LAWRENCE — Kansas baseball didn’t just remain in the top 25 of the USA TODAY Sports baseball coaches poll this week, as the Jayhawks rose two spots to No. 23 overall.

KU (43-15) furthered the momentum it gained at the end of the regular season by reaching the semifinals of the Big 12 Conference tournament in Arlington, Texas. In the quarterfinals, it topped Oklahoma State with a walk-off win. It wasn’t until the semifinals that the Jayhawks were eliminated by TCU, which is ranked No. 25 in the nation.

Kansas, the highest-ranked Big 12 program at this point, is also joined in the top 25 by No. 24 West Virginia — the regular-season conference champion. Together with TCU, those schools are among eight in the Big 12 that earned spots in this year’s NCAA tournament. The group of five schools not in the top 25 that are also going to a NCAA regional includes Arizona, which was the Big 12 Tournament champion.

Kansas’ NCAA regional is in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and is being hosted by the Arkansas Razorbacks. The regional also includes Creighton and North Dakota State. In that regional, Arkansas is the No. 1 seed, Kansas the No. 2 seed, Creighton the No. 3 seed and North Dakota State the No. 4 seed.

Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He was the 2022 National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.