College Baseball RPI Watch: Sooners In The Hunt!

Yes, sweeping the #2 team in the nation does have its rewards. In fact, it has brought Oklahoma's baseball season back to life...literally. I know that I'm speaking for myself here but come on, did you honestly think the Sooners had a shot at the post season following the Bedlam losses? That's what I thought.

That all changed on Saturday and Sunday though when the Sooners swept Baylor and put themselves right back in the thick of everything. Now we'll have to keep a close eye on the RPI rankings where the Sooners are sitting in good shape as of today.

Starting the weekend ranked around #69 in various polls the Sooners now find themselves as high as #46, depending on which poll you're looking at. Warren Nolan has OU at #48 as of Monday morning. To put that in perspective a little bit, Texas is #50 and Oklahoma State at #76. Look at it from a different angle, at #48 Oklahoma now has the third best RPI ranking in the Big XII with Texas A&M (#17) and Baylor (#4) being the only two teams ahead of them.

If Sunny Galloway expects his team to need a ranking in the mid-40's to make the NCAA Tournament then he's right on track. Now they have to protect that ranking through this week and into the Big XII Tournament. OU will host TCU on Tuesday night in a rematch of a 4-3 loss suffered two weeks ago. The Frogs are currently sitting at #33 in the RPI rankings and Samford, who Oklahoma hosts this coming weekend, is sitting at #62. Oklahoma must finish out the regular season by going 4-0 this week.

At 33-19 (13-10) the Sooners will end the season with a winning record in Big XII play. Depending on what happens this weekend OU could be as high as the #3 seed in the tournament or as low as the fifth seed. Oklahoma is deadlocked with Texas, A&M and Oklahoma State right now with 13 wins in the conference. This is where the rain out of the third game against Kansas (what would have been Oklahoma's 14th win) comes back to haunt the Sooners.

This weekend we need to pull for a couple of sweeps. We need Baylor to sweep Texas in Waco and then either Oklahoma State to sweep Texas A&M or vice versa in Stillwater. Those two events would put OU at the #3 seed in the Big XII Tournament. With that seed they would most likely be looking at an opening game against Texas Tech.