Three Things to Watch at Big 12 Softball Tournament Begins

Three months after the regular season began, the Big 12 Conference descends on Oklahoma City to crown its tournament champion.

The top eight teams in the league will be part of the field, with Texas Tech — which won the regular-season title — serving as the No. 1 seed.

But there are plenty of teams in chase, most notably Oklahoma State, which is the No. 2 seed and has one of the best pitchers in the country in Ruby Meylan, and Arizona, which boasts the league’s player of the year and batting champion, Sydney Stewart.

The winner of the tournament gets the league’s automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament. Here are three things to watch.

The Territorial Cup Showdown

The most intriguing matchup of the first round may end up being the final game on Thursday, which pits No. 3 Arizona against No. 6 Arizona State, a renewal of their annual Territorial Cup showdown.

Arizona (35-13) and Arizona State (38-16) should both be safely in the field, based on NCAA RPI. Arizona is No. 19 and Arizona State is No. 4. The Sun Devils are the No. 6 seed in the Big 12 field, which tells one just how good the league has been this year. Seven of the eight teams won at least 30 games this year.

Arizona won two of the three games in their league series. Arizona State won Game 1, 16-5, with Arizona winning Games 2 and 3, 9-8 and 6-4. If nothing else, it should be a great game.

The Dream Title Matchup

For those that want to see the best pitching matchup of the tournament, they should want to see a Texas Tech-Oklahoma State championship game. Of course, the Red Raiders and the Cowgirls need to win their quarterfinals and semifinal games to get there. But, if each does, it could be a show.

Meylan has been the hottest pitcher in the conference the last month. She is 26-6 with a 2.03 ERA, 201 strikeouts and 49 walks entering the tournament. At one point earlier this year she won four ranked games in seven days, including then-No. 1 Oklahoma. She has a perfect game and two no-hitters.

Texas Tech’s Nijaree Canady finished the season with a perfect game. She finished the season 21-4 with a 1.30 ERA, with 194 strikeouts and 39 walks. She was just taken No. 2 overall in the AUSL Draft.

The kicker? OSU and TTU didn’t play each other in Big 12 play. So, this is the matchup everyone wants to see.

Any Bubble Questions?

As noted, seven of the eight teams in the field won at least 30 games overall and all of them won at least 10 games in conference play. RPI can be a guide to who could make the field and who might not. Here are the RPR ratings of each team.

Texas Tech: 12

Oklahoma State: 14

Arizona: 19

UCF: 21

Kansas: 39

Arizona State: 24

Utah: 63

Baylor: 36

Utah and Baylor are the most in need of a win. Utah’s RPI is well behind the rest of the field. Baylor is the only team with fewer than 30 overall wins.