NCAA Baseball committee chair Mike Buddie explains why Oklahoma is not a Regional host

Even though Oklahoma defeated Texas by a score of 8-1 to win the Big 12 Tournament on Sunday, the Sooners were not selected as a Regional host for the 2022 NCAA Baseball Tournament. The snub left many fans asking how OU could be excluded when all but one other Power 5 champion (Michigan) were listed as hosts.

Army athletic director and NCAA Baseball committee chair Mike Buddie provided that answer in an appearance on the selection show on ESPN2. Because the championship game had not gone final prior to the deadline to submit seeds, Buddie and the rest of the committee agreed the safest thing to do was leave Oklahoma off the list.

“It’s certainly a challenge,” Buddie explained. “In the Pac-12, fortunately Oregon State and Stanford had separated themselves, because that game they hadn’t even started warming up their pitchers yet when the seeds were due. We did have a very candid discussion and we were well aware of that.

“We discussed that at length just saying, ‘Would it affect the way that we seed these teams should Oklahoma win the Big 12 Championship by 20 runs? The committee got to a point where we felt like we like the 16 and agreed that Oklahoma fell just short of getting in that 16. It’s certainly not ideal, but it’s something that we talked through, went through every angle and landed where we landed.”

Oklahoma finished with an RPI of 19 and a strength of schedule ranked at 15. The Sooners were also 18-12 against quad 1 opponents. But that clearly wasn’t enough for the committee. Notre Dame was also a notable snub from hosting.

Oklahoma was instead given the two seed in the Gainesville Regional, where Florida will be the host. There the Sooners will open up regional play with a game against Liberty. They are coming off of a 4-0 week at the Big 12 Tournament, ending in a title game victory over Texas, and will enter regionals with an overall record of 37-20.

The Sooners will hope to carry that momentum with them on the road to the College World Series.