It’s hard to believe, but the Wichita State baseball team somehow managed to play well enough when it mattered most to win the Missouri Valley Conference tournament championship.
That automatically gets the Shockers into the NCAA tournament.
WSU beat Creighton, the nation’s best defensive team - it had the second-best fielding percentage in NCAA history - mainly by pure luck. Creighton stranded a tournament-record 17 runners; it left the bases loaded four times.
The Shockers’ reward? Having to stay alive by coming out of the Regional that includes No. 7 Oklahoma, the Shockers’ first opponent.
A little more than a month ago, it seemed impossible they even would make the postseason. The Shockers endured two routs by those same Sooners and had the longest losing streak in coach Gene Stephenson’s long-tenured career of eight games.
Offensively they were terrible. The Shockers couldn’t score consistently against anybody.
The Shockers don’t deserve to advance to the Super Regional round, but that doesn’t matter, anymore. That’s the beauty of the college postseason. There’s always a chance to make up for all the wrongs throughout the year.
For any other team, just getting to where the Shockers are after the brutal season they had would be enough of an accomplishment. But not for WSU. The Shockers always have those high standards, and they somehow could keep this momentum they have deeper into the postseason.
Hawks in—The Kansas Jayhawks caught a tough break by being put in the same bracket as No. 4 overall seed North Carolina. KU has had several significant wins against a loaded Big XII this season, including a sweep of Texas, the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, early in the conference season. The conference sent eight teams to the postseason.
If the Jayhawks want to put themselves on the map and prove they are no fluke, this is a great chance to do so.
