Gentlemen, start your calculators.

The Big 12 Conference season has two weekends remaining. The regular-season title is decided by winning percentage. A bunched field, a rainout and a rare tie figure into what should be a memorable finish.

"I think it will go down to the last day," Texas coach Augie Garrido said of the Big 12 race. "Maybe the last pitch. It's extremely exciting for the teams and the fans that are involved with the race because it is so close. It will change day by day."

When asked about the race, Baylor coach Steve Smith channeled Yogi Berra. "It's not gonna be over until it's over."

This weekend, two of the top three teams in the standings will face off. And as if the race needed any more spice, those teams are rivals Texas and Texas A&M. The first game is scheduled to be played at College Station Friday with the final two games in Austin on Saturday and Sunday.

“It's our turn,” Brooks Raley, Texas A&M's versatile sophomore pitcher/outfielder, told the San Antonio Express News. “We're going to take care of business, and we've got the team and the guys to do it.

“Texas has gotten the best of us. So we've got to throw the first punch. The first game is the most important as far as setting the tone for the weekend. It's going to be a knock-down, drag-out (affair). This is what baseball is all about. You want the championship on the line."

Texas is 15-8-1 for a winning percentage of .646. Second-place Kansas State is 12-7-1 (.625). Texas A&M is 13-8 (.619). The Wildcats and the Aggies each have six conference games remaining.

The tie, between Texas and Kansas State, counts as half a win and half a loss when figuring winning percentage. Plus, last weekend the third game of Kansas State's series at Oklahoma State was rained out so the Wildcats will have one less conference game. That plus the tie could be huge factors in the league race.

For instance, if Texas wins two out of three against Texas A&M and Kansas State takes its final two series (winning four of six), the Longhorns would finish 17-9-1 while the Wildcats would be 16-9-1.

Historically, there have been four tie games in Big 12 history; only one (Texas Tech in 2001) involved a team that was involved in the regular-season championship race.

The closest first-place finish (excluding the tie at the top in 2005 between Nebraska and Baylor) came in 2004 when Texas (19-7, .731) edged Oklahoma (19-8, .704) by .027 percentage points. In 2003, just .036 percentage points separated the top three teams in the final standings.

Regional talk
It's not exactly like March Madness bubble talk, but this is the time of the baseball season when there's guess work being done regarding which teams will host regionals and super regionals.

With a No. 4 RPI and UFCU Disch-Falk Field, Texas appears to be in great shape to at least host a regional and most likely a super regional (the top eight seeds in the tournament field host super regionals).

Kansas State, which has never participated in the NCAA tournament, appears to be a lock to make the field. And the school is preparing a bid to be one of 16 regional sites. A minimum bid of $50,000 is required.

“I think we’re gonna make a bid no matter what,” Kansas State associate athletic director Casey Scott told the Topeka Capital-Journal. “I don’t think it hurts us. We have nothing to lose and anything that gets our name out there is going to be good for our team when it comes to postseason selection time for the committee.”

Hits and runs
* In Saturday’s win over Baylor, Augie Garrido became the first NCAA Division I coach to reach the 1,700-win plateau. He was also the first D-I coach to reach the 1,500- and 1,600-marks. Among all collegiate coaches, Garrido trails only Gordie Gillespie's 1,814 wins. Gillespie coaches at St. Francis, an NAIA school in Joliet, Ill.

* Two other Big 12 coaches have gained milestone victories this season. Kansas State coach Brad Hill won his 600th career victory on April 28 while Missouri coach Tim Jamieson picked up his 500th victory on April 17. Ironically, that victory came against Kansas State. And Texas A&M's Rob Childress picked up the 150th coaching victory of his career with last Saturday's victory over Dallas Baptist.

* Kansas State continues to go where no Kansas State game has gone before (cheap Star Trek reference to tie in with the new J.J. Abrams flick). The Wildcats were ranked No. 10 this week by Baseball America. That topped Kansas State's previous highest ranking of No. 16 by the publication - which the Wildcats accomplished the previous week.

* Texas Tech coach Dan Spencer thought his team's nine-day break for final exams came at a good time. The Red Raiders returned to action at Dallas Baptist and pounded a season-high 21 hits in a 9-6 victory. Texas Tech hopes to maintain the momentum when it plays at Kansas State this weekend. The Red Raiders enter the series in eighth place; the top eight teams qualify for the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship.

* Former Texas A&M coach Mark Johnson, now the coach at Sam Houston State, returned to College Station and Olsen Field Tuesday night. The Aggies were gracious hosts except for the scoreboard; they won, 8-2.

Numbers game
* Kansas State has set a school record with 37 victories this season.

* Nebraska’s team ERA is 6.41, last in the Big 12 and the highest for a Cornhuskers team since 1997.

* Underclassman pitchers have started 42 of Nebraska’s 48 games this season.

* In Texas' three-game sweep of Baylor last weekend, the Longhorns never trailed, made just two errors and had 41 hits.

* Baylor has lost seven consecutive conference games for the first time since 1994 when the Bears were in the Southwest Conference.

Infield chatter
* Texas A&M coach Rob Childress on the strength of the Big 12:
“This league is as good as there is in the country, and hopefully that is going to be reflected come postseason time that we do have the opportunity to get eight teams into the NCAAs because eight teams deserve that opportunity because of the strength of our league.”

* Rice coach Wayne Graham on Texas' pitching staff, which leads the nation in earned run average:
“Nobody has better pitching in the country. Just look at their ERA. That means they have a chance to win the national championship. Texas has arms. They've got the kinds of arms that we had when we won the national title in 2003.”

* Nebraska pitching coach Eric Newman on the struggles of his young pitching staff:
“None of us can look into a crystal ball, but you take a marshmallow and put it under fire and it melts. You take a lump of coal and put it under a fire, it becomes a diamond. Hopefully we’re going to become diamonds.”

* Oklahoma coach Sunny Galloway Saturday after the Sooners lost the second of a three-game series with Kansas that followed a sweep at Baylor:
“If someone showed up today and saw us for the first time, they’d think we were awful. If they’d seen us at Baylor, they’d think we’re terrific. In real life, we’re somewhere in between.”

RPI power
The Big 12 has seven teams (listed below) ranked in the top 28 of the NCAA's baseball RPI. The other "power" conferences - the Southeastern and the Atlantic Coast - each have six teams ranked in the top 28: