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USA Today
23-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
What does Oklahoma's loss to Oral Roberts mean for postseason expectations?
What does Oklahoma's loss to Oral Roberts mean for postseason expectations? Two approaches were most common for Oklahoma baseball fans after the No. 13 Sooners fell to Oral Roberts on Tuesday night. The first is that the sky is falling and the if the Sooners can't beat a team from the Summit League, something is seriously wrong. The second is that the loss is meaningless because what Oklahoma does in the Southeastern Conference is all that matters. Neither are ultimately true. OU's mid-week loss to ORU serves more as a ripple in a pond than a postseason-altering shake-up. But the butterfly effect is a real and studied phenomenon. Here's how a Tuesday game against an in-state opponent in April could have lasting repercussions. Why OU Baseball Loss to ORU Doesn't Hurt The Oklahoma baseball team will make the NCAA Tournament. Stamp it down. In fact, the only way it doesn't happen is if OU manages three or fewer wins the rest of the season. Even then, it's hardly a guarantee of missing out. The Sooners' have built a strong enough resume in the best conference in college baseball - 10 teams are ranked in the Top 25 of the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll - that mid-tier teams in the SEC make the NCAA Tournament every year. Some even host with .500-or-worse league records. As it stands with four weeks left in SEC play, Oklahoma is 10-8, tied for sixth in a 16-team league. They're in. More: SEC Baseball Power Rankings after Week 6 of conference play Why OU Baseball Loss to ORU Hurts Playing at home for an NCAA Tournament Regional can be huge. Not only do the other four teams in the Regional have to travel to you, they're at a disadvantage simply by being a lower seed. Regional hosts almost always get lower-tier conference champions in the first game. And while those are far from locks (consider ORU, if it wins the Summit League), they're easier opponents than a power-conference mid-tier team, generally. Oklahoma will likely spent the last month of SEC play the way it spent the first six weeks: middling. Whether such a status is good enough to host a Regional remains to be soon. Maybe, as the No. 13 ranking suggests. But maybe not, as the difficulty of the remaining schedule suggests. If OU goes 6-6 over its final 12 SEC games, it would be a boon. Consider the opponents. Oklahoma travels to No. 10 Georgia, a team that was No. 2 in the nation a few short weeks ago, this weekend. The Sooners host Ole Miss, a team ahead in the SEC Power Rankings, in two weeks. They travel to Kentucky in three weeks for a set against a team just outside the top 25. And Oklahoma finishes the regular season against the No. 1 team in the country, which just happens to be OU's biggest rival, Texas. In other words, beating ORU - like Wichita State next week and Oklahoma State - would have provided some cushion for the gaunlet on the horizon.
USA Today
31-03-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
SEC Baseball Power Rankings after Week 3 of conference play
SEC Baseball Power Rankings after Week 3 of conference play SEC baseball standings don't often look the way they do right now, three weeks into the season. Four teams have just one loss, and another bunch has two. The mushy middle of six teams is within two games of each other, anywhere between 6-3 and 4-5. Then there's the bottom—the ugly bottom. One team remains winless in league play, and a shocking four others have just one win. The SEC is a powerful baseball conference, but its power is often not so concentrated. While there is plenty of time—seven weeks—for things to change, little that has happened thus far suggests much will. Here's how the teams look at almost one-third of the league schedule. 16. Missouri Tigers Last week: 16 Once upon a time, the Missouri baseball program was solid. Max Scherzer. Aaron Crow. Kyle Gibson. But the move to the Southeastern Conference has overwhelmed the Tigers who haven't made the NCAA Tournament since joining the league in 2013. They won't this year, either, especially after being swept by Texas over the weekend and carrying a lone SEC win through three weeks. 15. South Carolina Gamecocks Last week: 14 Paul Mainieri knew he would have his work cut out for him in trying to rebuild the South Carolina program. The former Notre Dame and LSU coach has made six College World Series and retired after the 2021 season. If anyone can turn things around in Columbia, he can, but like the other team in a town called Columbia, the Gamecocks have just one win after three weeks. Last week: 15 Texas A&M has missed just one NCAA Tournament since 2007, but it's looking more and more like this season will result in a no-go for the Aggies. A&M salvaged one win against a mid-tier Kentucky team at home over the weekend, their first win of the SEC slate. This team was picked as the preseason No. 1 team in the country by Yikes. Last week: 13 Few teams have had a tougher first three weeks than Mississippi State, which opened with Texas, Oklahoma and most recently, LSU. The Bulldogs own just win in nine games, but aren't as bad as the record suggests. Only two losses have come by more than two runs. 12. Auburn Tigers Last week: 11 No choice but to drop Auburn, the No. 11 team in the country, to 12th in the SEC. Seems silly, doesn't it? That's baseball in this league. The Tigers were swept handily by Georgia, never coming closer than three runs in any loss. They need a bounce-back against rival Alabama next week. 11. Kentucky Wildcats Last week: 12 Kentucky looked the better team against A&M and deserved its series win. The Wildcats are still a game below .500 in SEC play, but three games up on the bottom five teams in the standings and tied with two others. Not glimmering, but they feel like an NCAA Tournament team. 10. Florida Gators Last week: 9 Is Florida, though, an NCAA Tournament team? The Gators have been almost as disappointing as Texas A&M. They carry the same SEC record, anyway, and were a preseason top-10 squad. The difference is they played the actual No. 1 and actual No. 3 teams in the nation their first two conference weeks. At least they finally put one in the win column in the finale against Ole Miss. The talent is there to turn it around, though, thus the Gators' ranking. 9. Vanderbilt Commodores Last week: 10 How can you be swept and move up a spot? Well, the line between the haves and have-nots in the SEC is becoming more clear. Vanderbilt is good. Awfully good. But the Commodores ran into the the buzzsaw that is Arkansas over the weekend and were swept at home by the Razorbacks for the first time since 1994. A big series at Florida awaits next weekend. 8. Oklahoma Sooners Last week: 7 The Soones are above .500 in the SEC after three weeks. Not shabby. Unfortunately, they played their first good team and accordingly dropped their first league series. Things don't get easier next week against LSU, though, at least the set is in Norman. 7. Ole Miss Rebels Last week: 8 Had the Rebels pulled off the sweep of Florida instead of dropping Sunday's finale, they might have jumped Alabama for the sixth spot. But, really, it's splitting hairs in the middle of this league, where the difference between No. 9 and No. 3 is marginal at best. Last week: 6 Alabama proved its mettle in taking the series at home against Oklahoma. After some lean years in the Brad Bohannon era, the Crimson Tide look to be putting together another Tuscaloosa Regional-esque season under second-year coach Jason Jackson. Last week: 5 LSU sits a game behind the four teams in front of it in these power rankings, which are the same four teams in the standings. By season's end, expect a squad with an SEC record more similar to the one the Tigers had two years in their national-championship season (19-10) than in last year's Regional faltering (13-17). 4. Texas Longhorns Last week: 4 Texas likes the SEC just fine, thank you very much. Through three weekends, the Longhorns have dropped just one game - to aforementioned LSU - and have looked perfectly at home in the best conference in the country. All eyes will be on Austin this weekend, too, as Georgia visits. 3. Georgia Bulldogs Last week: 3 If you want to make an argument that Georgia is the best team in the country, go right ahead. I won't fight you. But with Tennessee and Arkansas both collecting sweeps over the weekend, the same as the Bulldogs, it's hard to move them up. Sweep Texas, though, and maybe it doesn't matter what the Razorbacks and Volunteers do next week. 2. Arkansas Razorbacks Last week: 2 Dave Van Horn has had the Razorbacks a top-five regular-season staple for just about every season since COVID. The issue for Arkansas has been the postseason. Hogs fans are hoping that changes this year, but for now, they'll be happy to keep on keeping on. 1. Tennessee Volunteers Last week: 1 Hey, South Carolina put up a fight. But the defending national champions are the defending national champions. Poor Texas A&M will have to face the monster next week. In Knoxville, too.
