I've just finished (at 3:00 in the morning Central) plotting the NCAA regional groupings geographically. At a glance, you can see how well the NCAA balanced the competing goals of geographic compactness to save money and competitive balance among the regions. Unlike last year, where I used four copies of the U.S. map to fit in four regional groupings apiece, I tried this time to get all 16 regionals on one map. I thought it would help if I used a map that adjusted for the population of each state, thus giving me more space to use in California, Texas, Florida, and some other states. Here's what I came up with (numbers in parentheses are seeds, underlines indicate hosting sites). Unless you have unbelievable eyesight, you'll have to click on the map to enlarge it...
The college softball world has thrown us a "Curve Bahl," if you will. Such is the unexpected news that Oklahoma ace Jordy Bahl has announced that she will transfer to the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Bahl is from the Omaha suburb of Papillion, Nebraska. Three thoughts jump out at me: Bahl was absolutely indispensable to the Sooners' 61-1 national championship season, coming up with numerous clutch strikeouts in tight tournament games against Clemson (super-regionals, Game 2 ) and Stanford ( WCWS semifinals ). OU benefited greatly this season via the transfer portal, bringing in Haley Lee from Texas A&M, Alex Storako from Michigan, and Cydney Sanders and Alynah Torres from Arizona State. Bahl's transfer is the first major one in the modern portal era (to my knowledge) in the other direction. Nebraska becomes an instant national championship contender, in my mind. Other players around the country may find it attractive to join Bahl in Lincoln but even if