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Daily Bullets (May 31): Cowboys to Face Crimson Tide in Winners Bracket of Tuscaloosa Regional5/31/2026
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Thanks for stopping by – here’s your daily dose of Oklahoma State sports news. OSU Bullets• Cowboys Landon Robideau and Dreshaun Ross (incoming freshman) won that the U20 World Team Trials on Friday to earn a trip to Slovakia. [PFB] • With all the 24-team playoff chatter, Tyler went back and looked at what an expanded field would mean for the Big 12 and OSU. [PFB] • The OSU baseball team dropped its Regional Opener against USC-Upstate. The Cowboys play Alabama State at 1 p.m. Saturday in a do-or-die game. [PFB]
Non-OSU Bullets• Game 7 is tonight and I’m nervous. ESPN had 14 of its insiders pick the game, and they split 7-7. [ESPN] • There’s a 6-foot-9 high school pitcher who throws 101. [CBS Sports] 
Read this original article at Pistols Firing Blog.
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The Cowboys found themselves behind the proverbial 8 ball essentially at the very start of the Tuscaloosa Regional. Oklahoma State dropped its Regional opener to USC-Upstate 8-5 on Friday, pushing the Pokes to the loser’s bracket in Tuscaloosa. OSU had a chance late, loading the bases in the bottom of the ninth with one out before back-to-back looking strikeouts ended the game. That was one of three times the Cowboys left them loaded, with 13 Cowboys being stranded overall. Ethan Lund has probably been the most consistent piece of the Cowboys’ pitching staff this season, but he didn’t have his best stuff Friday. The Spartans had two runs before even putting a ball in play. Lund walked the first four batters he faced, a stretch that included runners scoring on a wild pitch and then a passed ball. Lund then forced a double-play, but another run scored in that process to make it 3-0 in the top of the first. Then a wild pitch with a runner on third in the top of the second gave Upstate a 4-0 lead. The Cowboy offense would respond. The Pokes plated four in the bottom of the second. The first run came via an Evan Saunders single to left that scored Campbell Smithwick. Saunders got the start at third base because, as the broadcast noted, Aidan Meola suffered a hand/wrist injury in practice leading up to the Regional. Meola is one of the Cowboys’ best players but has dealt with a ridiculous amount of injuries in his college career. After Saunders’ single, freshman Remo Indomencio sent the first pitch he saw over the fence in right. It was a three-run shot that tied the ballgame at 4.
But Lund’s rough day would continue as he gave up a single and hit a batter in the second, which ended his day. The Cowboys brought Stormy Rhodes out of the bullpen with two down in the top of the third, but he gave up an RBI single on his third pitch, giving Upstate the lead back at 5-4. That run counted on Lund’s stat line, as he finished his outing giving up five runs on four hits while walking three and hitting another in 2 2/3 innings. The Spartans made it 6-4 in the fourth before the Cowboys got back on the board in the bottom of the fifth off a Garrett Shull double. But then Upstate got some insurance in the eighth with a two-RBI single to left. Rhodes did good to get through the game, as the Cowboys will need all the fresh arms they can get with now a longer road to Supers because of the loss. He threw 6 1/3, giving up three runs on four hits while hitting one and striking out six. The Cowboys will play the loser of Alabama and Alabama State at 1 p.m. (Central) on Saturday in a do-or-die game.
Read this original article at Pistols Firing Blog.
On Friday, Big 12 football coaches voted unanimously in favor of a 24-team playoff. Whether college football gets there or if that kind of expansion is even good for the sport remains heavily debated. It might be surprising, but that kind of expansion makes a lot of sense for the conference (more on Oklahoma State specifically in a bit). Here’s what a 24-team playoff would have looked like the last two seasons broken down by conference: From an overall representation standpoint, the Big 12 is somewhat surprisingly close to the Big Ten given the gap in resources. That gap makes itself more widely known when looking at which teams would receive a top 12 seed, and in theory be favored to advance to round two in most formats. Importantly for the conference, the Big 12 holds a slight edge on the ACC in both overall teams and in top seeds. So the current lineup can currently claim third place on the shrinking mountain top of power conference football. So that could explain why the coaches voted the way they did, but would this move actually help Oklahoma State more than other schools? That depends largely on if you think Eric Morris can get the Pokes back on track to the level they were playing at before things derailed in 2024. It’s true that playoff expansion will help almost every team make the playoffs more, but history says few programs benefit like OSU. Sporting News mapped out how many playoff appearances every team would have if the 24-team playoff started when the four-team format began back in 2014. From there we can calculate that 10 teams would have cracked the field an additional four-plus times, including Oklahoma State. Note: All the numbers below pretend that the 12-team format began in 2014. For example, we know Oklahoma State didn’t go to the playoffs when they finished ninth in 2021, but since the chart is trying to show who benefits more from 24 compared to the current system, it pretends OSU has one CFP appearance.
The Cowboys also finished inside the top 19 of the BCS rankings, but outside the top 12 during four of the last six years of that system (2008-13), so it seems safe to say the Pokes would have likely made the field each of those seasons as well as 2011 when they finished third. Although the format of a 24-team playoff remains undecided, the Big Ten started this conversation and is proposing a model which grants the top eight seeds a bye while seeds 9-16 would host the first round. Then the top eight would host the second round. While this look in the rearview mirror doesn’t mean anything to Oklahoma State in 2026, it does potentially highlight what Morris could build in Stillwater. In this alternate universe the Cowboys would have hosted seven times between 2008 and 2023 with the second-round pairing in 2011 being especially sweet for OSU fans. Here’s a look at what Oklahoma State’s 11 playoff games might have looked like dating back to 2008 starting with the most recent. 2023 2021 2020 2016 2015 2013 2011 2010 2009 2008
Read this original article at Pistols Firing Blog.
Thanks for stopping by – here’s your daily dose of Oklahoma State sports news. OSU Bullets• The Tuscaloosa Regional starts today. Oklahoma State plays USC-Update at 1 p.m. (Central) on ESPN+. Scott Wright wrote this excellent piece on Josh Holliday to preview the Regional. [The Oklahoman] • And the Cowboy golf team starts its journey to repeat as national champs. The Golf Channel is releasing a cool video today where the 2025 Cowboys duke it out with OSU’s 2018 national title-winning team in match play. [PFB] • With the WCWS starting Thursday, Bill Haisten provided an update on OSU’s softball facility. In short, a plan for a new facility remains in tact, but in the modern landscape of needing money for everything, it won’t be easy. [Tulsa World]
Non-OSU Bullets• I don’t want to talk about last night’s game, so here are some of Steven Adams’ top career plays to provide good vibes for Game 7. • Texas Tech is apparently willing to buyout its Week 1 game against Abilene Christian and Texas’ Week 1 game against Texas State to play the Longhorns to start the season. This comes after Texas coach Steve Sarkisian made comment that his twos and threes could go undefeated with Tech’s schedule. [ESPN]
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