Skip to main content

Eve of 2022 Women's College World Series

With this year's WCWS set to begin tomorrow morning at 11:00 Central with UCLA taking on Texas, I wanted to examine how upset-laden the 2022 NCAA tournament has been. I also wanted to feature my new-look design! To start the discussion, I created a graphic to show which of the seeded (and unseeded) teams have made it to Oklahoma City. (You can click on the graphics to enlarge them.)

If the seeding had been perfectly predictive, of course, then eight of the eight top-seeded teams would be in OKC. Instead, only three of the eight top-seeded teams are (the Nos. 1, 5, and 7 teams), the lowest total since the advent of super-regional play in 2005. If the seeding had been just a little off, we would expect some of the teams seeded Nos. 9-16 to fill in the gaps. However, only two of these teams qualified for the WCWS (Nos. 9 and 14). That leaves three openings, which of necessity are filled by unseeded teams.

Of the unseeded teams, two looked at various points in the regular season like OKC would be the last place they would be during the first week of June. I'm talking about Texas and Arizona. The Longhorns got off to a rough start, losing all five of their games in February's St. Pete/Clearwater Elite tournament. Texas did improve over the season, however, ending up as one of only two teams (Oklahoma State being the other) to beat No. 1 Oklahoma thus far.

Arizona is another matter. As shown in the following screen-capture from the Pac 12 website, U of A finished tied with Cal for last place (with 8-16 records) among the nine conference schools that field softball teams.


In late March, not only did the Wildcats get swept by UCLA; they didn't even score a run in any of the three games. Seeing all the home runs Arizona has slugged in the NCAA tourney thus far, it is hard to believe any team could have shut the Wildcats out three straight games, but it happened! Further, unlike Texas, which sent a message with its win over OU, Arizona never did anything similar, in my view. In fact, in U of A's last six games of the regular season (three each against Cal and Stanford), the Wildcats went 2-4. But here they are!

Oklahoma has to be the prohibitive favorite. Assuming the Sooners make the championship series, who they will face remains anyone's guess! 

Popular posts from this blog

Pitching Star NiJaree Canady Reportedly in the Transfer Portal

Stanford pitching ace NiJaree Canady has reportedly entered the transfer portal ( link ), having completed two seasons in the circle for the Cardinal. Stanford has made the WCWS in both of Canady's seasons on the team. Another school hit hard by the transfer portal is the University of Washington, with an exodus of eight Huskies . This list of the top ten players in the portal includes four from UW. Today is the final day of the 30-day window for players to enter the portal.
Read more

NiJaree Canady Transferring to -- of All Places -- Texas Tech

NiJaree Canady, whose sub-1.00 ERA helped lead Stanford to the Women's College World Series in both her years with the Cardinal, announced on July 24 that she is transferring to Texas Tech. I've lived in Lubbock for 27 years and can say that the town has been improving with a greater selection of restaurants and shops, and a new downtown performing arts center. Likewise, nice new facilities have been dotting the Texas Tech campus . Still, it seems unlikely that Canady would have become a Red Raider without the $1 million annual Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deal for her, made possible by the donation of a Texas Tech alumni couple. So stunning an event is this, even in the ever-changing world of collegiate athletics, that the New York Times  even ran a behind-the-scenes story on Canady's path to Texas Tech. I look forward to being in the stands to watch Canady pitch next spring, an opportunity I never expected to have.
Read more

2024 WCWS -- Day 6

Oklahoma has kept its quest for a fourth straight WCWS title alive with a 6-5 eight-inning win over Florida to advance to the championship round. The Sooners will take on Texas in a two-out-of-three series beginning Wednesday night. Florida held a 5-2 lead after three innings and looked well on its way to beating OU for the second straight day, which would have eliminated the Sooners and taken the Gators to the final round. However, UF scored no further runs, whereas Oklahoma chipped away with two in the fourth, one in the sixth, and one in the eighth. The final run came via Jayda Coleman's opposite-field walk-off home run to lead off the bottom of the eighth.  Sooner starter Kelly Maxwell went the distance, allowing only four hits. Three of those hits were home runs within the first three innings; the only other Gator hit was an infield single in the top of the sixth. Maxwell also walked five and struck out eight. Florida starter Keagan Rothrock also went the distance, allowing 1...
Read more