SEC in the NCAA

[NorthMS]

Looks like the SEC has put it's firm grip on D1 Softball. 7 of 8 SR have SEC teams in them. 8 of 16 teams left are SEC. The lone SR without a SEC team in it, COULDN'T have one in it.

How many SEC teams make the CWS? For sanity sake, I hope it's not 7.

Is this how it was with the PAC 10 years ago?

I guess I'm rooting for a Florida/Oregon final.

 

[sluggers]

Is this how it was with the PAC 10 years ago?

No, but there were three reasons:

1) There were more restrictions on travel. Most softball programs had no travel budget, so teams played in regionals close to home, except for Arizona or UCLA.
2) Back then, the NFCA (not the NCAA) was trying to make the sport more popular. (Remember that the SEC and the Big10 didn't have softball teams until the Title IX lawsuits started threatening their football programs.) So, the regionals and sectionals were set up so that a few lesser teams could make it to the CWS in an attempt to broaden the appeal of the sport.
3) The good ol' girls network (and Arizona) made sure that certain teams always went to the CWS.

For years, the CWS was composed of UCLA, Arizona, Michigan, South Carolina, Louisiana Southwest (now Louisiana Lafayette), Washington and two other teams. Usually, some team from the northwest would be there as well. (The Raybestos Brakettes had pull, believe it or not.)

Here is how it worked:

UCLA and Arizona were always ranked 1 and 2. The #2 team would host the "western" sectional. All the California teams would feed into that sectional. So the host would eliminate all the other California teams. The "other California teams" (Fresno State, UC Long Beach, etc.) were usually the best teams in the country after UCLA and Arizona, but they never got to go to the CWS.

The #1 team would head east and play in the midwest in some sectional that, somehow, never included Michigan. So, the #1 team, more or less, got a bye into the CWS.

UCLA and Arizona would then summarily destroy the other competition at the CWS and play against each other in a championship game that would end 1-0, usually in favor of UCLA.