The Cincinnati Bearcats (31-23, 16-14) are set to battle the Texas Tech Red Raiders (20-32, 13-17) in the first round of the 2025 Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship in Arlington, Texas. The winner of Wednesday’s game will advance to face the top-seeded West Virginia Mountaineers (40-13, 19-9) on Thursday afternoon. Read more Cincinnati and Texas Tech Set for First Round of Big 12 Baseball Tournament.
Setting the Scene
The showdown between the Bearcats and Red Raiders will be the #8 seed versus the #9 seed, respectively. Both teams had up-and-down seasons, but did enough to make it into the 12-team field.
Cincinnati and Texas squared off in a regular-season series at the start of April, which Cincinnati won by taking two out of three contests. Game one of the series was a 12-inning marathon, in which the Bearcats came out victorious by a final tally of 8-7 in Lubbock. Cincinnati also took game two, the first game of a Sunday doubleheader, to make up for that Saturday’s postponement. Texas Tech bats were hot in game three, taking the series finale by a score of 12-8. Following the early-April trio of contests between the two programs, both teams finished the season with similar final stretches. Cincinnati barely broke even, going 12-11 in its final 23 contests. Texas Tech went 11-13 in the 24 games between the end of the Cincinnati series and the upcoming tournament showdown.
Winner, Winner West Virginia’s Dinner
The winner of Wednesday’s game will face the top-seeded West Virginia Mountaineers on Thursday afternoon, a team that both Cincinnati and Texas Tech shared a series with in 2025.
West Virginia swept Cincinnati in mid-April as part of the Mountaineers’ second lengthy winning streak, one that featured four straight Big 12 series sweeps. Texas Tech also fell in its series against WVU, but took the first game of the series in Morgantown, 6-4.
There is no room for error in the newly formatted conference championship tournament for the Big 12, as it is no longer a double-elimination bracket. Neither the Bearcats nor the Red Raiders are on a streak coming into the tournament, as Cincinnati ended the regular season with a loss on Senior Day to Kansas State, while Texas Tech won its final contest at BYU to avoid a series sweep. As it stands, no team has a distinct advantage in the momentum category.
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Wednesday’s contest will be the newest chapter in the record books between the Bearcats and the Red Raiders on the diamond. In fact, the game is a rerun of the second round of the 2024 Big 12 tournament, a game in which the #10-seeded Texas Tech ended #5-seeded Cincinnati’s tournament hopes with a 10-5 triumph.
Players to Watch
Logan Hughes is an absolute slugger for Texas Tech, leading several key offensive categories. The 5’11 sophomore leads the Red Raiders in hits (69), RBI (58), home runs (19), and triples (4). Hughes batted .333 in the regular season and finished the campaign with a SLG% of .710 in 51 starts. The Florida native holds it down in the outfield as well, with only one error attached to his fielding statistics in 2025.
As for Cincinnati, Kerrington Cross might have one of the hottest bats in college baseball right now. Cross batted .414 in 191 plate appearances, recording 79 hits, a statistic that surpasses the nearest Bearcat by 20 in the category. The redshirt senior gets on base over 53% of the time and has been a dominant figure all season long for the Bearcats.
Tune In
Whichever team comes out of this first-round matchup victorious will have a short turnaround to prepare for the Mountaineers, but teams must take tournaments one game at a time. Texas Tech and Cincinnati will get underway at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The game will be streamed on ESPN+, with coverage starting at the time of first pitch.
PREVIEW: Cincinnati and Texas Tech Set for First Round of Big 12 Baseball Tournament
