With Baylor Baseball Trending Downward, Can it Still Make the Big 12 Tournament?

After missing the conference tournament for the first time in program history last year, returning to Arlington was a major goal for the 2024 Bears. In mid-April, that didn’t appear to be a concern for second-year head coach Mitch Thompson’s squad, who was sitting at 9-and-7 in Big 12 play and playing its best ball of the season.

Since then, the Bears have rattled off eight-straight conference losses and have been swept in back-to-back weekends. With Big 12 Tournament aspirations seriously in peril, I’ll explain the importance of the final two weeks and how Baylor, currently in 11th place, can back-door its way into a return to Arlington.

Most Likely Big 12 Tournament Scenarios

Big 12 Conference

Big 12 standings heading into the final two weeks of the season.

Important Remaining Series across the Big 12 for Final Bid

• May 10-12: Texas Tech @ No. 19 Oklahoma State
• May 10-12: Texas @ UCF
• May 10-12: Baylor @ No. 18 Oklahoma
• May 16-18: UCF @ Baylor

Possible Scenarios to make the Big 12 Tournament

• Baylor wins 3-of-last 6 + Texas Tech loses 3-of-last-3
• Baylor wins 3-of-last-6 + UCF loses 6-of-last-6
• Baylor wins 4-of-last-6 + Texas Tech loses 2-of-last-3
• Baylor wins 4-of-last-6 + UCF loses 5-of-last-6

With four new members joining the conference for the 2023-2024 athletic year, the Big 12 announced that only 10 of 13 schools would make the conference tournament. Newcomers Houston (6-17) and BYU (6-18) have separated themselves toward the bottom of the standings, leaving the 10th and final spot for a multitude of teams to fight over.

There are technically still ways the Bears (9-15) could jump Kansas (13-11), Cincinnati (13-11), Kansas State (12-12) or TCU (13-14) but the odds of that are slim-to-none and would require them to win at least five of their final six games.

Personally, the likeliest scenario is that a spiraling Texas Tech (12-15) team, who has lost six- straight conference contests, gets swept this weekend in Stillwater against the No. 19 Cowboys (15-9), who are vying to host an NCAA Regional later this month.

SicEm365

The Bears have rattled off eight-straight conference losses and have been swept in back-to-back weekends.

Fortunately for the Bears, they beat the Red Raiders in a series earlier this spring and hold the tie-breaker over them. If Texas Tech were to get swept, Baylor would need to go 3-and-3 against No. 18 Oklahoma (18-6) and UCF (11-12), which isn’t too far-fetched.

However, there’s a legitimate chance that Baylor will be eliminated before the final weekend begins if it doesn’t win at least one game in Norman against the No. 18 Sooners.

If Texas Tech collects a win over the Cowboys, Baylor would need to go 4-and-2 against the Sooners and Knights, which seems unlikely with how the Bears have been playing. Ideally for Baylor, Texas Tech and UCF are swept this weekend by No. 19 Oklahoma State and Texas, respectively.

The other long-shot scenarios include UCF losing five or more of its final six games to Texas (15-9) and Baylor. An important caveat with the Knights, however, is that their series finale against Houston was canceled, so they will finish conference play with 29 games instead of 30, meaning their final record will be judged by win percentage.

After this weekend’s series against No. 18 Oklahoma, Thompson’s team will have a good idea of what they must do heading into the last series of the season against UCF. Whether that will put added pressure on the Bears is yet to be seen, but regardless, there should be a clear number of games they will need to win to avoid missing out on a trip to Arlington for a second straight year.