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This Week in Texas Tech Baseball - Tournament Preview

The regular season is over. The postseason starts this week in Oklahoma City with the Big 12 Tournament. This is where the fun begins.

Big 12 Tournament Format

The Big 12 has 10 teams (because that makes sense), and 9 field a baseball team (Iowa State being the odd school out). Of these 9, the top 8 are invited to the baseball tournament at the end of the year in Oklahoma City. This year, Kansas did not make the cut, with a 6-17 conference record, winning just 3 games at home, and losing the last 6 of the year, 5 of which were conference games. The remaining 8 teams have been seeded by their conference record, and will be matched up 1v8, 2v7, 3v6, and 4v5. The tournament splits the 8 teams into 2 divisions with the #1, 4, 5, and 8 teams in 1 and the other 4 in the other. The format is a double elimination style with the 2 division winners meeting up for the 1-game championship on Sunday May 29th.

Tournament Schedule and Matchups

The tournament begins on Wednesday morning in Division 1 with #4 West Virginia against #5 Oklahoma at 9:00am. The other game in that division will be your #1 Texas Tech Red Raiders facing the #8 Kansas St Wildcats at 12:30pm. In Division 2, #3 TCU takes on #6 Baylor at 4:00pm and #2 OSU against #7 Texas at 7:30pm. The losers of the 2 Division 1 games will meet at 9:00am on Thursday and the Division 2 game will be at 12:30pm. So if Tech can beat KSU, they will play the winner of the OU-WV game on Thursday at 4:00pm. If they win that game, they will have Friday off and play the winner of the Division 1 loser's bracket on Saturday at 11:00am. If they lose to KSU tomorrow, they will play the loser of the OU-WV game at 9:00am on Thursday. There is a printable bracket and a schedule of all the games that may make things a little bit more clear.

Kansas State Wildcats

The Wildcats visited Lubbock in the beginning of April, with Tech taking all 3 games. The Friday game that weekend was moved to a doubleheader on Saturday. In game 1, a 10-3 victory, Stephen Smith had 5 RBI's and the Tech offense had a big 7-run 2nd inning. Pitchers Davis Martin and Ryan Shetter combined for the win. Game 2 was another big win, this time 10-4, as Gute went 3-3 with 4 RBI's and Garcia had 2 home runs. Gingery and Howard pitched the game,and only 4 pitchers were used the entire doubleheader. The series finale went to Tech in a 6-5 win that saw a 5-1 Tech lead diminish to 5-4. Smith had 2 home runs that afternoon as Tech would sweep the series, scoring 26 runs across the 3 games. Ty Damron (4-1, 5.56 ERA) is expected to make the start tomorrow against Corey Fischer (3-4, 5.06 ERA). Corey pitched in the 3rd game of the season series, taking the loss with 2.2 innings with 4 hits, 2 runs (1 earned), 3 walks, and 3 strikeouts. First pitch is scheduled at 12:30pm, and all games of the tournament until the championship will be aired on Fox College Sports. The championship game will be on FSN.