arkansas) on Sunday, and our man John Helsley said Mitchell Park had a “Fayetteville feel” with all the celebrating Razorback fans.
Instead of building the fan base, this regional probably chipped away at the fan base. A super regional against Florida State would have been a huge event in Norman, giving coach Sunny Golloway a chance to propel his program forward. Home teams have a huge edge in NCAA play. The Sooners did not take advantage of it. Call it opportunity lost on an embarrassing weekend for Sooner baseball.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
I agree 0. I’m a long time Cowboy fan and when it comes to baseball no matter how good the Sooners are they just don’t have the fan support. A few times at the Brick I have felt sorry for the Sooners to play in front of such an \orange\ crowd and to see empty seats on the other side. I have many friends who claim to be Sooner fans but I could not get them to make the drive from Yukon to the Brick for a bedlam game…on a beautful afternoon.