Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Though many athletic programs outside the power four conferences are expected to drop off competitively when scholarship limits are removed and revenue sharing begins July 1, College World Series finalist Coastal Carolina is committed to continue playing with the big boys in baseball.

Rosters will be capped at 34 in Division I baseball going forward, and first-year athletic director Chance Miller told The Associated Press all 34 at Coastal Carolina would receive full scholarships and be in line for direct rev-share payments. Miller said he also believes the Chanticleers’ opportunities for name, image and likeness earnings will compare favorably with those for power conference baseball teams within two years.

Baseball is Coastal Carolina’s flagship sport. The Chanticleers have played in 21 NCAA Tournaments since 1991, won the 2016 CWS for their first national championship in any sport, and they’ll take a 26-game win streak into the best-of-three finals against LSU starting Saturday night.

Coach Kevin Schnall said the athletic administration’s support “at the highest level” is a big reason the Chanticleers are back in Omaha.

“What I mean by that is they enabled us to hire an elite coaching staff that would rival any coaching staff in the entire country,” Schnall said. “They give us the resources to put our players in the best position to become the best players that they can be. And it’s an absolute team effort.”

Miller said the budget has been restructured to allocate more money for scholarships without asking for additional institutional support. He said a significant portion of the revenue sharing for 2025-26 comes from donors, including a “transformational gift” from one who wished to remain anonymous. A fundraising dinner in Omaha last week brought in $1 million, he said.

Coastal Carolina’s baseball players are earning about $200,000 combined in third-party NIL deals this year; retired coach Gary Gilmore noted, “LSU has that much in just one guy.”

Miller said NIL numbers for the next year will be inflated at a lot of power four schools. That’s because many NIL deals were paid up front rather than having payments spread out. Athletes and their agents wanted to avoid having to get those valued at $600-plus vetted by the NIL clearinghouse, as required after June 6 when the House settlement was approved.

“We talked to one of the collectives from a power four school I know very well, and right now they’re spending $2.5 million on the (baseball) team and next year they’re going to spend $3 million because they frontloaded a lot of NIL money from their collective,” Miller said. “The year after that, they’re going to drop down to $500,000. So that’s a drastic drop.”

Miller’s charge, like his predecessor’s, is to keep Coastal Carolina in the top tier of college baseball.

“The mentality of our program — all the way back to Coach Gilmore’s early days in the late 90s — was geared to reach Omaha,” said Matt Hogue, who retired as athletic director last year to become director of Coastal Carolina’s Center for Sports Broadcasting. “The way we financially invested, how we scheduled, infrastructure. We always viewed the CWS as the expectation, not a novelty.”

LSU coach Jay Johnson said if there’s one non-power conference baseball program able to keep competing for trips to Omaha in the new era of college athletics, it’s Coastal Carolina.

“Gonzaga basketball, Boise State football. The ones sustainable for decades, that’s who they are,” he said. “This is no surprise to me we’re playing them. As long as coach Schnall’s there, they’re not going anywhere for a long time.”

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Miami Hurricanes slugger Daniel Cuvet has been named a First-Team All-American by Baseball America, the publication announced Friday.

Cuvet is the first Hurricane to earn Baseball America First-Team All-America honors since pitcher Andrew Walters, who received the accolade in back-to-back seasons in 2022 and 2023.

Cuvet put together one of the most dominant offensive years in college baseball, hitting .372 with 18 home runs and 84 RBI. His 84 RBI rank fifth-most in a single season in Miami history, while his 42 career homers are tied for seventh all-time at Miami

The Miami third baseman stayed red-hot down the stretch, batting .472 over the final 15 games of the season with 25 hits, seven doubles, six home runs, and 20 RBI. During that span, he posted a fantastic .943 slugging percentage and a .576 on-base percentage.

In the postseason, Cuvet continued to shine, earning Hattiesburg Regional MVP honors after hitting .385 with two doubles, a home run, and five RBI in Miami’s 3-1 outing. His efforts helped the Hurricanes punch their ticket to the NCAA Louisville Super Regional for the first time since 2016.

Cuvet ranked second on the team with 26 multi-hit games and led the Hurricanes with 22 multi-RBI outings, including 10 games with at least three RBI and two games with five or more.

This marks Cuvet’s fourth postseason All-America honor, as he was also named to the First Team by ABCA/Rawlings and earned Second-Team recognition from both Perfect Game and the NCBWA.

To stay up to date with the University of Miami baseball team, be sure to follow @canesbaseball on Instagram, X and Facebook.

If you follow the NBA, or have kept tabs on college basketball for quite some time, the last name “Ariza” likely rings a bell.

You’ve probably heard of Trevor Ariza, a former UCLA Bruin who spent 18 seasons in the NBA. A 2009 NBA Champion with the Los Angeles Lakers, Ariza played for 10 franchises during his career, earning a reputation as a lockdown defender with the ability to flat-out shoot the basketball.

Now, Trevor’s son, Tajh, is next up. Regarded as one of the top overall prospects in the Class of 2026, Tajh Ariza has a slew of offers to sort through. That list of offers got bigger on Thursday when Hubert Davis and the UNC basketball program extended an offer his way.

Ariza posted about his offer from the UNC basketball program on social media, thanking Davis and the Tar Heels coaching staff for believing in him and his ability.

A Bellflower, California native, Ariza is a 6-foot-9, 195-pound small forward. He is ranked by 247Sports as the No. 7 overall player in the Class of 2026 and is tabbed as the No. 5-ranked player from the competitive state of California.

Take a minute to think about this aspect: of the five players ranked ahead of him in California, two come from the same high school (Brandon McCoy and Christian Collins). It’s probably a safe bet to say that St. John Bosco is going to be a force to be reckowned with this season!

While his father already cemented his legacy in the basketball world, Tajh Ariza looks to do the same for himself. Could Chapel Hill be that place where he begins his rise to the professional ranks?

Hubert Davis and the UNC basketball program would love to see him sporting a Carolina Blue uniform next season.

The 2025 Oklahoma baseball season came to an unceremonial end a couple of weeks ago in the NCAA Chapel Hill Regional.

The Sooners finished the season with a 38-22 overall record but just 14-16 in their first season in the SEC, a conference that boasts seven of the last 10 national champions and, top to bottom, is widely considered the strongest in college baseball.

Oklahoma’s 38 wins this season were only two fewer than a year ago, when the Sooners went 40-21 and exited the Big 12 after winning the 2024 Big 12 regular-season title. Twenty-three of OU’s 40 wins a year ago, or 57 percent, were against Big 12 opponents.

Against a much stronger group of conference opponents this season in the SEC, the Sooners managed just 14 wins, or 37 percent, of their total wins.

Oklahoma’s 12th-place finish in the SEC standings, not surprisingly, was in relatively close alignment with where the Sooners ranked in most every major statistical category: OU was 12th in the conference in hitting (.278 team batting average), 11th in runs scored (6.7 per game), 12th in home runs (70), 8th in earned run average (4.47), 9th in opponents’ batting average (.247) and 13th in fielding percentage (.971).

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though, for Sooner baseball in its inaugural SEC season. Oklahoma did qualify for its fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament, won five of 10 conference series and defeated 13-seed Kentucky and 5-seed Georgia in the SEC Baseball Tournament before losing in the quarterfinal round to tournament champion Vanderbilt.

Accolades from OU baseball in 2025, hope for future

Player of the Year

Junior catcher Easton Carmichael gets my vote as the Sooners’ Player of the Year. The Prosper, Texas, native led the team in hitting (.329 average), hits (80), runs batted in (62), home runs (17) and slugging percentage (.613). He also was exceptional behind the plate, committing just one error the entire season and only five passed balls.

Carmichael is one of several Sooners expected to be taken in next month’s 2025 MLB Draft. He will likely be drafted in one of the early rounds. He is one of two OU players to be named a 2025 First-Team All-American by Perfect Game. It is the second season the Oklahoma catcher has earned All-America honors.

Pitcher of the Year

There shouldn’t be much debate about this. Kyson Witherspoon, the team’s Friday night starter, was outstanding all season. The junior right-hander not only was the ace of the Oklahoma pitching staff, but was one of the best pitcher’s in the SEC during the 2025 season.

Witherspoon had a 10-4 record this season and a 2.65 ERA in 16 starts. His 10 wins led the SEC and ranked 9th nationally. Additionally, he struck out 124 batters, 5th-most in NCAA Division I baseball, averaging over 11 punch outs per game.

The Sooner First-Team All-American is a probable first-round selection in the MLB Draft.

Roster turnover is a net positive for next season

Oklahoma will lose catcher Scott Mulder, relief pitcher Jamie Hitt and closer Dylan Crooks to graduation and will likely also lose pitching brothers Kyson and Malachi Witherspoon, as well as Easton Carmichael, to the MLB Draft.

Seven of the nine players in the Sooners’ starting lineup for the final game of the 2025 season are expected back for next season. The team will need pitching help after losing two weekend starters and its closer.

First basemen Dayton Tockery, second baseman Kyle Branch, shortstop Jaxon Willits and third baseman Dawson Willis, along with outfielders Jason Walk, Trey Gambill and Dasan Harris, should all be back for the 2026 season. Six members of that group were underclassmen this season with two freshmen and four sophomores.

Redshirt sophomore first baseman Sam Christianson was the only starting position player to enter the transfer portal so far. Reserve freshman catcher Cole Hansen, brother of four-time softball national champion catcher Kinzie Hansen, also elected to transfer.

Transfer portal additions

Since the season ended, Oklahoma has added five players from the transfer portal:

RHP Joey McManiss had a 1-2 record in 10 starts and 18 appearances for Maryland in 2025 with a 6.25 ERA.

INF Camden Johnson hit .356 in 56 games for Wichita this past season.

Nolan Stevens (INF/OF/P) joined Oklahoma from Mississippi State, where he hit .325 with four home runs and 21 RBI this season.

RHP LJ Mercurius was an All-Mountain West Second-Team selection in 2025. He made 11 starts for UNLV with a 4-3 record, a 3.57 ERA and 58 strikeouts in 53 innings.

UTIL Cayden Brumbaugh, from Edmond, Oklahoma, spent one season at Oklahoma State before transferring to Nebraska. As a redshirt junior this season, he hit .309 with five home runs and 33 RBI.

As far as incoming freshmen, the Sooners’ 2025 baseball recruiting class is headlined by infielder Eli Willits, a national top-10 recruit. If that name sounds familiar, it is because Eli is the younger brother of Oklahoma starting shortstop Jaxon Willits and the son of former Sooner player and current associate head coach Reggie Willits, who played at OU in 2002-03. However, Eli will likely never get to OU as a projected top-10 MLB Draft pick.

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