Regional Champs

Well, I'm clearly not talking about the Detroit Pistons with that title. They dropped game 7 last night to find themselves out of the NBA playoffs. Honestly, they should have and could have buttoned things up well before last night, but that is a whole different subject. Instead, today I am going to talk about the NCAA Division I softball tournament and the results of the regional round.

I'm not going to dig into each quad, because that would be quite tedious. Just know that a lot of softball took place this past weekend and many teams found themselves fighting for their lives to make it to the Super Regional games. Remember, we started with something like 64 teams at the beginning of the tournament and that has now been cut down to 16 teams via double elimination play in the regional games.

The super regional games will be a best of three format that will cut the field in half down to eight teams. Those eight teams will then play double elimination again to determine the two teams facing off in the championship series.

In the Tuscaloosa quad, number 1 seed Alabama came out on top besting SE LA, Belmont, and USC Upstate. In Baton Rouge, number 4 seed LSU survived their quad against South Alabama, Akron, and 5 seed Virginia Tech to secure their super regional game against Alabama. That should be an exciting series!

In Tallahassee, number 3 seed Florida State was eliminated along with Jax State, and Stetson for number 6 seed UCF to punch their ticket to the super regionals. They will be facing 2 seed UCLA after the Bruins took down 7 seed South Carolina, CALBAP, and CSFULL.

In Fayetteville, number 2 seed Arkansas slipped into the super regional after beating out 7 seed Washington, Fordham, and South Florida. That sets them up against 3 seed Duke who sent 6 seed Arizona, Howard, and Marshall on the bus back home.

Rounding out the left side of the bracket in Stillwater, we had 1 seed Nebraska dominating their quad taking out 8 seed Louisville, South Dakota, and Grand Canyon. The Cornhuskers will be facing a 4 seed Oklahoma State team that also ran their quad with zero losses against 5 seed Stanford, Eastern Illinois, and Princeton

Before I jump to the other side of the bracket, I should point out that UCF and Duke are the only two teams who really faced any kind of adversity to make it to the super regional. Duke actually had to fight their way through the second half of the losers bracket to beat Arizona after dropping their second game to them 10 to 1. They then hammered Marshal 11 to 1, and beat Arizona twice in a row to win their spot in the Super Regional.

On the other hand, UCF just had a quick loss in the first game of the finals to force a second game.

In the Norman quad we have 1 seed Oklahoma taking out 8 seed Kansas, Michigan, and Binghamton to secure their spot against 5 seed Mississippi State in Euguene. Miss State took down 4 seed Oregon, Idaho State, and St. Mary to make it to the super regional.

In Lubock 3 seed Texas Tech advances after downing 6 seed Ole Miss, Marist, and Boston U. Which sets them up to face 2 seed Florida from the Gainesville quad. The gators topped 7 seed Texas State, Florida A&M, and Georgia Tech.

In Knoxville, 2 seed Tennessee is going to be facing 3 seed Georgia from the Athens quad. The Volunteers took down 7 seed Virginia, Northern Kentucky, and Indiana while Georgia beat out 6 seed Clemson, C of C, and UNC G to secure their spot.

Finally, 5 seed Arizona State won out over 4 seed Texas A&M, McNeese, and UConn to punch their ticket n the College Station quad against the Austin quad which saw 1 seed Texas taking out 8 seed Wisconsin, Wagner, and Baylor.

I should point out that none of the teams in this side of the bracket had to fight out of the losers bracket to get to the super regionals. It was a straight shot for all of them.

I should also point out, UCLA and Nebraska are the only two teams from the Big Ten left in the tournament. I'm pulling for Nebraska personally.