NCAA Div I Tournament Challenge

[corlay]

Regional Winners
Oklahoma
Louisville
Texas A&M
Alabama
Florida
UNC
Arkansas
Florida State
Washington
Virginia Tech
Louisiana Lafayette
Arizona
Georgia
LSU
James Madison
UCLA

Super Regional Winners
Oklahoma
Alabama
Florida
Florida State
Washington
Louisiana Lafayette
LSU
UCLA

National Finalists
Oklahoma
UCLA

National Champion
UCLA

Picked a LOT of upsets and
My only real "dud" picks were Arkansas and Texas A&M.

Louisville, UNC, Louisiana, Georgia, Virginia Tech all made it to the Regional Championships,
but none could win 2 in a row...

 

[Eric F]

JMU upsets Michigan!

 

[Sweet Lou]

So all chalk again this year with the exception of 16th ranked JMU "upsetting" 19th ranked Michigan.

 

[Eric F]

So all chalk again this year with the exception of 16th ranked JMU "upsetting" 19th ranked Michigan.

I didn't notice before that JMU was ranked higher than Michigan in the polls. Maybe it wasn't so much of an upset, after all.

 

[Sweet Lou]

I think given that it was held at Michigan it probably qualifies as an upset but those two teams are really even I think. That said last year the 16 teams that hosted a regional all advanced as did the 8 teams that hosted a super-regional. This year 15 of the 16 hosts advanced although there were some very exciting games and a number of G7. We'll see what happens in the supers. Can we get 2 years in a row with 1-8 in WCWS?

 

[Lozza]

I feel like JMU might pull the upset against UCLA. UCLA have been flat the past two weeks. Just not at their best. And they’re back to riding Garcia’s arm.

The Oklahome super will be great. Wisconsin did amazing in the regionals finals and went close to pulling off the ultimate upset.

Washington are right now. They are really coming good. The commentators kept talking about Flores and what a difference she’s have made last year. Having Bates, Flores then Reynolds is just a sizzling top 3 batters. And both Avelo and Plain are just amazing pitchers. Watching Gabbie throw that curve was just beautiful.

 

[Gtrips07]

Well yeah.. you give the highest seed team home field advantage, you pick some of the highest seed regionals by 'who finished around .500 in the SEC', then give them the easier first game and demand that a team with less pitching depth beat you 2 times on Sunday when their limited depth is beaten down and tired.

The odds are highly stacked against everyone else - JMU goes 50-8, has lots of wins against many teams in the tournament including Michigan who they are playing and can't get a home regional?

Or a couple of years ago when FAU and USF had the pitching - but 'travel' meant they also got dumped in with Florida or FSU every year...

And of course you are right - these other programs are just not as deep. Deep enough often get one win, and often the #1 pitcher and top 4-5 players are good enough - it is the 6-12 players and the #2 & #3 pitchers that are just not quite at the level of the same at the bigger programs.

USF gets screwed every year by getting stuck with Florida or FSU. USF even beat Arizona this year and would have had a change in other regions.



Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[Eric F]

Florida St. getting whacked was a surprise. I'm still hoping for UCLA, but I'm suspect about their ability to close it out.

 

[corlay]

Florida squeaks by Tennessee.

I thought Tennessee got a little TOO aggressive on the basepaths in this series,
after embarrassing Florida with delayed steals in Game 02.

 

[robertc3]

Now the real fun starts. It is a bit of a bummer that the committee stacked the seeds the way that they did so one half of the bracket is Big 12 and SEC and the other half is 3 Pac-12 teams. Part of the fun of the tournament is seeing teams play that have no history with each other, not teams playing for the 4th time in a month.