Eye on the prize: More than usual, Tech needs strong showing at Big 12 tournament
ARLINGTON — For the past month more or less, Texas Tech's best chance of hosting a regional for the sixth consecutive NCAA baseball tournament appeared to be by winning the Big 12 regular-season championship.
The Red Raiders came up one victory short of that.
They'll make their last case for the Division I baseball committee this week at the Big 12 tournament, an event in which they've not fared especially well in recent years. No. 2 seed Tech (36-18) takes on No. 7 seed Kansas State (27-27) at 4 p.m. Wednesday in a first-round game at Globe Life Field.
"I would tell you that, coming in here, we want to play good baseball and play as much baseball as we can," Tech coach Tim Tadlock said Tuesday after the Red Raiders' workout on the Texas Rangers' turf. "As far as the hosting picture, (I) figure if you play good baseball and you get to Sunday, you make those decisions harder for the committee.
"At the same time, who knows what the RPI would be by that time and how they're going to base those decisions."
The Big 12 tournament comprises two four-team, double-elimination brackets. Tech is the highest seed in its bracket with No. 3 seed Oklahoma, No. 6 seed West Virginia and Kansas State. The bracket winners will meet Sunday in the championship game.
The 64-team NCAA tournament begins with 16 four-team regionals. Tech looks good as the No. 2 seed in the Big 12 tournament and with a No. 9 ranking by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association, but less so with the No. 37 spot in the ratings percentage index.
More: How to watch Texas Tech in the 2022 Big 12 baseball tournament
In recent years, Tech's frequently been in position to host a regional before going to the conference tournament, so the Red Raiders' showing at the Big 12 event hasn't seemed to matter much.
"We always come to these tournaments wanting to win," second baseman Jace Jung said. "Sometimes it just doesn't go our way. But every day we come, we're going to come prepared and ready to play."
In Tadlock's previous nine seasons as Tech coach, the Red Raiders have gone 9-16 in the Big 12 tournament and have won more than one game only once, when they went 3-2 in 2019.
More: Big 12 baseball tournament schedule
The event was viewed as a tune-up, as a chance to stay sharp, for the more important games to come — on the outside, anyway.
"We want to win every day," Tadlock said. "We want to play a good brand of baseball, want to do things right, and that's really what we're trying to do."
Mason Molina, 1-5 with a 4.04 earned-run average, gets his ninth start of the season in Wednesday's opener. The freshman lefthander was Tech's No. 3 starter through the first two weeks of the Big 12 schedule, but has pitched out of the bullpen since.
Tech's rotation after Molina, as long as the Red Raiders keep winning, will be the usual order of No. 1 starter Andrew Morris, Brandon Birdsell and Chase Hampton, Tadlock said.
More: Big 12 baseball tournament: Texas Tech, other teams at a glance
During the regular season, the Big 12 series schedule format is Friday through Sunday, but the final regular-season series was Thursday through Saturday and the conference tournament starts Wednesday.
"It's just such a quick turnaround," Tadlock said. "Even moving last week's series up, we didn't want to move up Morris and (Birdsell) again. There's no reason to do that. So to me, you've always wanted to come in here and start your Tuesday guy and get a good start out of him and then go from there."
Since the tournament's inception in 1997, it's been played at Oklahoma City in all but four years: 2002 and 2004 at the Rangers' old ballpark in Arlington, 2015 in Tulsa, Oklahoma and 2020 when it was canceled because of the COVID outbreak.
This is its first year at Globe Life Field.
"Any big-league park you go to, it's going to be fun," Jung said. "It's not every day you get to show up and play like this in a Big 12 tournament and a Big 12 team like this."
Red Raiders honored
Tech righthander Brandon Birdsell was named pitcher of the year on the all-Big 12 team announced Tuesday, and catcher Hudson White was named freshman of the year.
Tech had Birdsell and second baseman Jace Jung on the first team and White, first baseman Cole Stilwell, shortstop Kurt Wilson, left fielder Easton Murrell and pitcher Andrew Morris on the second team.
Red Raiders receiving honorable mention were relief pitcher Derek Bridges, designated hitter Ty Coleman, third baseman Parker Kelly and right fielder Owen Washburn. On the all-freshman team were Washburn, White and pitcher Mason Molina.
Big 12 head coaches selected the teams and were not allowed to vote for their own players. Texas designated hitter Ivan Melendez was voted player of the year, and Oklahoma first baseman Blake Robertson was newcomer of the year.
The coach of the year vote went to TCU's Kirk Saarloos, who led the Horned Frogs to the conference championship in his first season. He took over after Jim Schlossnagle, who led the Horned Frogs to five College World Series, departed for Texas A&M.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Eye on the prize: More than usual, Tech needs strong showing at Big 12 tournament
