A late turn on the road to the best run of success in Kansas baseball history would not deter Dan Fitzgerald.As for his players, forget about it. They’ve endured enough twists and detours in their collegiate careers to laugh at a May losing streak.The Jayhawks were cruising two weeks ago toward their first regular-season conference championship since 1949. They rose to a ranking of No. 7 nationally before West Virginia pulled a three-game sweep in Lawrence, trimming KU’s seemingly insurmountable four-game lead (with six to play) down to one heading into the final weekend of the season.Kansas regrouped and won two of three last weekend at BYU — clinching the Big 12 title with a 7-6 win in Provo on Friday — and enters the league tournament Thursday in Surprise, Ariz., as the No. 1 seed.A larger goal awaits. KU is set next week to earn a second consecutive trip to the NCAA postseason for the first time since 1994. The Jayhawks, 39-16 overall with an RPI of 20, remain in contention to host one of 16 four-team Regionals.They’ve never played at home in the postseason. Since going 0-2 at the College World Series in 1993 — their only appearance in program history — Kansas has won a mere five NCAA Tournament games in five appearances. It had not played in the postseason in 10 years before an appearance last year, when Creighton and North Dakota State dispatched the Jayhawks in the Fayetteville Regional.
Inside Kansas baseball’s unlikely rise from irrelevance to Big 12 champions
Kansas went 4-20 in the Big 12 in 2022, the year before Dan Fitzgerald's arrival. Four years later, the Jayhawks are league champs.












