Big 12 Baseball 2008 Tourney: Who Goes Who Doesn't

The word for the Big 12 baseball tourney so far has been Anarchy!

In the past couple days:

• Texas A&M lost to Texas 9-15 moving Texas A&M to 0-2. Texas is at 1-1.
• Missouri lost to Oklahoma 3-4 moving to 1-1. Oklahoma is at 2-0.
• Nebraska beat Kansas State 5-2, moving both teams to 1-1. The Wildcats left 12 on base, a testament to Nebraska’s defense.
• Oklahoma State run-ruled Baylor 14-3. Rebel Ridling hit a grand slam in the top of the seventh to drive in the last four ‘Poke runs.

Here are the seeds and records so far:

Schedule for Saturday, May 24

• No. 5 Texas vs. No. 8 Oklahoma    9:00 a.m.
• No. 1 Texas A&M vs. No. 4 Missouri    12:30 p.m.
• No. 2 Oklahoma State vs. No. 3 Nebraska    4:00 p.m.
• No. 6 Baylor vs. No. 7 Kansas State    7:30 p.m.

So, what’s the deal, what’s happening???? Who goes, who doesn’t?
In Pool One:

- If Oklahoma beats Texas, they’re in the title game with a 3-0 record. Given they’re the worst team in the tournament, that’s pretty amazing. They’re not a bad team, they’re a young team. Perhaps this is maturity.

- If Oklahoma loses - Texas will go if the Aggies beat Missouri. If Missouri wins they go.
- Texas A&M is out, they’re at 0-2 and in a tailspin. They’d really like to beat Mizzou, though, and break that losing streak.

In Pool Two:

- Nebraska needs to beat Oklahoma State, then they go if Kansas State beats Baylor since Baylor has the head-to-head win against Nebraska.

- If Oklahoma State wins, they need Baylor to beat Kansas State since Kansas State beat OSU.

- Baylor needs to win, plus needs Nebraska to beat Oklahoma State for the Bears to make it.

- Kansas State needs to win with an Oklahoma State win since both would at 2-1 with KSU having the head-to-head tie breaker.

Out of all eight teams, only Oklahoma controls their own destiny. Is that incredible, or what?

If you’d ask me to predict... you’re out of your mind. Okay, I’ll pick Baylor -Texas. I just can’t see Nebraska beating Oklahoma State and Baylor losing to Kansas State. Oklahoma’s hot streak against the Longhorns on a streak, pick Texas.

If you’re in Oklahoma City, well, heck, just go down and buy a ticket and enjoy some of the best baseball around. No steroids, no millionaires complaining. College baseball is like a Field of Dreams.

The games are being streamed online by CSTV/Big 12 and they’re doing an excellent job, so if you want to see the games, hit the Big 12 conference site , or CSTV’s All Access site . The games are FREE, as in beer. It doesn’t get any better than that.

It was pretty cool last night as the announcers asked people to email them about the coverage. They were announcing the names and where people were from. They had people from as far as away as Japan, Brazil, Canada,  and Anchorage, Alaska, and armed services guys on base. They cut off announcing emails at around 200 in the seventh inning when the game ended.

Unfortunately, CSTV also cut off the announcers after the commercial break right after the game was over in the 7th inning. That sucked because they had more to say.

Consider this a game day thread for the rest of the Big 12 tournament.

That means you can join us here at CN, and post in the comments section your thoughts about Big 12 baseball. We’d love to have you. However, you must create an account in order to post. We have to do that because the web sites are frequently attacked by spammers, and we don’t want to contribute to people who are advertising nasty sites.

Otherwise, we’ll try to keep things up to date. It’s been an incredible tourney so far. Tomorrow should be no different because seven out of the eight teams are still in it.