The 1996 Southwest Conference baseball tournament was the league's annual postseason tournament used to determine the Southwest Conference's (SWC) automatic bid to the

1996 NCAA Division I baseball tournament The 1996 NCAA Division I baseball tournament was played at the end of the 1996 NCAA Division I baseball season to determine the national champion of college baseball. The tournament concluded with eight teams competing in the College World Series ...

. The tournament was held from May 15 through 18 at Dan Law Field on the campus of Texas Tech University in

Lubbock, Texas Lubbock ( ) is the 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of government of Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the northw ...

, and drew a total attendance of 31,542. This was the first time the SWC tournament was held in Lubbock, and the final conference tournament before the conference disbanded. The sixth-seeded Rice Owls went undefeated to win the team's first SWC tournament under fifth-season head coach Wayne Graham.

Format and seeding

The 1996 SWC tournament was the first, and only, to feature all teams in a double-elimination tournament over four rounds. The SWC regular season champion, Texas Longhorns, received the tournament's only first-round bye while the remaining six teams were seeded based on their regular season conference standings. TCU claimed the fourth seed by tiebreaker over Baylor, while Rice earned the sixth seed over Houston by tiebreaker.

Tournament

References

{{Southwest Conference Baseball Tournament navbox Tournament Baseball in Lubbock, Texas Southwest Conference Baseball Tournament Southwest Conference baseball tournament