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The West Virginia baseball team is gearing up for the Big 12 Conference Tournament, set to take place in Arlington, Texas this season. This year’s edition will be the last in the Lone Star State – at least for the time being.
The league announced a move to Arizona for the 2026 season. It will force the Mountaineers into a cross-country trip!
Conference realignment has drastically shifted travel demands for Division I schools. We have teams on the West Coast playing in the Midwest. Teams in the Northeast making treks down south. The ACC has members in North Carolina and California. The leagues are almost unrecognizable!
West Virginia will soon feel the impact of those changes. The school joined the Big 12 in 2012, a conference with a footprint in the Southwestern United States.
The league’s original members hailed from Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. Its presence has largely remained in the region with the additions of schools in Utah and Arizona.
West Virginia is an outlier. Its campus sits 1,200 miles from the Big 12 headquarters in Irving, Texas. That’s made travel a major part of Mountaineer athletics.
Teams are consistently asked to fly to the central US for regular season conference matchups. The same is true for league tournaments and offseason events. And that travel is only growing!
Big 12 media days were recently moved from Texas to Las Vegas. It represented a move out of the Longhorn territory as the league looked to start fresh after its biggest brand bolted for the SEC. Now, baseball is doing the same.
West Virginia will travel 2,100 miles for the Big 12 baseball tournament.
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The location is moving from Arlington, Texas to Surprise, Arizona. That move significantly impacts the Mountaineers.
Jake McKeever of College Baseball Central says it’s the longest postseason trip for any D1 program in the baseball. “This relocation establishes a new benchmark for the greatest travel distance to a conference tournament,” he wrote on X. “The previous mark -approximately 1,600 miles, held by the University of Washington – has now been eclipsed.”
Not only will travel be an issue, but weather could be, too. The high temperatures in Morgantown this week sit in the low 70s and high 60s. Meanwhile, Surprise, Arizona will soon see back-to-back 100-degree days.
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Previously, the tournament was played in Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers. That venue has a retractable roof and air conditioning.
Surprise Stadium does not. It’s a 10,500-person outdoor stadium. It’s the spring training home of the Royals and Rangers. It will be the new home for the Big 12 baseball tournament. That’s not exactly welcomed news for the West Virginia baseball team!
The duration of the partnership with Surprise Stadium is unclear. For now, just the 2026 season has been announced.
The Mountaineers will be in Texas this season where they’ll be the No. 1 seed after winning the regular season crown. Next year, players will be wishing to have the 1,200-mile trip to Arlington back.