Upsets Rule First Day of Big 12 Baseball Championship

It was a tough day to be one of the lower ranked seeds at the Big 12 baseball tournament on Wednesday. In the first day of pool play the #1, #2, and #3 seeds all lost and sit a game behind the #4,  #6, #7 and #8 seeds. Over the next two days we’ll see some serious drama at the Bricktown Ballpark as it is no longer possible for all of the top four seeds to be in contention for the Big 12 Championship Saturday when we next see a full slate of games.

Andrew Doyle struck out 12 A&M batters on Wednesday.

With Texas A&M, Oklahoma State and Nebraska all losing on Wednesday the advantage switches to the lower seeds. Tonight’s match-up between Missouri and Oklahoma could determine who plays in Sunday’s championship game because the winner would be 2-0 in pool play with only one game left. On the other hand the loser of the early game tonight between Texas and Texas A&M will be most likely eliminated from championship competition. When you consider that Texas A&M was swept last weekend by the Longhorns it is very reasonable to believe that the top seeded Aggies will only be playing for pride on Saturday.

On the other side of the bracket we have an entirely different scenario because their second round of pool play (Friday) won’t feature a match-up of unbeaten teams. It is very possible that the division could go into Saturday with all four teams at 1-1 in pool play making it now the most exciting side of the bracket to watch.

For Sooner fans the plan now needs to be to cheer for the Aggies to beat the Longhorns tonight and then hope for OU to continue to play the way they did Sunday against O-State and yesterday against A&M. A win over the Tigers tonight along with a Texas loss would make Saturday morning’s match-up against the Longhorns pointless with OU having already locked up a spot in Sunday’s championship game.