Were Cowboy Baseball's Expectations Too High?

Oklahoma State has had an underwhelming season, but it can soon change its fate.

Over the course of the 2025 season, OSU baseball was one of the most disappointing teams in the country. Coming into the season, the Cowboys were picked to win the Big 12 and again host a regional in Stillwater. 

While the Cowboys had some good wins during the nonconference slate, they still showed some concerning signs as the Big 12 schedule neared. Those concerns would soon be justified by OSU’s performance over the first few weeks of conference play.

Despite OSU’s immense struggles to begin the season and even into the first half of conference play, the Cowboys never gave up and continued to fight through adversity. While the Cowboys lost their first two games in a series against Cincinnati, they rebounded with a win in the finale that would be the start of their late turnaround.

OSU followed that win against the Bearcats with a couple of wins against Baylor. While the Cowboys couldn’t finish off the sweep of the Bears, losing that series finale, they would go on to sweep their next two opponents.

Winning the final six games of the regular season against UCF and Arizona State proved that OSU was still capable of being one of the top teams in the Big 12. While they flamed out against Kansas in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament, the Cowboys still showed that they might be able to compete with some of the best teams in the country.

As the Cowboys prepare for their Regional matchups in Athens, they will have an opportunity to show that they are still the team that people expected them to be in the preseason. OSU won the Big 12 last season, and while it struggled throughout 2025, it has a chance to prove itself again in the postseason.

If the Cowboys can get some wins against Duke and Georgia and move on to a Super Regional, there will be no doubts that OSU’s expectations were just right, but it took it a while to meet them. However, another postseason disaster like they saw against Kansas could give all of the Cowboys’ doubters even more vindication after this unideal campaign.