Wildcats took 2 of 3 from Cougars in Provo
When the Pac-12 debuted its conference tournament in 2022, coinciding with Chip Hale’s first season at Arizona, it was a double-elimination format. The next two years it featured pool play, with every team guaranteed at least two games and a wild card system needed to determine who advanced.
The Wildcats’ move to the Big 12 brings another conference tourney format change, but one that’s far simpler to understand. The 12-team bracket, which began Wednesday morning at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, is single elimination, and as the No. 4 seed the UA earned a bye into Thursday’s quarterfinals.
“I’m excited that it’s clear going to the Big 12,” second baseman Garen Caulfield said. “It’s like, you either win or you go home. So there’s not much brain power that goes into finding out who you’re playing or if you’re even going to play.”
Arizona (36-18) opens play against No. 12 seed BYU, which beat No. 5 ASU 2-0 in the first round. The Wildcats took two of three from the Cougars (28-26) in April.
“BYU is an interesting team to us,” Hale said. “They came out and really stuck it to us the first night up in in Provo.”
That’s the only game that’s guaranteed for the Wildcats, but if they win Thursday they’ll get another in Friday’s semifinals. The title game is Saturday afternoon, and reaching it would make the Big 12 tourney feel like a regular weekend series just with different opponents each time.
“We’re approaching it to win,” Hale said of Arizona’s plan for the tournament. “We just want to win, like it’s basically a 3-game series with the single elimination, it kind of works out nice for us, since we have the first day off. We’d like all of our starters to pitch.”
Sophomore Owen Kramkowski (7-5, 5.45) will start against BYU, with senior Raul Garayzar (1-0, 2.45) in line for the semifinals and freshman Smith Bailey (2-3, 4.52) for the final. Garayzar and Bailey are coming off stellar performances at Houston, combining to allow two runs in 10.2 innings as Arizona won the final two games of that series to lock up the conference tourney bye.
“We want to win that first game so we can get Garayzar a start, and we want to win that one to give Smith a start, because don’t want to wait two weeks for them to pitch,” Hale said. “If we have to go home and play intrasquad, we’ll do that. But let’s play all three at Globe Life.”
Arizona is returning to the stadium where it began the season but did not fare well in the Shriners Children’s College Classic. After a tight 2-1 loss to Ole Miss the Wildcats were outscored 29-6 by Clemson and Louisville.
Kramkowski started against Louisville, his first collegiate start, and didn’t make it out of the 1st inning. He said that performance helped him learn so much that he’s used the rest of the season.
“This stadium is so sick I don’t even think that I’ll be thinking much about that game,” he said. “Obviously, that happened there, but it’s so sick to play there, I’m not trying to think about that as I’m heading in there. That part of the season is behind me.”
Having a short memory is imperative for pitchers, and Kramkowski is coming off a couple rough ones. Since being moved to the No. 1 slot in the rotation he’s allowed 16 runs (14 earned) in 14.1 innings over three starts, going 0-2, compared to a 4-0 record with a 2.70 ERA in four April starts.
“I think the game has sped up on me a bit, so it’s just kind of getting back to that feeling of just slowing it down, feeling that confidence again and just playing freely is really the biggest thing for me right now,” he said. “It’s just also understanding that I’m going to have those outings and those things are going to have for my career.”
Arizona is one of four schools in the Big 12 tourney field that played at Globe Life during the regular season. Oklahoma State was also in the Shriners tournament, while Baylor and Kansas State spent weekends there as well during nonconference play.
“Going into new stadiums is kind of difficult, so I think us playing three games there will be really beneficial to us,” sophomore Andrew Cain said. “The lights are very big and bright in there. The backdrop is a little different. It’s indoors as well. Stuff like that definitely plays a plays a part in how you see the ball and how you move and things like that.”
Cain heads into the postseason on a tear, with seven hits including three doubles and three home runs, with six RBI and eight runs scored in his last four starts. In his previous 34 games he was hitting .228 with two homers and 14 RBI.
“That’s exactly what we’ve been waiting for,” Hale said of Cain, who was projected to be the everyday DH (or spelling Tommy Splaine at first base if Splaine was catching) but started only 28 of 54 games. “Some of it’s on us. This is one of the hard things about coaching in college is … it’s hard to just leave guys in there who aren’t producing. You got to win every game. Andrew was in, Andrew was out, he was in against righties, out against lefties. And pretty much now it’s like, he’s too important. And we knew that, we knew that for us to go to where we want to go in the playoffs and get to Omaha, Andrew Cain has got to be a big part of it.”
As the No. 4 seed, Arizona would play in the first game of each day as long as it’s alive. That means a 7 a.m. PT start for the quarterfinal, which is 9 a.m. in Texas.
To combat that time difference, Hale has been getting the team up early for breakfast each day before practice. The Wildcats worked out at UT-Arlington on Monday and Dallas Baptist on Wednesday with a scheduled practice time on Tuesday afternoon at Globe Life.
Finishing the regular season at Houston has also made the transition with time zones easier to deal with.
“This is the only game that you know what time the game is gonna really start, which is nice, so you can set it up,” Hale said. “We’re trying our best to kind of match the time.”
Injury update
Arizona has been unable to stay healthy this season, and the final weekend was no different. Junior third baseman Maddox Mihalakis sat out the finale after his back tightened up on the bus trip to Houston’s stadium and sophomore left fielder Easton Breyfogle—who is 8 for his last 17 with two homers and eight RBI—hurt his left shoulder on a headfirst slide home and had to come out.
Hale is hoping Mihalakis’ situation was due to the hard turf surface in Houston, combined with Mihalakis making a couple stellar diving defensive plays the night before. He expects Mihalakis to play Thursday.
Breyfogle may be a little more iffy, and if he can’t go Cain would play left field.
NCAA Tournament outlook
D1Baseball.com’s pre-conference tournament projection has Arizona headed to Baton Rouge, where it would play in a regional hosted by LSU and former UA coach Jay Johnson. That’s despite former Pac-12 schools Oregon, Oregon State and UCLA all projected as hosts, and since they’re no longer in the same league the Wildcats could be sent there.
“I felt like, as soon as the Pac-12 broke up, I felt like they were going to put a regional together with everybody from the old Pac-12,” Hale said. “We’re good wherever we go, I think we we played well when we went to Miami, we didn’t play well when we went to Arkansas. It had nothing to do with where we went, just was how we played. And maybe the matchups.”
Arizona hosted a regional last year, going 0-2, and was in contention to host again this season before losing a home series to Utah two weeks ago. The Wildcats entered Wednesday at No. 35 in the RPI and would move up quite a bit if they won the conference tournament, but maybe not enough to get back into the hosting discussion.
“I don’t think it’s out of the question,” Hale said. “If we win this tournament, the way everybody across the country has sort of faltered the last weekend, a little bit, there’s a chance. Are you not going to give the Big 12 a host?”