The Texas Longhorns out-powered the Baylor bats on Thursday night as the Longhorns defeated BU, 16-8. The loss against Texas coupled with their first-game loss againt the Nebraska Cornhuskers assures Baylor that they cannot advance out of their pool.
The complete Big 12 Tournament schedule and explanation of the new divisional format for the tournament are below.
FULL SCHEDULE
WEDNESDAY, MAY 24
Game 1: #4 Nebraska vs. #5 Baylor, 10 a.m.
Game 2: #1 Texas vs. #8 Texas Tech, 1 p.m.
Game 3: #3 Oklahoma vs. #6 Kansas, 5 p.m.
Game 4: #2 Oklahoma State vs. #7 Missouri
THURSDAY, MAY 25
Game 6: #1 Texas vs. #5 Baylor, 5 p.m.
Game 7: #4 Nebraska vs. #8 Texas Tech, 8 p.m.
FRIDAY, MAY 26
Game 8: #3 Oklahoma vs. #7 Missouri, 5 p.m.
Game 9: #2 Oklahoma State vs. #6 Kansas, 8 p.m.
SATURDAY, MAY 27
Game 10: #5 Baylor vs. #8 Texas Tech, 10 a.m.
Game 11: #1 Texas vs. #4 Nebraska, 1 p.m.
Game 12: #2 Oklahoma State vs. #3 Oklahoma, 5 p.m.
Game 13: #6 Kansas vs. #7 Missouri, 8 p.m.
SUNDAY, MAY 28
Championship Game: Division 1 winner vs. Division 2 winner, 1 p.m.
Details on how the new format works per Big12Sports.com
In a trend-setting development, the 2006 Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship takes on a new life with a first-ever pool-play format among the eight competing teams.
From 1999-05 the meet sported eight teams after the NCAA Regional field expanded to 64 schools prior to '99. The conference followed the NCAA World Series example and had two different brackets, which played down in double-elimination format into a nationally-televised (FSN) Sunday finale.
This year's schedule features none of the "if necessary" contests and no "two and barbecue" situations. Each of the eight teams will play a minimum of three contests, and the teams which win Division 1 and Division 2 tangle Sunday in the finals.
Division 1 consists of the Nos. 1-4-5-8 seeds while Division 2 is the Nos. 2-3-6-7 seeds through the 27-game Big 12 round-robin format (nine three-game series). League coaches have noted that the pool format (similar to Olympic, international and World Baseball Classic competition) gives teams time to prepare their pitching staffs for a maximum of four games over four days. The old double-elimination format allowed some teams to go to the finals with a 3-0 record while others had to fight their way through the losers' bracket and play a sixth game in four days.
Nebraska (2000, '05) and Texas (2002, '03) earned their postseason championship trophies "the hard way" with a fifth win and gave fans of the joust plenty of bonus baseball action.
This year's determining factors in a situation where three teams in a division are 2-1 while the other school is 0-3 is, first, head-to-head competition, and, second, how the teams finished in the regular-season Big 12 race. It could become interesting before Saturday's four contests, which in the past could have been between two and four tilts in the double-elimination competition.
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