FRIDAYYYY May 15 Links and Banter
Cheers to the freakin' weekend, all.
Usual preface at the top here: I don't know anything about softball! But I do really enjoy high-stakes collegiate sports that are on during the work day, so let's dive in.
Let's get some tournament structure here. How does this work?
This is a 64 team bracket, AS GOD INTENDED (staring at the NCAA for the massacre they've committed against March Madness). 31 automatic qualifying berths, 33 at-large berths. There are 16 regional sites, which are composed of pods of 4 teams each. The top seed in each regional hosts the games for this first weekend. The regionals are played in double-elimination format and the winner of each regional moves on to the Sweet 16 aka the Super Regionals, which will start up next weekend.
Which B1G teams made it? Can I root against the Wolverines?
You most definitely can! Our venerable conference is represented by Nebraska as our automatic qualifier, along with Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington, UCLA, Indiana, and Oregon. Yes, the Big Ten softball landscape is SIGNIFICANTLY better since the Pac-4 merger. #8 UCLA will host a regional and super regional, as will #4 Nebraska. Washington heads to Fayetteville (good lord, the culture shock), Michigan is trudging to Norman, Wisconsin is in Austin, and Indiana will pop down to Knoxville.
Any first-timers to cheer for in the overall bracket?
Yep, we've got five newbies in the field: the Idaho State Bengals, Akron Zips, Wagner Seahawks, South Dakota Coyotes, and the Cal Baptist Lancers (also newbies in this year's men's March Madness).
Have any B1G teams won this before?
Do you mean current B1G teams, or teams that were B1G when they won?
I don't really care, and you're the one writing both sides of this discussion, you muppet.
Ok, fair. Yes! UCLA has the most championships of any team with 12, the most recent coming in 2019. They're the blue-blood of blue-bloods, with nine of those 12 titles coming in the 1980s or 1990s. The Washington AWOOOO Huskies have one in 2009, and Michigan has the lone B1G title while playing as a B1G team in 2005. Oklahoma has been the dominant squad in recent history, with 8 titles since 2000 and 6 in the past decade. There's a reason why the 2028 LA Olympics is running the softball games in Oklahoma. (This is still quite odd, though.)
Who's going to win this year?
Probably an SEC team? [tomatoes flying at stage] Wait, don't throw things at me! Alabama, Texas, and Oklahoma are the top three seeds and the SEC owns 9 of the 16 ranked squads. But weird things happen, and that's why we play the damn games. Like last year, when Liberty (spits) shocked the #1 overall seed TAMU Aggies in back to back games. But yeah, the top seeds tend to move forward and the top teams tend to dominate.
I do not care for the Southeastern Conference or their ilk. When do the B1G teams play?
Ah, very good, sir or madam. An excellent choice.
Friday May 15:
- Wisconsin v Baylor: 1:30 ET/12:30 GTZ, ESPN App
- Michigan v Kansas: 6:00 ET/5:00 GTZ, ESPNU
- Nebraska v South Dakota: 6:30 ET/5:30 GTZ, ESPN App
- Washington v South Florida: 8:00 ET/7:00 GTZ, ESPNU
- Indiana v Virginia: 8:00 ET/7:00 GTZ, ESPN2.
- Oregon v Idaho State: 10:00 ET/9:00 GTZ, ESPNU.
- UCLA v Cal Baptist: 10:00 ET/9:00 GTZ, ESPN2.
You've intrigued me with your passion, prose, and snark. When does my team play after that?
Yeah, I don't know. Depends if they win! And I'm probably not updating this, because OhioOtter and I are taking a much-needed long weekend out of the hellscape to eat too much food and drink fancy cocktails. Have fun, all. Don't burn the place down while I'm away and/or distracted by gnocchi and hooch.
