Following a fairly successful Baseball season in 2021 for the conference, the Pac-12 Conference will welcome a postseason tournament for 2022.
The 2021 College Baseball season was a successful one in the Pac-12 Conference, especially for Arizona Baseball as the Wildcats advanced to their 18th College World Series in program history.
And of course, as we all saw, Stanford also joined the Wildcats in Omaha, NE, giving the Pac-12 Conference great representation on the national stage. However, unfortunately, both teams came up just short in their quest for an NCAA Title.
In 2022, things will look a little different as the Pac-12 Conference will follow suit of most other conferences by holding a postseason tournament.
Making news via social media on Wednesday afternoon, D1Baseball Managing Editor Kendall Rogers announced that the Pac-12 will host a conference tournament for 2022.
The @pac12 has announced that its inaugural conference tournament will take place at Scottsdale Stadium in Scottsdale, Ariz., in 2022. The #Pac12 tourney will include the top eight teams in the league and follow the standard double elimination format. Smart move by the league.
— Kendall Rogers (@KendallRogers) August 25, 2021
A plan that has been in process for some time now, the Pac-12 was initially going to hold a conference tournament at the conclusion of the 2020 regular season, however, as we all saw, the Covid outbreak shut down the season and ended that possibility.
In 2021, the Pac-12 didn’t plan on having a conference tournament, perhaps trying to cut down on travel for last season. However, that is soon changing as the conference will finally implement a postseason tournament.
A tournament that will make its debut in 2022 in Scottsdale, Ariz., it will feature the conference’s top eight teams and will follow the standard double-elimination format. Just like in basketball, the conference tournament winner will get an automatic bid for the NCAA Tournament.
With the Pac-12 not deviating from their 56-game regular season format, the season will likely need to be condensed to accommodate for the conference tournament.
Either way, the tournament is a great idea. For the past couple of years, the Pac-12 has been outpaced and outperformed by teams in the SEC or on the East Coast. With a conference tournament, it likely means another Pac-12 team or two gets into the tournament, which gives the conference better odds moving forward.