CBD Exclusive: DBU and Bakersfield to the WAC

College Baseball Daily has learned through independent sources that Dallas Baptist and Cal-State Bakersfield will be added to the WAC as associate members for baseball only. Our sources also state that the conference will be moving the 2012 or 2013 conference tournament to the state of Texas, most likely to the DFW/Arlington area.

Bakersfield went 33-22 last season while having an RPI of 54 while being an independent. They went 6-4 against Pac-10 squads with a three game sweep over Washington and defeating Arizona State, Washington State, and UCLA once. They also picked up an impressive victory over the 2011 CWS champion South Carolina in Columbia.

Dallas Baptist also had a strong 42-20 campaign which saw them make the NCAA Super Regionals where they lost to Cal in two games. The most impressive victories for the Patriots were over Oklahoma State, TCU (3 x), Oklahoma (twice), Texas Tech, and Texas A&M. The finished the season with an RPI of 44.

This is a huge move for the WAC to help out the conference’s reputation in baseball which will take a hit with Nevada and in particular Hawai’i and Fresno State, the past two automatic qualifiers, leave the league after the 2012 season. The conference finished the 2011 season as they were the 13th rated conference in 2011 while being 14th in 2010.