Three Bold Predictions for the Men's College World Series Finals Between North Carolina and Oklahoma

Both teams are looking to end long dry spells.

LJ Mercurius and Oklahoma are eyeing the Sooners’ first national title since 1994. | Steven Branscombe-Imagn Images

This edition of the Men’s College World Series might be remembered as the year of the drought.

Only one program that made college baseball’s last eight in 2026—Ole Miss in 2022—had won a national championship in the last 20 years. West Virginia and Troy were newcomers to the MCWS altogether. Georgia hadn’t won it all since 1990, and Texas hadn’t since 2005—an eternity by the standards of one of the sport’s proudest squads.

It’s appropriate, then, that the two MCWS finalists both fit this theme. North Carolina, a 13-time MCWS qualifier that has been in the baseball business since 1867, has never won the national championship. Oklahoma, whose baseball program predates Oklahoma’s statehood, has not won since 1994.

As the No. 5 national seed Tar Heels prepare to battle the 11th-in-the-SEC Sooners, it’s time to make a trio of bold predictions about the players and events that could tip the outcome of a short series.

Oklahoma’s power surge will come to a screeching halt

In The Athletic on Wednesday, Mitch Sherman wrote that “25 of Oklahoma’s 90 home runs this year have come in 10 postseason games.” Let that sink in: the Sooners have hit 27.8% of their home runs this year in just 15.9% of their games. That would imply that Oklahoma is an opportunistic power-hitting team rather than a capable one, and indeed, the Sooners are 54th in the country with a .483 slugging percentage. They’ve actually hit more home runs than the Tar Heels, but North Carolina has been far more effective at getting on base (more on that in a minute). Combine that with the Tar Heels giving up just 0.8 home runs per nine innings (best in the ACC), and a power outage looks imminent.

Good things will come to North Carolina players who get on base

According to D1Baseball’s team leaderboards, the Tar Heels as a team have a .413 OBP. Oklahoma as a team, meanwhile, has a .390 OBP—a figure that barely cracks the top 100 in Division I. North Carolina’s lineup is crawling with players who know how to work counts, including a slew of players who walk more than they strike out—center fielder Owen Hull, shortstop Jake Schaffner, and catcher Macon Winslow among them. That’s good news against a staff that walks a lot of batters relative to its SEC brethren—271 in all and 4.5 per nine innings, both top six in the conference, even though ace Cord Rager and company have been sharper of late.

North Carolina makes this a drama-free affair

The Sooners have punched above their weight for the entire NCAA tournament—first against a heavily favored Georgia Tech squad in the regionals, again against Kansas in the super regionals, and against Alabama and Georgia twice in the MCWS. As potent as they were, none of these teams possessed the pitching ability of the Tar Heels and their power duo of Jason DeCaro and Caden Glauber. As noted in our MCWS preview, DeCaro and Glauber entered the final eight with a combined record of 21-2; both aced their MCWS tests, with DeCaro pitching 6 2/3 innings of five-hit ball against Ole Miss. Expect another strong DeCaro outing in Game 1, Glauber to thrive when called upon, and North Carolina to win its first national championship in two games.

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