Texas Tech firmly entrenched as the rest of the Big 12 is found wanting

Week 2 Rankings:
1. #3 Texas Tech Red Raiders: 9-0 (LW 1)
Texas Tech continues a dominant stretch to open the season with a sweep of UTSA and mid-week games against New Mexico State and River Grande Valley, including a scoreless stretch of 37.2 innings. The next series gets a bit tougher as #15 South Alabama comes to town for a four game set.

South Alabama is 7-2 with wins over Oklahoma, Kansas State, Virginia Tech and a ranked Southern Miss team. Should be a good test for the Red Raiders and don’t be surprised if Tech’s undefeated streak comes to an end this weekend.

2. #6 TCU Horned Frogs: 4-2 (LW 2)
TCU took two of three against Long Beach State and are living by the age old adage “Win your series and you’ll be in the playoffs”. Rain in the DFW area has made the Horned Frogs postpone games multiple times against UT-Arlington, including Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

3. Oklahoma State Cowboys: 5-1 (LW 3)
Oklahoma State is on a 4 game win streak, but with them also dealing with their fair share of rainouts, they’ve been pretty quiet. Especially considering all eyes are on Texas Tech right now. They are about to travel out to face Arizona State though, which will be interesting. Won’t hold anything against them if they drop the series (unless they get swept), but will be really impressed if they take the series. Oklahoma State has been good for a few seasons now... even when Tech has their way with them during the regular season.

4. #23 Texas Longhorns: 5-3 (LW 4)
Texas just lost two of three to LSU. Not holding that against them. Though comparatively ranked, LSU is a perennial power in baseball and as mentioned last week, Texas may have the toughest non-conference schedule in the Big 12. They have four with Northwester, four with Stanford and two with Arkansas before opening conference play. That is a crazy stretch of games, especially when you consider Oklahoma who won’t leave the state of Oklahoma during non-conference.

5. Kansas Jayhawks: 5-2 (LW 6)
How about those Jayhawks! Taking two of three from Northwestern isn’t bad. Texas will be lucky to get a split with Northwestern this weekend so that’s a great sign for this team going forward. This is a team that started making big strides about midway through the season last year and it was really nice to see them climb out of the bottom of our power rankings and into the mid-tier. They do have a road trip to face Florida State upcoming, but earning a split will speak volumes about this team.

6. Baylor Bears: 3-3 (LW 5)
Once again, not holding a tough series loss against UCLA on the road against the Bears here. It’s early, and they should be fine with some easier competition upcoming.

T7. Kansas State Wildcats 4-4 (LW T7)
Kansas State has won three of their last four and two of three from Old Dominion creating the separation from Oklahoma. They, like their Jayhawk brethren, have been fighting to get up to the mid-tier all of last season and could cause some problems for upper-tier teams as the season continues.

8. Oklahoma Sooners 4-5 (LW T7)
If you take out their opening tournament in South Carolina, will play only two of their twenty non-conference games on the road. Two.

And their first seven games of conference play are all in Norman. That’s enough for me to put them in the cellar for awhile. It would be bad enough if this was just an anomaly, but last year they played their first 19 games of the season in Norman. So who is coming to Norman next? Alabama. Should give them a decent test.

9. West Virginia Mountaineers: 2-5 (LW 9)
What is going on in Morgantown? I really thought West Virginia would be better than this to this point. They did have a tough tournament this past weekend losing to Coastal Carolina and twice to VCU, but they need to right the ship immediately. Good news is, they have an easy road to conference play. Hopefully they can rack up some wins in that time.