photo by: Big 12 Conference

Kansas catcher Ian Francis (7) and pitcher Kasey Crawford (41) run to dump water on Mike Koszewski after he hit a walk-off single to beat Oklahoma State on Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Arlington, Texas.

Kansas baseball is officially headed back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2014.

Though they were the last team revealed in Monday morning’s selection show on ESPN2 — “You could see the guys getting restless,” head coach Dan Fitzgerald said — the Jayhawks have been fairly confident in their postseason fate for weeks.

Fitzgerald had a good idea they’d make it in when they sealed a series win against BYU with outfielder Mike Koszewski’s walk-off single on May 10, and was essentially certain when Dominic Voegele pitched a gem and KU took a game off West Virginia on the road five days later.

“I didn’t tell the players that,” Fitzgerald said. “In fact, I didn’t tell anyone that.”

Now, it’s out in the open. KU is in the field of 64 teams in Fitzgerald’s third year in charge, and specifically in Arkansas’ regional hosted at Baum-Walker Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

“You guys know I’m not super reflective, I need to do a better job of that, but that was a moment I’ll always remember,” Fitzgerald said of the selection.

The Jayhawks, a No. 2 seed, will take on third-seeded Creighton at 7 p.m. on Friday. The Razorbacks, the No. 3 team in the country overall, open against North Dakota State shortly beforehand at 2 p.m. Friday. The winners and losers of each game will face off the following day as part of the double-elimination format.

“We put in a lot of hard work, we’ve done a lot of great things this year and it’s well deserved,” Koszewski said. “It’s really awesome.”

Fitzgerald said that as frustrated as he was that KU didn’t make the NCAA Tournament following the 2024 season — a position the Jayhawks put themselves in, he said, with a few key games that went against them — he knew that last year had moved the program forward in a substantive way.

“So coming into this year, we knew we were a regional team, it was just about going out and executing,” he said. “And if you think about how we did execute, it was pretty fantastic. We won the games we were supposed to win, and the times that we stubbed our toes, you can count. This is incredibly fulfilling.”

The Jayhawks had their best regular season in program history, including school records for league wins and road wins. In fact, their 20 conference wins led the Big 12, but West Virginia won the regular-season title on win percentage after it had two of its games at Oklahoma State canceled due to fires in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

KU enters the NCAA Tournament at 43-15 overall after beating Oklahoma State but falling to TCU in the Big 12 Championship last weekend.

“Three years ago, if you would have said you’re going to be a two seed in the NCAA Tournament in year three, and lead the Big 12 in wins, I would have thought, ‘Oh, we would have won the Big 12 championship,'” Fitzgerald said. “But no — goofy year with that — but if someone would have told me that, I would have taken it all day long, and more.”

He believes his players, who left for practice shortly after the conclusion of the selection show, still have plenty of gas left in the tank.

“If we could play right now, they’d play,” Fitzgerald said. “This thing, in their mind, is just getting started, and we’ve talked all year about playing our best baseball at the end. We need to trend in that direction, which we certainly have.”

KU eventually found its way to No. 24 overall in the NCAA RPI, suggesting it would be about the eighth-best No. 2 seed, but as Fitzgerald points out, the baseball committee relies heavily on regional proximity in its selection criteria. That’s how KU ended up in Fayetteville despite the Razorbacks’ No. 3 overall seed and the fact that they are “maybe the most complete team in the tournament,” Fitzgerald said.

“It’s four really good teams, which is exactly what you want,” he said of KU’s draw. “You want to go to a regional where you got to compete at the highest level. That’s literally the highest form of sport, is going against the best.”

Arkansas has been to the Men’s College World Series nine times under veteran head coach Dave Van Horn, including most recently in 2022. The Razorbacks, who finished the year 43-13 and 20-10 in the ultra-competitive SEC, at one point this season swept the eventual No. 1 overall seed, Vanderbilt. However, they also lost three league series in a row in April and were one-and-done in the conference tournament, losing 5-2 to Ole Miss on Friday.

Shortstop Wehiwa Aloy was the SEC player of the year and is hitting .353 with 18 home runs and 58 RBIs this year.

Creighton (41-14, 17-4 Big East), KU’s first opponent, has lost its last six meetings with the Jayhawks despite holding a 25-18 series advantage overall, including a 3-1 result that went KU’s way at Hoglund Ballpark in Fitzgerald’s first season.

The Bluejays’ veteran head coach Ed Servais is coaching his final year prior to retirement, and his team won both the regular-season and tournament titles in the Big East, beating UConn 7-4 in Mason, Ohio, on Saturday for the tournament crown.

“What a cool accomplishment for him to go in his final year,” Fitzgerald said. “He’s a Hall of Fame coach. He might be the greatest defensive teacher in college baseball history, certainly top five. He is such an incredible tactician on the defensive side. So they present issues there because they give you nothing.”

Creighton also featured both the Big East pitcher of the year, fifth-year senior Dominic Cancellieri, and freshman of the year, fellow pitcher Wilson Magers.

North Dakota State has a record of just 20-32 (13-15 Summit) but won two of its three postseason matchups with top-seeded Oral Roberts to take the Summit League tournament crown. The Bison actually beat Creighton in a midweek matchup earlier in the season and faced high-level competition in the likes of Dallas Baptist, Alabama and LSU in nonconference play.

“They’re not going to be wowed by the lights or the big crowd,” Fitzgerald said. “They play a tough schedule. They’re really well coached.”

He also noted that they have a pitcher who ranks among the best arms in the regional. Nolan Johnson, the Summit’s pitcher of the year, is a potent lefty who finished the year with a 4.14 ERA in 82 2/3 innings pitched.

Arkansas’ regional is paired with Tennessee’s, which features Wake Forest, Cincinnati and Miami (Ohio). The winners of the two four-team double-elimination tournaments will face off in Super Regional play.