Division II Rant

I'm just going to warn you right now, there is a rant incoming with this post. It's probably pretty petty in the grand scheme of things and also pretty stupid that I am letting myself get worked up over it, but I see it as a tremendous injustice.

As you might remember, yesterday we covered the Division I softball tournament bracket. If you didn't see it, you can find the post here. The Division II tournament is set up the same way as the Division I tournament. There are some double elimination regional games, then we move to the best of three super regionals before scaling back down to the final eight teams in a double elimination "quad" and then the best of three finale that crowns the champion.

I know it seems complex, but it really does make sense once you get the hang of it. You might also remember that I was complaining about how USC Upstate got the bid to play in the national tournament versus Winthrop who won the Big South regular season. Since USC Upstate won the conference tournament, it implies that the selection committee puts a bigger weight on the conference tournament versus regular season performance when making their choices.

That became abundantly clear as I started to look at the Division II bracket.

Let's break it down.

We start off with seven seed Fairmont State taking on two seed East Stroudsburg, 8 seed Claflin vs. 1 seed Shippensburg, 7 seed Bridgeport vs. 2 seed Adelphi, and 8 seed Tiffin vs. 1 seed UIndy. Now first off, don't be shocked if you don't recognize half (or more) of the university names here. These are D2 schools and while they are all fantastic places for education, they don't get the name or brand recognition that D1 schools in power conferences do.

I'm going to come back to the fact that Tiffin is an 8 seed in just a bit.

8 seed Spring Hill faces 1 seed Saint Leo, 6 seed West Chester vs. 3 seed Kutztown, 8 seed Mercy vs. 1 seed Franklin Pierce, and 7 seed Rockhurst vs. 2 seed Mckendree.

7 seed UAH vs. 2 seed West Florida, 8 seed St. Mary's (TX) vs. 1 seed Colorado Christian, 8 seed Lincoln Memorial vs. 1 seed North Georgia, and 5 seed Charleston vs. 4 seed Glenville State.

6 seed Souther NH versus 3 seed Thomas Aquinas, 5 seed Ashland vs. 4 seed Saginaw Valley (my alma matter), 7 seed Rogers State vs. 2 seed Pittsburg State, and 5 seed Tampa vs. 4 seed AUM.

7 seed Carson Newman vs. 2 seed Francis Marion, 8 seed Hawaii Hilo vs. 1 seed Cal State San Marcos, 7 seed Western Washington vs. 2 seed Cal State East Bay, and 7 seed CSU Pueblo vs 2 seed West Texas A&M.

8 seed Augustana (SD) vs 1 seed Mo Southern State, 5 seed Assumption vs. 4 seed Caldwell, 6 seed Missouri S&T vs 3 seed Findlay, and 6 seed Montevallo vs 3 seed West Alabama.

5 seed Oakland Christian vs. 4 seed UT Tyler, 5 seed Lander vs. 4 seed Columbus State, 6 seed Winona State vs. 3 seed Central Oklahoma, and 6 seed Biola vs 3 seed CUI.

Finally, we have 6 seed Texas A&M Kingsville vs. 3 seed Angelo State, 6 seed Anderson (SC) vs 3 seed Lenoir-Rhyne, 5 seed Cal State Monterey Bay vs. 4 seed Cal State Dom. Hills, and then 5 seed St. Cloud State vs. 4 seed Southern Arkansas.

Now, the thing that really gets me twisted up is the fact that Findlay is a number three seed and Tiffin is a number 8 seed. They are in the same conference, and Tiffin won the regular season, but Findlay won the conference tournament. How you can make Findlay so much higher seeded than Tiffin is beyond belief to me. It's absolutely ridiculous and puts Tiffin at a disadvantage right from the get go having to play a number 1 seed team.

I'm not a fan, but I will still be watching Thursday when all the action starts. I just hope Findlay gets knocked out in fairly short order. The good thing is, it's double elimination, so Tiffin can either just win or fight their way back.