Houston infielder Connor McGinnis during a Big 12 Tournament game with TCU on May 22, 2025. | Ashton Grissom/The Cougar
Houston baseball’s 2025 season came to an end in the Big 12 conference tournament quarterfinals against TCU, despite a few notable improvements in its sophomore campaign in the league.
The Cougars clinched their first winning season as a member of the Big 12 with a 30-25 overall record, with a 12-17 campaign in league play and a 9-2 opening-round rout of Kansas State in their Big 12 tournament debut also contributing. Despite finishing 11th in the conference, where they were picked to finish preseason, the Cougars were able to punch their ticket to Arlington under the conference tournament’s new top 12, single-elimination format.
“This league is no joke,” coach Todd Whitting said. “It’s a grind every week, and from top to bottom, it’s good.”
Cougars’ finish in conference metrics and resume
Despite the improvements, the 2025 campaign still left a daunting amount to be desired, as Houston also saw a decline in multiple team splits from its inaugural Big 12 campaign.
The Cougars batted .255 with an OPS of .771 as a team, leaving them ranked 13th offensively in the conference, a five-spot decline from 2024. Their run differential, which was as high as +60 on the season, finished at +10, a staggering 43-point drop from the previous season’s finish.
Defensively, Houston also saw a dramatic nine-spot decline in team fielding metrics to rank last in the conference.
Despite the five-win improvement in conference play appearing to not reflect the declining metrics, Houston’s overall resume in 2025 prevented it from contending for an NCAA tournament bid for a sixth straight season.
Following its Big 12 tournament exit, Houston dropped to a ranking of 92 on the NCAA RPI. Despite a 20-spot improvement on the index from 2024, it still left the push for an at-large bid far out of reach for the Cougars.
Factoring into its position on the RPI, Houston posted a 5-8 record against quadrant one opponents and a 13-14 combined record in quadrants two and three. The Cougars also left behind a mark of 6-13 against the portion of the Big 12 that eventually represented in the field of 64.
Health, depth and wielding the baton
Not helping any of the Cougars’ woes was the injury bug, as a notable four-week absence from junior infielder Connor McGinnis left a hole offensively. It left Whitting circling back to how important it was to have health and depth on his roster in order to utilize the five-win improvement in Big 12 play as a stepping stone for next season, while also commending those who carried the baton.
“We had McGinnis, who I think is one of the premier hitters in the country, missing just about all of Big 12 play,” Whitting said. “I think he changes things a little bit. But the guys that we did put in, they fought and gave me everything they had all year.”
Among those who carried the baton for Houston’s offense throughout the season was redshirt sophomore outfielder Xavier Perez, who in meeting the 75% requirement, finished atop the Cougars’ roster with a team-leading .305 average, 48 runs batted in and nine home runs, making him the 14th Cougar in program history to hit for a team triple crown.
Forever Cougars, no matter where the journey takes them
The season’s end did not come without two notable heartfelt departures, both stemming from storied collegiate careers.
Senior two-way player Malachi Lott chronicled a career rich in versatility that kept its stride from the day Whitting discovered him in high school.
“Coach Whitting believed in me since I was 16 years old, from the day of my first offer, my only offer,” Lott said. “I stuck with him, he stuck with me. He kept faith in me, he trusted me and I can’t be more blessed.”
Lott, who transferred back from Sam Houston, knew that when Whitting always kept the door open for him to return, it was destined to be fulfilled.
“When I was at Sam Houston, especially playing against UH, it just felt wrong,” Lott said. “I was wearing the wrong colors, I was wearing the wrong uniform and it just means everything. The people that I’ve met along the way, I’ll never forget.”
Lott’s individual performance of note in 2025 happened to come in a February 25 midweek matchup against Sam Houston to open the Sanders Cup series, in which he became the first Cougar since Brad Lincoln in his 2006 Dick Howser Trophy season to hit a home run and earn a winning decision as a pitcher in the same game. On April 17, he was named to the College Baseball Hall of Fame’s John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year award watch list.
“He’s a class act, and I was so glad he came back to join us,” Whitting said. “The way he finished the season was unbelievable.”
In the case of graduate reliever Antoine Jean, one small tweak under the guidance of pitching coach Woody Williams paved the way for not only a career turnaround, but also a magical season that enhanced his major league draft profile in time for the upcoming draft and resulted in him becoming the first reliever to be named Big 12 Pitcher of the Year.
“It was a good year, like something that I’ve worked hard for,” Jean said. “I was obviously glad to have that year.”
After Jean posted a 5.97 ERA across 63.1 innings pitched in 2024, Williams led him to change the way he gripped his thumb on his fastball delivery. What ensued was a campaign in which Jean shot atop the Big 12 leaderboards and ranked second in Division I in K/9.
Across 67 innings in 2025, Jean went 5-1, posting a 2.55 ERA and holding opponents to a conference-low .167 average. He recorded 110 strikeouts, becoming the second Cougar in program history to record 100 strikeouts in a season behind Ryan Wagner, who struck out 148 batters in 2003 to set a then-Division I record for K/9.
In being named Big 12 Pitcher of the Year, Jean also became the first Cougar to win a Big 12 award and the seventh in program history to win a conference pitcher of the year award, the first since Aaron Fletcher won it in 2018 in the American. Two days after winning the award, Jean was named a semifinalist for the College Baseball Hall of Fame National Pitcher of the Year award.
“I’ve had very few guys, maybe not any, with the competitiveness that he had,” Whitting said. “I wish it was kind of like softball where I could throw him in every game, but I can’t.”
When it was time for Jean to step off the mound for the final time as a Cougar, amid a standing ovation from both Houston and TCU fans at Globe Life Field in Arlington, associate head coach Matt Reida was the one to walk him to the dugout. Jean followed Reida to Houston after three seasons at Alabama.
“It was just emotional for me just having Matt come out to get me because I came with him here,” Jean said. “He just became family, like all these guys here, TW and Woody. I’m somebody that when people do stuff for me, I never forget it, so it meant a lot for me to have that moment.”
Incoming class, the push for a bid, and Whitting’s contract
Despite no clear signal yet on roster retainment outside of the outgoing senior class, Houston is slated to welcome the incoming 2025 class of commitments, three of which who were standouts among youth travel baseball organization Marucci Elite Texas: right-handed pitcher Caden Cooper from Stratford High School, outfielder and right-handed pitcher Caleb Kimble from St. Thomas High School and middle infielder Hunter Elrod from New Braunfels Christian Academy.
The first postseason destination that the Cougars look to punch their ticket to has moved out west, as the Big 12 announced on May 19 that Surprise Stadium in Surprise, Ariz., will be the new host of the Big 12 tournament beginning in 2026.
The case for Houston to make the push for an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament or even contending for a conference title relies on either potentially finishing within the top eight of the conference in 2026 as a result of building off its 12-17 league campaign, or a potential record number in bids from the conference in the NCAA tournament. Both involve the requirement of obtaining more conference or non-conference series wins or midweek wins against the top 50 in the RPI.
Whitting, who completed his 15th season at his alma mater, awaits the final season on his current three-year contract he signed following Houston’s departure from the American, with the expectation that an influx of program resources will bolster further improvements.
