Ku baseball is back at work after a weekend that changed the program’s standard. Kansas won two of three games at BYU over the weekend of May 15, finished the regular season 39-16 and claimed its first regular-season league title since 1949. That left the Jayhawks with a No. 1 seed and a double bye for the Big 12 tournament, and they will start their postseason run Thursday against Baylor.
First pitch is set for 2:30 p.m. Central time at Surprise Stadium in Surprise, Arizona, with the game televised on ESPNU. Kansas will have to win three straight games to take the tournament crown, beginning with No. 8 seed Baylor, which earned the matchup by beating BYU 13-9. For a team that has spent the week hearing how far it has already come, the next step is simple: keep winning.
Tyson LeBlanc, one of Kansas’s two first-team all-league selections and the team’s top offensive player in most categories this season, said the group has built itself for this kind of stretch. “The toughest team always wins,” he said. “The guys who don’t give up when stuff’s not falling their way, those teams are going to win, and we have all the makeup to do that this year.”
Dan Fitzgerald was named the Big 12 coach of the year, a fitting marker for a season in which Kansas moved from promising to proven. He has spent the week framing the regular season as only one piece of a larger climb. “You know, you’ve got multiple opportunities for championships throughout the year, one being the regular season, two being the conference tournament, and then they grow from there,” Fitzgerald said.
Kansas returned to work Tuesday, May 19, and the tone around the program was closer to business than celebration. Mason Cook said the league title mattered, but only for a moment. “It just feels like another day, you know?” he said. “Winning the championship is awesome. You just got to get back to work.”
The tournament setting should fit the team’s mood. Cook said he expects the conditions in Surprise to be a factor, and one he welcomes. “I think it’s going to be awesome,” he said. “I think it’ll be hot. I like hot. You know, I’m from Texas. I like it to be hot.”
The bigger picture reaches beyond this week. Kansas was projected by Baseball America and D1Baseball as a top-16 seed this week, and a victory Thursday could be enough to push the Jayhawks into position to host an NCAA regional at Hoglund Ballpark. That possibility comes with a strange backdrop: a large chunk of the outfield wall has been removed, and left field is mostly missing, replaced by a chain-link fence near Naismith Drive.
Fitzgerald said the changes have only sharpened the connection between the team and its home field. “There’s no place like this place, and playing here is an incredible home-field advantage,” he said. “Our student section is the greatest student section in college baseball, and our fans have been incredible.” He added that the school has opened more seating and added options on the third-base side, saying, “So yeah, it’s going to be awesome, and we need to take care of business to make sure it happens.”
For Kansas, that is the point now. The title is secure, the seed is in hand and the path is clear. If the Jayhawks want the season to stretch into June at home, they have to start by handling Baylor on Thursday and then win two more times after that.
