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If you're a fan of men's college basketball, there's a good chance you're familiar with ESPN's Bracketology, where during the season, "bracketologist" Joe Lunardi periodically projects what the NCAA tournament field will look like. No detail is spared -- you get to see expected head-to-head match-ups, seedings, and game locations. Lunardi even has his initial projection of the 2007 hoops brackets up and available for viewing, which for now at least provides some food for thought.

The best analogue I can find for softball comes from a discussion thread at Ultimate College Softball. It's mostly listings of whom people think will make the NCAA field from each conference, but you can also find projections of which teams will be placed together in regional tournaments. Not all the comments offer full-fledged projections; many simply offer concurrences and/or dissents from what others have posted.

For those of you who are new this year to following college softball, the NCAA implemented a play-off structure last year that duplicates what baseball has been doing for several years. The 64 teams in the softball field will be divided into 16 regional groupings, where the four teams at a given site (generally, the home of the highest-seeded team in that region) will play a double-elimination tournament. The only thing that probably would prevent a high seed from hosting is the lack of a suitable facility.

The 16 teams to emerge victorious from the regionals will then be paired off into eight super-regionals. The two teams at each super-regional (again, generally hosted by the higher seed) will then play a two-out-of-three series, to advance to the Women's College World Series. The WCWS has a permanent site in Oklahoma City.

Dates of the various rounds are listed here (the selection of teams will be announced Sunday, May 14).

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Washington used a first-inning grand-slam homer from pitcher Danielle Lawrie and some late insurance runs to defeat Georgia by a score of 9-3 in tonight's late game. The win gives U-Dub a spot in the best-of-three championship series against Florida starting Monday (Georgia had defeated Washington earlier today, 9-8 in nine innings, to force tonight's rematch). The Huskies thus claimed "top dog" status over Georgia on their side of the bracket. Florida got a two-out grand-slam homer from Ali Gardiner in the bottom of the seventh to edge Alabama 6-5. The Crimson Tide made a strong recovery in the tournament after looking "not ready for prime time" in an opening-round loss to Michigan. But, as a result of tonight's heartbreaking loss to the Gators, Bama is now eliminated. Lowrie's and Gardiner's grand-slams are among four that have been hit so far in this World Series.

Florida Shines at Kajikawa Classic

The University of Florida, ranked No. 14 and 15 in the two major national preseason polls, pulled two major upsets en route to an undefeated 5-0 performance at the season-opening Kajikawa Classic at Arizona State. Among the Gator victims were three Pac 12 schools: No. 3 Cal (by a score of 7-4), No. 5/6 Oregon (1-0), and No. 13/14 Arizona (14-3). Full results of the tournament are available here .