Last weekend, we had the St. Pete/Clearwater Elite Invitational. I created the following chart to show how all of the 16 teams did. Green shading indicates wins (with "d" denoting that the listed team "defeated" a given opponent) and pink indicates losses (with "l" denoting that it "lost" to a given opponent). The games are not listed in the order played; rather, I grouped all of a team's wins and all of a team's losses together, to create a gradient from the most successful teams at the top to the least successful at the bottom. Finally, you should note that teams differed in the number of games played, from four to six. As can be seen, Florida State was the only team to go undefeated, topped off with a 4-3 extra-inning win over UCLA. Four teams -- Auburn, Washington, South Florida, and Northwestern -- each had only one loss. Two major disappointments were Oklahoma State (2-3) and Texas (0-5), both of which had been ranked in the natio

The 2022 edition of the St. Pete/Clearwater Elite Invitational is underway. Sixteen teams are participating in the event, which runs through Sunday. Nationally ranked teams in the field (based on the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll) include No. 3 UCLA, No. 5 Washington, No. 6 Florida State, No. 7 Oklahoma State, No. 9 Texas, No. 12 Clemson, No. 15 Tennessee, No. 16 Michigan, No. 22 LSU, No. 23 Northwestern, No. 24 Central Florida, and No. 25 Auburn. From my perusal of several teams' schedules, each team will play between 4-6 games against prescheduled opponents (i.e., it's not a tournament in the sense of winning teams advancing to further rounds and losing teams being eliminated). Selected games will be televised on the ESPN Family of Networks. UPDATE: ESPN.com has a detailed preview of all the teams in the Elite Invitational.

No. 1 Oklahoma darted off to a 5-0 start on the season, winning a single game at UC Santa Barbara and then sweeping four games in the Mark Campbell Invitational in Irvine, California. The Sooners' four tournament wins come over Loyola Marymount, Mississippi State, No. 3 UCLA, and UC San Diego. OU outscored its opponents 41-1 over the five games. Only UCLA scored against Oklahoma, in a 4-1 Bruin loss on Saturday. No. 2 Alabama started off 4-0 in the University of Arizona's Mike Candrea Classic. The highlight for the Crimson Tide was an 11-0 run-rule victory over the host Wildcats. No. 4 Oklahoma State went 4-1 in Arizona State's Kajikawa Classic, suffering a 4-0 shutout loss to Duke. No. 5 Florida went 4-0 at the South Florida tournament, including a 4-0 shutout over Michigan. The game was scoreless through five innings, but a two-out grand-slam homer in the top of the sixth gave the Gators their winning margin. UF's Lexie Delbrey came within two outs of a no-hitter,

ESPN.com's 2022 college softball preview is available here . As we've seen in other NCAA sports such as football, basketball, baseball, and volleyball, player transfers have occurred at a brisk rate. The ESPN.com preview discusses notable transfers, as well as rule changes and a somewhat modified format for the Women's College World Series.

With the start of the 2022 softball season just days away, let's look at which teams are projected to be among the nation's best. As shown in the chart below, all four preseason polls I could find agree that defending Women's College World Series champion Oklahoma is still the team to beat. With the exception of the Softball America poll (which has Oklahoma State at No. 2) Alabama is the consensus pick as the nation's second-best team. The polls are divided as to whether UCLA should be No. 3 or 4. Florida and Florida State are No. 5 and 6 in most polls, although there are differences in whether the Gators or Seminoles are ranked higher. Team (Most Recent Title) ESPN.com/ USA Softball USA Today/ NFCA Softball America D1 Softball Oklahoma (2021) 1 1 1 1 Alabama (2012) 2 2 3 2 UCLA (2019) 3 3 4 4 Oklahoma St. (---) 4 5 2 3 Florida (201