Has Kansas baseball done enough to reach its first NCAA regional since 2014?
LAWRENCE — Kansas baseball coach Dan Fitzgerald sang the praises of his team Friday, and for good reason.
The Jayhawks enjoyed a run to the Big 12 Conference tournament semifinal for the first time since 2013. In just the second season of Fitzgerald’s rebuild, they’ve continued to take great strides toward being a more competitive team nationally and in the league. Although Fitzgerald’s words came after a Big 12 tournament semifinal defeat against Oklahoma, as he spoke with reporters in Arlington, Texas, there was an opportunity to analyze the bigger picture.
But while Kansas (31-23) has played the way it has at times this season, it’s unclear if it will be enough to earn the program its first trip to a NCAA regional since 2014. The Jayhawks, 17-17 against the Big 12 this season with the conference tournament included, will have to wait until the selection show on Monday to learn if they’ve made it in. They aren’t safely in the field by any means.
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“When I look at all the metrics and all the numbers and all the everything, there’s one metric that we don’t line up with in the postseason — and that’s RPI,” Fitzgerald said. “And if you look at absolutely everything else, 17 wins in the conference, and then you look at who we beat in this tournament, and you just look at conference finish and all of those things, there’s no question in my mind that we’re a regional team and certainly one of the top 64.”
One could only speculate what Kansas’ status might be had it not been swept by Texas in the final series of the regular season, with two of the three losses on the road coming in games the Jayhawks led in the ninth inning. One could only speculate where Kansas might be had it been able to get past Oklahoma one of the two times the Jayhawks lost to the Sooners in the Big 12 tournament, both by a pair of runs in hard-fought games. But Kansas’ resume is set where it is, and its RPI — as of games played through Saturday — is 72.
When Fitzgerald spoke Friday, he noted that if the committee just looks at RPI and picks from that the Jayhawks wouldn’t make the field of 64. But he volunteered he thinks there are smart people on the committee, which he acknowledged has a tough job, who will weigh more than that. He highlighted the one-two punch of starting pitchers Kansas has in senior Reese Dutton and freshman Dominic Voegele, how the team’s played in the second half of the year and much more.
According to a D1Baseball projection for the NCAA tournament on Saturday, while the Jayhawks wouldn’t make the field this week it did beat two teams in the Big 12 tournament that would in Kansas State and TCU. During the regular season Kansas also won a series against TCU and captured a pair of wins against a Nebraska team that would make it. But clearly there’s doubt on if those positives and more will be enough to outweigh some missed opportunities, including being 8-13 in games decided by two runs or less.
“Make no mistake, Kansas Baseball is on its way,” Travis Goff, KU’s director of athletics, said in part Friday in a post on X — the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Coach Fitz and the men in this program are the real deal. Proud of them and could not be more excited for the future!”
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: 'Kansas Baseball is on its way': But will Jayhawks make CWS?
