Cowboys Out in Latest NCAA Baseball Tournament Field Projections

For the first time since 2013, when Josh Holliday arrived in Stillwater to run the baseball program, Oklahoma State is in danger of not making the postseason.

It’s been an impressive start to his tenure in Stillwater, reaching at least an NCAA regional in his first four years running the program. However, the streak is close to ending after OSU dropped their midweek game to ORU on Tuesday.

The loss dropped the Cowboys’ overall record to 23-18.

As of now, OSU is not projected as one of the 64 teams to reach an NCAA Regional by either D1Baseball.com or baseballamerica.com.

D1 Baseball doesn’t have Oklahoma State anywhere in the field of 64 teams, while Baseball America has the Cowboys as one of the First-Four Out along with Louisiana-Lafayette, Florida Atlantic, and San Diego.

D1Baseball (which is a great site for college baseball fans) has OSU at No. 51 in the RPI behind Dallas Baptist and ahead of Mercer and Washington.

The Cowboys do have some positives, like their strength of schedule (28th) and record against the Top-50 (11-9). To me the real problem is their record against the RPI teams 100 and lower (10-6) and conference record (6-11).

In theory, OSU isn’t completely out of it just yet.

There are 10 game remaining on the regular season schedule plus the Big 12 Championship (so long as OSU doesn’t finish last in conference play). Of those 10 games six come against teams in the Top-30 in RPI; Baylor (3) and Oklahoma (3). OSU also has another game against ORU (RPI 111) in Tulsa, and three games this weekend against Lamar (RPI 146). If OSU can get on a run against Lamar and win both remaining Big 12 series, they could play their way back into the postseason for a fifth straight year.

However, drop a game against Lamar and lose one (or worse, both) Big 12 series and the Cowboys will be staying home for the first time under Josh Holliday.

Buckle up Cowboy fans, it’s going to be a nerve-wracking end to the season.