Skip to main content
EVENING

Florida (62-2) won the SEC tournament with a 4-1 victory over Alabama. Look for the Gators to be the No. 1 national seed when the NCAA field is announced tomorrow. As has been common for SEC teams in recent years, Florida did not play the toughest possible out-of-conference schedule this year. Still, a 62-2 record is amazing, regardless of schedule.

Northwestern edged Iowa 1-0 for the Big 10 tournament championship.

Tomorrow's Big 12 tourney final pits Nebraska against Texas A&M.

[Also in the Big 12 tourney, my school Texas Tech did something unusual in its opening game against Missouri. See my Hot Hand page, which is devoted to statistical analysis of sports streakiness.]

The Pac 10 title (with no tournament) goes to Arizona State (18-3), just ahead of UCLA (17-4).

MORNING

In today's conference tournament action around the country...

Florida and Alabama will be getting underway shortly in the SEC championship game. With Arizona State stumbling a bit lately, Florida seems to be in a good position to obtain the No. 1 national seeding when the NCAA field is announced on Sunday night (via a Fresno State discussion board, I learned of these details about the NCAA selection show).

Meanwhile, Iowa and Northwestern will be playing in the Big 10 title game.

The Big 12 tourney holds two rounds on Saturday (the quarter- and semi-finals) with the title game on Sunday.

***

UCLA dropped a Friday decision to Oregon State, putting the Bruins a game behind Arizona State in the Pac 10 standings. Each team has one game to play.

Popular posts from this blog

This Friday (and all remaining Fridays of the regular season), I will preview the upcoming weekend's games. Before doing so, I wanted to do an entry, primarily for sports fans who have not watched much softball, on differences they could expect to see between softball and baseball. The Sandy Plains Softball Association of Marietta, Georgia has produced a document entitled Fastpitch 101 , which details the similarities and differences in the rules of the two sports. Here are some of my own observations from over the years: 1. Because the bases are considerably closer together in softball (60 feet) than in baseball (90 feet), softball infielders consistently must pick up ground balls and make their throws to first base quickly, in order to get the runner. In other words, many (if not most) softball grounders result in "bang-bang" plays at first base, necessitating a lot of close calls by first-base umpires, who must detect whether the thrown ball (to the first-baseperso...
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 .