The Oklahoma Sooners softball team is gearing up for the 2013 NCAA Division I Softball Championship which kicks off regional on Friday in Norman. The Sooners enter the tournament as the No. 1 overall seed, after winning the Big 12 this past weekend.

The Sooners only had four losses the entire season and finished with a 47-4 record and 15-2 in Big 12 play. They have held onto the No. 1 spot for the last nine weeks.

On Friday, the Norman regional will play host to Arkansas, Marist and Fordham. The only team out of the three the Sooners don’t have a playing history against is Marist. They are 2-0 against Fordham and 16-2 all-time against Arkansas.

The schedule for this weekend is as follows:

On Tuesday, the Big 12 handed out the postseason hardware and the Sooners had their hands full afterwards. Patty Gasso was named Coach of the Year, again. Keilani Ricketts took home Pitcher of the Year while Shelby Pendley was named Player of the Year.

Besides the big awards the Sooners also had five players on the All-Big 12 First Team, two players on the All-Big 12 Second Team and four on the All-Big 12 Defensive Team.

The regional will air all games on ESPN3.

The Big 12 conference announced on Saturday their All-Big 12 men’s basketball teams and three Oklahoma Sooners made the cut.

Amath M’Baye, Steven Pledger and Romero Osby were all three named to the team with Osby being selected to the first-team. Both M’Baye and Pledger were selected for third-team. Osby is the first Sooner to be selected to the conference first-team since Blake Griffin in 2009.

Osby led the Sooners in scoring in 13 of the 18 Big 12 games they played in. Osby hit 20 points six times in Big 12 play, and had at least 26 points three times.  He scored a career-high 31 points Feb. 27 against Texas.

M’Baye averaged 10-points and 5.3 rebounds a game to rank third and second on the team. M’Baye received Rookie of the Week honors twice from the Big 12 this season.

Pledger ranks second on the team with 12-points per game. He is also the best perimeter shooter the Sooners have on the roster. Pledger also ranks in second of all-time when it comes to the three-point range, averaging 16-points per game in the last seven games of the season.

The Big 12 tournament starts this week in Kansas City and the Sooners are entering in as a four-seed. They will take on Iowa State first, who is a five-seed on Thursday morning at 11:30 CST.

Conference play has started for Big 12 Basketball and the Oklahoma Sooners are hosting a men’s and women’s double header on Saturday in Norman.

The men’s team will be hosting a Bedlam match-up between Oklahoma State, who is 11-3 and 1-1 in conference. The Sooners are 10-3 and 1-0 in conference, beating WVU in game one. The last eight times they have played in Norman, the Sooners have won eight straight. And as always when it comes to Bedlam, own the series. This is the men’s home-opener for the season.

The women are playing host to Texas Tech, who are 12-3 and 2-1 in conference. They lady Sooners are 3-0 in conference play and 13-2 on the season. Their last win came on the road against TCU, 85-79. The No. 16 Sooners have done well, even without one of their stars, Whitney Hand-Jones. Out of the last 15 match-ups with the Red Raiders, the Sooners have taken 14 of those.

The men will tip off first, at 2:00 PM, followed by the women at 7:00 on Saturday. Both games are being played at the Lloyd Noble Center.

I’m not a fan of sharing a title with other teams, especially when the other team beat your team outright, but that’s whats happening. There isn’t really a way around it with how the Big 12 is set up now, so there can’t do anything about it. So a title is a title and I’ll take it. If the Longhorns pull of a miracle tonight against the Wildcats, then they will win it outright, but I’m not sure that will be happening.

The Oklahoma Sooners beat the TCU Horned Frogs on Saturday in Fort Worth to finish the regular season 10-2 and 8-1 in conference play. The win could possibly have got them an invite to a BCS bowl, since Kent State lost last night in a MACtion showdown against Norther Illinois. If the Golden Flashes would have won, they would have been the first team from the non-AQ MAC to make it to the BCS.

It seemed the football Gods were wanting a little change up this week: the defense finally showed up this week for being almost non-existent over the last couple week. The offense has been outstanding lately and it was reversed today. They held the Frogs rushing game to only 117 yards and a total offense of only 350 yards. If you have been watching the last couple of games, this is a MAJOR improvement.

QB Landry Jones also didn’t have the 500+ game has had over the last couple of weeks. He was held to 244 yards and 2 touchdowns. RB Damien Williams went beast and had two touchdowns, one receiving and one through the air.

The wind had a huge factor on what happened in the kicking game, as both team’s kickers went 1-2.

It was close right up until the end, where TCU had a chance to tie it up, but came up short with a possible touchdown play broken up by, of course, Tony Jefferson.

The Sooners will find out on Sunday which bowl they will attending for post season play. But congrats, Sooner Nation on the 10-2 season. And a big thank you to all the seniors that played their hearts out.

Both the Baylor Bears basketball teams are being looked at by the NCAA following an investigation. The investigation has so far turned up more than 1200 illegal phone calls and text messages over a 29-month period.

Mens head coach Scott Drew and womens head coach Kim Mulkey were involved in the calls/texts as well as their assistants. The 66-page report was looking at several of the University’s programs, but was mainly focused on the phone calls and text messages that were happening quite frequently. The NCAA violation staff has labeled it as “major violations.”

Baylor Women after winning the 2012 National Championship

The NCAA investigation started back in 2008, and since then, Baylor has self-imposed several penalties. The investigation was originally started by the NCAA due to recruiting of Brittney Griner. Griner was one of the major players in boosting the Baylor womens team to win the National Title less than a month ago.

According to the report, Drew and Mulkey have acknowledged their involvement in the findings. Both of them are also  at risk for a show-cause penalty. Show-Cause penalty  means any penalties will remain on record and follow them to any school they coach at. Schools wishing to hire them would have to “show cause” as to why they shouldn’t inherit the penalties.

Baylor has had an amazing sports year: a Hesiman trophy winning QB that NFL teams are salivating over, the men’s basketball team made it to the Elite Eight and the women won the National Championship and became the first team (men or women) to go 40-0.

The punishment is now in the hands of the NCAA. They could accept Baylor’s self-imposed penalties and call it a day or they could further punish them. Both coaches could receive the same penalty that the former Sooner coach, Kelvin Sampson received. Sampson was limited to making off-campus visits and phone calls for one year at Indiana for the 577 illegal phone calls he made while in Norman. Thanks again for that mess, Kelvin.

Either way, its bad news bears.

Update: The NCAA has accepted Baylor’s self-imposed penalties. You can read the letter from the NCAA to Baylor President, Ken Starr here.

Oklahoma Head Coach Bob Stoops with Texas Head Coach Mack Brown

Who said college football rivalries were innocent fun?

Last night in San Antonio, Texas, an actual knife fight broke out… At an Applebee’s restaurant of all places.

The fight was between a Texas Longhorn fan and Oklahoma Sooner fan. Apparently the two exchanged words and the Sooner fan pulled out a knife. During the struggle, the Oklahoma fan ended up stabbing himself with his own blade….

The Longhorn fan also sustained injuries during the struggle. Both were taken to the hospital and the Horn is in stable condition and the Sooner is still in critical.

No arrests have been made yet.

Did I mention this was at an Applebee’s?

There is nothing else I can say to this except… How embarrassing…

Bricktown Ballpark is the home to the Oklahoma City RedHawks, a minor team affiliate of the Houston Astros

The Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship kicks off this Wednesday at Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City, Okla.

The Championship game finally returns to the much preferred double elimination format. Since 2005 the tournament was using a two-division, pool play style format.

The Sooners are the number 3 seeded team in the Big 12. They will take on the 6th seeded Kansas State Wildcats Wednesday at 7:30 P.M.

Oklahoma ended the season with 40-15 record overall and 14-11 in Big 12 overall. OU is 24-23 all-time in the Big 12 Tournament and won the first ever Big 12 Championship back in 1997.

The Sooners are entering the tournament coming off a 2-1 loss this weekend in a series against Baylor.

In other recent Sooner baseball news, Junior catcher Tyler Ogle was named as one of the 13 semi- finalists for the Johnny Bench Award. The Bench Award is given to college baseball’s top catcher. The last Sooner to win the award was J. T. Wise in 2009.

To view a complete Big 12 Championship bracket, click here.

No surprise after last weekends performance at the Big 12 Track and Field Championship, Sooner Mookie Salaam is named Big 12 T & F Athlete of the Year.

Salaam is now the first Big 12 athlete to win both indoor and outdoor track athlete of the year honors in the same year.

As already reported, Salaam broke the the U.S. record at the Big 12 T&F Championship in the the 200-meter with a 20.05. He is now the second-fastest in the World in the 200-meter.

Mookie comes from a family of runners. His father was a long distance runner at Grambling, and his grandfather was an Olympic qualifying sprinter.

Salaam says about the future:

“I’d love to run in the Olympics someday, my family, my grandpa, who’s still alive. … they’re looking to me to finish it.”

With his speed, and recent accomplishments, he definitely will get a glance from the Olympic Team.

Salaam is now headed to Eugene, Oregon  for the NCAA West Preliminary Round. The Prelims are the qualifier for the NCAA Championship that is in Des Moines, Iowa starting in June.

Sooner Sprinter Mookie Salaam

At the Big 12 Track and Field Championship this past weekend, Sooner sprinter Mookie Salaam  was a record breaker.

Salaam ran the 200-meter dash in 20.05, breaking the current U.S. record.

His time pushed him to the number one spot in America and number two world wide.

Along with breaking the current U.S. record, Salaam also broke the Big 12 Championship record.

He also won the 100-meter with a time of 10.23.

Salaam said about his record breaking run:

Just to be only 21-years old and still be in that category with those guys, It’s tremendous and a blessing.

I ran pretty good out here, To be able to come out here and show the world the talent that God has blessed me with. To have my family and friends in the crowd always helps.

Mookie now has Regionals and Nationals left for the season.

The Sooner Track and Field team ended up 3rd overall in both men and womens events. Texas A&M ended up sweeping 1st in both the categories.

Graduation is happy time of year for most college students.

You get to see all those caffeine fueled late nights of studying come full circle. All those classes you didn’t want to take, but needed for your degree plan; they were actually worth it.

But for some, that feeling of achievement never comes. And looking at these graduation rates for the Big 12, a lot of them are athletes.

The graduating percentages for football in the Big 12 are as follows:

University of Missouri 71%
Kansas State University 69%
Texas Tech University 69%
University of Nebraska 68%
Baylor University 64%
Iowa State University 64%
University of Colorado 59%
Oklahoma State University 59%
Texas A&M University 57%
University of Kansas 56%
University of Texas 49%
University of Oklahoma 44%

Oklahoma and Texas have some of the lowest graduating rates in the Nation under the football category. And Oklahoma is the clear winner in being the worst among BCS schools.

» Continue reading “Paging Senator Blutarsky: Big 12 Football Graduation Rates”