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.
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