Oklahoma will not go on to the super regional round after they fell Monday night to UConn 7-1 in the Norman Regional championship game.
Despite an earlier exit than the Sooners hoped, 2024 featured another terrific season for OU baseball as they won the Big 12 regular season and hosted their own regional as the No. 9 overall seed. As they venture into new territory as an SEC team next year, head coach Skip Johnson is fully confident in the direction of the program.
He said as much after the loss when asked.
“Oh absolutely. I mean, you can’t hang your head down. We lost in the championship of the regional,” Johnson answered about looking to compete in the SEC next season.
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2024 is still a wildly successful season in Johnson’s eyes, even though for him, the goal is to put Oklahoma in a position to compete for the College World Series on a yearly basis.
“Our watermark and what we plan and my vision was to go to Omaha every year, and that’s what we practice every day for, to win the last game of the year.”
The Oklahoma coach doesn’t think those goals will change, and believe he has full support from the school to contend in the best baseball league in America.
“I think, with our support staff and Joe (Castiglione) at the head of it, I mean, you can’t ask for a better athletic director and a sport administrator with (Greg) Tipton.”
Johnson even notes that a new baseball facility could be in the works: “So, their plans are to build a facility. When it’s built, who knows, but we’re not worried about that.”
That Oklahoma is worried about is maintaining their winning culture into next season and beyond as an SEC program.
“Our culture is really good. We get after it and play hard and that’s what we’re about, and we’re about life lessons.”
The UConn loss will certainly serve as a tough lesson for the Sooner players, who were very close to getting to play another series this coming weekend with a trip to Omaha on the line. Instead, they’ll turn their focus towards a year of drastic next spring.
Just for reference, here’s a few quick notes illustrate all that needs to be said about the SEC’s current stranglehold on baseball:
Two SEC teams played in last year’s championship series — LSU topped Florida. That makes four straight SEC teams to win baseball’s national title and five of six since 2017. Those five were all different, too, including the Tigers in 2023 as well as Florida back in ’17, Vanderbilt in ’19, Mississippi State in ’21 and then their rival Ole Miss in ’22.
Maybe Oklahoma can join the mix in the coming years.
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