Jean becomes first Big 12 reliever to win Pitcher of the Year

ABC and Junior National Team grad Antoine Jean (Montreal, Que.) has been named Big 12 Pitcher of the Year thanks to his outstanding season with the Houston Cougars.

May 20, 2025

Official Houston Cougars News Release

IRVING, Texas – Houston Cougars left-handed pitcher Antoine Jean earned the Big 12 Conference's highest honour on Tuesday when he was named Big 12 Pitcher of the Year following a season of pure dominance on the mound.

Jean was also named to the All-Big 12 First Team.

The Montreal native became the first reliever in Big 12 Conference history to be named Pitcher of the Year after leading the league in strikeouts per nine innings pitched, hits allowed per nine, strikeout-to-walk ratio, and WHIP while finishing second in total strikeouts and third in ERA.

Jean joined Ryan Wagner from 2003 as the only Cougar relievers to strikeout 100+ in a single season with Jean striking out five or more hitters in 12 games this season and striking out seven or more in six different games – all out of the bullpen.

The southpaw was one of two pitchers to be top two nationally in strikeouts per nine and hits allowed per nine.

Jean is Houston's first conference Pitcher of the Year since Aaron Fletcher earned the award in 2018 and the seventh Cougar pitcher to earn a Pitcher of the Year award. He is the first Houston reliever to win Pitcher of the Year.

In his career-best outing at UCF, Jean struck out 11 Knights hitters in five innings of relief work and didn't allow a hit until the ninth inning.

During Big 12 play, Jean went 3-0 with 72 strikeouts with the Cougars winning 10 of the 12 games he pitched in. The left-handed pitcher struck out five or more in nine of the 12 league games he appeared.

Jean dominated with his breaking ball getting a 56.5% whiff rate on his curveball, which ranked second among all D-1 pitchers who have thrown at least 150 curveballs. His 38.0% whiff rate on the year is 12th nationally among pitchers with at least 500 pitches thrown.

The lefty led the team with 2.33 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) this season and his 2.32 Pitcher WAR (pWAR) is 17th nationally and second in the Big 12 Conference.