Big 12 Softball: The First True Separation Weekend of 2024
We’re a month into the Big 12 play, and the conference looks almost nothing like we expected it would be heading into the final weekend in March.
Outside of Oklahoma, Texas, and Oklahoma State vying for the top three spots in the standings, this has been a wild first half of the season. Kansas is 7-2 in Big 12 play, while Baylor is 1-8 since league play began.
Will the league’s top contenders keep their hot starts rolling? Can the others shake slow starts to keep pace in the Big 12? We discuss these and other big storylines heading into the weekend.
Longhorns vs. Cowgirls: A Top Ten Battle With Big Implications
The biggest Big 12 series of the weekend is also the biggest series in college softball for the final weekend of March as No. 10 Oklahoma State (27-5) gets set to host No. 2 Texas (28-3) in the biggest series of the season for either team thus far. The Longhorns and Cowgirls both have national title aspirations and come into the weekend with a lot on the line. With top-ranked Oklahoma currently sitting at 9-0 in league play, the winner of this series will be in the best position to keep pace with the Sooners. Two losses will put the series loser in a tough spot when it comes to seeding for the Big 12 Tournament, but also in the eyes of the selection committee when it comes to the NCAA Tournament in May. Two teams from the Big 12 hosting through Super Regionals seems reasonable, but three is a stretch. This series is huge.
No. 24 Kansas Hosts Top-Ranked Sooners
When browsing the conference schedule ahead of the 2024 season, I did not see Oklahoma’s first ranked road test coming against Kansas, yet here we are. Jennifer McFalls has done a heck of a job in turning the Jayhawks program around in her time in Lawrence, and this year is beginning to show the fruits of her labor. After signing a contract extension following the 2023 season, McFalls has responded by getting the Jayhawks to No. 24 in this week’s poll and out to a 22-8-1 start. Meanwhile, Patty Gasso’s Sooners are starting to roll on the offensive side of the ball as they’ve now taken over as the nation’s top offense in terms of batting average (.394) and on-base percentage (.493). This will be a stiff test for both teams and certainly a series worth keeping up with.
Baylor: If Not Now, When?
Baylor has gotten off to a horrendous start in 2024, with a 1-8 record through their first three series. In fact, it couldn’t have gone much worse for a team that was expected to hang around in the top ten after their incredible year in 2023. However, Baylor’s series losses have come to the Nation’s No. 1, No. 10, and No. 24 teams, two of which came on the road. This week, Baylor plays host to a struggling Iowa State team and has a chance to start turning their season around. If the Bears can win this weekend and find a way to get two out of three from Texas Tech next weekend, Glenn Moore’s team can roll into Austin in a few weeks with some confidence and hope to pull off an upset that could have lasting implications on their postseason chances. However, they’d better just worry about Iowa State for now.
Battle(s) of the Two-Win Teams
The gap between fourth place and fifth place in the Big 12 standings is currently five wins, with Kansas at seven wins and five other teams with just two victories. This week, we’ll get the chance to see several of those teams face one another, meaning there’s some separation to be made. Texas Tech (21-8, 2-4) plays host to UCF (14-14, 2-7), Houston (20-12, 2-7) heads to Provo to take on BYU (17-12, 2-7), and Iowa State (11-16, 2-4) goes to Baylor (17-11, 1-8). That pits each of the bottom six teams in the league against one another, giving us the first real weekend to break up some of the tier issues that currently exist in the league. All in all, it’s a fantastic weekend of matchups and all five series on the docket will have a profound impact on the Big 12 standings going into April.
