Road to the 2023 NCAA Championship

[The Man In Blue]

I am a fan of Eastern head coach Tara Archibald. Good coach, good person.

Two of my kids are going to Eastern … didn’t know anything about their softball program!

 

[_MIA_]

Two of my kids are going to Eastern … didn’t know anything about their softball program!

PM @Westwind for the address where you can send your DFP man card..

 

[RADcatcher]

UCLA softball is No. 2 seed for NCAA tournament; Long Beach State, Cal State Fullerton hit road

The Bruins will host a four-team regional Friday-Sunday, while Long Beach State heads to the Stanford regional and Cal State Fullerton heads to the Clemson regional.

www.dailynews.com

 

[Tatonka]

I am a fan of Eastern head coach Tara Archibald. Good coach, good person.

Interesting. One of my DD's old teammates transferred into that program from Iowa. Been texting a bit with the Dad about how both that program and my twin's softball program had never made it to the dance before in their school's history.

 

[Lobster Birch]

I compared the teams in the tournament to the latest Massey Ratings, which, I know, are not infallible, but I like them better than other polls or the selection committee.

Of the 32 teams invited that did not get automatic bids, 4 teams had lower Massey Ratings than teams that did not make the tournament. Charlotte (ranked 58th), Texas St (57th), Cal St Fullerton (56th) and Liberty (46th) would be replaced by Arizona (24th), Arizona St (33rd), BYU (40th) and Mississippi St (41st). This would mean all 13 SEC teams would be in the tournament.

The regional host would look like this if done according to Massey:

1 Oklahoma
2 UCLA
3 Tennessee
4 Florida St
5 Stanford
6 Washington
7 Oklahoma St
8 Utah
9 Duke
10 Northwestern
11 Oregon
12 Texas
13 LSU
14 Arkansas
15 Georgia
16 Clemson

A four team difference in invites between the selection committee and Massey isn’t too unsettling. I think it tells us they’re both not too far out of touch.

The only egregious difference is the committee’s selection of Alabama as the 5 seed, which I think is indefensible.

 

[Cougars]

I compared the teams in the tournament to the latest Massey Ratings, which, I know, are not infallible, but I like them better than other polls or the selection committee.

Of the 32 teams invited that did not get automatic bids, 4 teams had lower Massey Ratings than teams that did not make the tournament. Charlotte (ranked 58th), Texas St (57th), Cal St Fullerton (56th) and Liberty (46th) would be replaced by Arizona (24th), Arizona St (33rd), BYU (40th) and Mississippi St (41st). This would mean all 13 SEC teams would be in the tournament.

The regional host would look like this if done according to Massey:

1 Oklahoma
2 UCLA
3 Tennessee
4 Florida St
5 Stanford
6 Washington
7 Oklahoma St
8 Utah
9 Duke
10 Northwestern
11 Oregon
12 Texas
13 LSU
14 Arkansas
15 Georgia
16 Clemson

A four team difference in invites between the selection committee and Massey isn’t too unsettling. I think it tells us they’re both not too far out of touch.

The only egregious difference is the committee’s selection of Alabama as the 5 seed, which I think is indefensible.

I don't know exactly how the Massey rankings work, but one possible issue with that though is the rankings become almost a self fullfilling prophecy. All the SEC teams keep playing each other, and so even though a team like Miss St keeps losing conference games, their ranking stays high because they are playing highly ranked teams.

I follow Iowa State/Big 12. In mens bball, every team in the conference was very high in the NET rankings/"quad" wins. So once they hit conference play, it's basically impossible for any of the teams to drop very far in the NET, because pretty much every game is considered a quad 1 or at least 2.

 

[angispeds]

The only team that can stop OU is OU.

That being said don't know how Bama was gifted the 5 overall seed see the bad losses they had to unranked teams. I guess it is convient that Fouts will most likely be back in time for WCWS...

Sent from my SM-N986U using Tapatalk

Agreed…no idea how bama got the 5. That one was baffling.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[angispeds]

And how did Baylor not get seeded? They are the only one to beat OU and beat Tenn twice! SEC bias is ridiculous. Remember last year.....only 3 Big 12 teams in 64, 3 in 16, 3 in last 4, 2 in last 2...Big 12 was and is best conference, not SEC.

On no planet is the big 12 the best softball conference. The bottom 3 have losing records and are not good right now and a couple of them have never been good. Obviously the top 3 teams are outstanding…but not the whole conference. I will concede that Baylor was deserving but I wonder if their conference record hosed them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[RADcatcher]

I compared the teams in the tournament to the latest Massey Ratings, which, I know, are not infallible, but I like them better than other polls or the selection committee.

Of the 32 teams invited that did not get automatic bids, 4 teams had lower Massey Ratings than teams that did not make the tournament. Charlotte (ranked 58th), Texas St (57th), Cal St Fullerton (56th) and Liberty (46th) would be replaced by Arizona (24th), Arizona St (33rd), BYU (40th) and Mississippi St (41st). This would mean all 13 SEC teams would be in the tournament.

The regional host would look like this if done according to Massey:

1 Oklahoma
2 UCLA
3 Tennessee
4 Florida St
5 Stanford
6 Washington
7 Oklahoma St
8 Utah
9 Duke
10 Northwestern
11 Oregon
12 Texas
13 LSU
14 Arkansas
15 Georgia
16 Clemson

A four team difference in invites between the selection committee and Massey isn’t too unsettling. I think it tells us they’re both not too far out of touch.

The only egregious difference is the committee’s selection of Alabama as the 5 seed, which I think is indefensible.

Appreciate you posting this. Will be interesting to compare the outcome!

 

[Westwind]

One of my DD's old teammates transferred into that program from Iowa.

Your buddies dd totally totally traded up! I bet the player would say the same.

I wish your twins a very long post season! Very cool!