Well, sure, there are plenty of basketball fans of the Big 12 who are ready for a great weekend of hoops, but a lot of the Big 12 has moved on. It's now baseball season. And who better than Kendall Rogers joining us, the managing editor of D1Baseball.com. If you are a college baseball fan or if you want to become a college baseball fan,

these guys have all the information that you need at d1baseball.com.

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So Kendall, let's just look at this from the standpoint of the Big 12. We're a couple of weeks into conference play. What's standing out to you right now about this league in this conference? Yeah, I mean, first of all, thanks for having me. But I think looking at this league as a whole, I think the first thing that kind of stands out to me is just the sheer depth. I mean, I think if you look at this conference, you know, from a 30,000-foot view, you know, you think about a team like Arizona who's preseason ranked, you know, they've had some injuries and things like that, which is why they're kind of where they are. But, you know, you've got Arizona sitting at two and four, Baylor, TCU. I saw Baylor in Houston a few weeks ago at the Astros ballpark.

I really liked Mitch Thompson's club. But again, they're two and four at TCU, preseason national championship contender. Again, they've dealt with some injuries. They're sitting at two and four. Then you have Oakland State, who we always know is supremely talented. They're sitting at two and four. then you look at the top of the league, you know, West Virginia, Steve Savants, continues to do an awesome job. You know, Rich Wallace and UCF, you know, coming off back-to-back conference series wins. Arizona State, it kind of feels like they finally have figured out that formula that, you know, that they've been kind of looking for the last

couple of years. And of course, you've got a team like Cincinnati in Quentin Coats,

their power hitter, who has the nation's leading 19 homers this season. So in essence,

this league is really deep right now. So all right, you mentioned that the standings are,

I don't want to say

upside down, but there are teams that you thought would be competitive that just aren't, or

they're not winning early on in league play. Is there a theme as, you mentioned some of the things

there regarding injuries, but is there a theme why you think that's happening so far?

Well, I think two, kind of twofold.

I think one, I think this league is super deep. I think the other thing is injuries. I mean, if you look at Oklahoma State, for instance, I want to say Hudson Barrett didn't return the other night through two or three innings out of the bullpen. But, you know, they had been without Hudson Barrett, one of their weekends starters Oklahoma State that is, you know, for a couple of weeks.

So that's kind of hurt them.

TCU, you know, they've just been killed by injuries this year. I mean, Noah Franca, one of the top players in the conference continues to be out with an oblique injury. Tommy LaPore, you know, who's their Friday night starter and all American, preseason all American, he's out for another six, seven weeks. So, I mean, you know, when you don't have guys like that, and you look at Arizona without Tony Pluto, first team, All-American reliever, man, it's tough. And so I think injuries have been a big part of that. But I also think if you look at the top half of the league, I mean, we just mentioned, you know, Quentin Coates in Cincinnati, you know, Jordan Bichael continue to do a nice job.

You know, Texas Tech. think if you look at the top half of the league i mean we just mentioned you know quentin codes in cincinnati you know jordan bischel continued to do a nice job you know texas tech you know still have some question marks of the pitching with tech but there's no doubt when you look at kate and four r and you know leakin garcia talented freshmen uh they continue to hit at a pretty high level they're sitting at four and two uh I think UCS probably been a little bit better than expected than West Virginia is kind of who we thought they would be. You know, they're sitting at 17 to 4, 5 and 1 in the league. You know, it's just kind of these days in, you know, Morgan Town, it's kind of wash, rinse, and repeat. So I think for me, it's just injuries and, you know, this league's probably a little deeper

than last year. Okay. So at the top of the league, you mentioned West Virginia UCF. I mean,

it's early, but they're both off the five and one starts in league play. Which one is West Virginia

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