Skip Johnson gives first impressions of facing Oral Roberts

Oklahoma will kick off play in the NCAA baseball tournament by hosting Oral Roberts in the Norman Regional. And right after the matchup was revealed, Sooners head coach Skip Johnson shared some of his thoughts on Oral Roberts.

Johnson commended the Tulsa-based squad for getting hot at the right time of the season. And thought the Sooners are the top seed and host in the regional, Johnson isn’t assuming anything.

“They’re good. I like it. They’re a good team, well coached,” Johnson said. “They’re playing really good late, so it’s going to be fun, it’s going to be exciting.”

Plus, Johnson is hopeful the Sooner faithful come out in force to get the atmosphere right.

“Hopefully we can have big crowds, barbecue pits out there, smoke going everywhere. It’s extremely exciting opportunity for our young team,” Johnson said. 

Betting odds are out for the Norman Regional

The betting odds for the 2024 NCAA baseball championship tournament have been revealed. When it comes to the Norman Regional home of the Oklahoma Sooners, it is not the host team with the best odds to reach the Super Regional round.

Out of the gate, the No. 2 seed Duke Blue Devils are the favorites to advance, holding a slim margin and odds over Oklahoma. As far as the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds are concerned, UConn and Oral Roberts are both considered long shots to move on in the tournament.

The complete odds for the entire 64-team tournament, courtesy of Draft Kings, can be seen below.

Duke +115
Oklahoma +145
UConn +600
Oral Roberts +1200

As mentioned above, the No. 2 seed Duke Blue Devils are the favorite to upset the Oklahoma Sooners, but just by a narrow margin of 30 points. Uconn comes in third with middle-of-the-pack odds in comparison to the rest of this 64-team field. And while Oral Roberts has the lowest odds in the region, at +1200, Vegas does not see them as a Cinderella-like some of the other programs boasting +10000 odds.

The Sooners and Blue Devils are quite possibly the closest No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in the tournament this year. Oklahoma finished the 2020 fourth season as the Big 12 regular season champions but lost to in-state rival Oklahoma State in the conference tournament championship game 9-3. Duke, on the other hand, was not the ACC’s regular-season champion but did dominate the conference tournament. The Blue Devils averaged over ten runs per ACC tournament game, including a drubbing of the top team in the conference, the Florida State Seminoles, in the championship game 16-4.