Bears Secure No. 8 Seed, Need Big 12 Title Run to Reach NCAA Tournament

SURPRISE, Ariz. – Baylor baseball (28-26, 14-16) has clinched the No. 8 seed in the Big 12 Tournament and will open the conference tournament at 6:30 p.m. CT on Wednesday, May 20, against the winner of No. 9 seed BYU (27-27, 14-16) versus No. 12 seed Texas Tech (27-27, 10-20); the game will be streamed on ESPN+.

This season marks the second time in head coach Mitch Thompson’s four-year tenure that the Bears made the Big 12 Tournament. As of April 17, the Bears held the No. 32 RPI and were projected to make the NCAA Tournament, but endured a six-game losing streak after beating TCU in the series opener and have lost nine of their last 15 conference games.

For Baylor to make its first NCAA Tournament since 2019, the Bears will almost certainly need to win the Big 12 Tournament, which would mean four wins in four days. Baylor sits at No. 67 in the country in RPI at the end of the regular season and has faced the 20th-toughest strength of schedule.

The entire Big 12 Tournament will be held this year at Surprise Stadium, the spring training home of the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers, in Surprise, Arizona, rather than Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, which has hosted the tournament since 2022.

If the Bears were to advance in the single-elimination tournament, they would face the Kansas Jayhawks (39-16, 22-8), the No. 1 seed and Big 12 regular-season champions, at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 21, with the game nationally televised on ESPNU.

The semifinal would be set for 6:30 p.m. on Friday, May 22, with the championship game slated for 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 23 and will be nationally televised on ESPN2. A college baseball analytics site, Pearatings, gives the Bears a 1.9% chance to win the title.