ESPN.com's Bill Connelly offers an overview of the college softball season thus far (mid-April), reviewing the top teams and players. As Connelly writes, the SEC is domiant. However, the conference's two newest arrivals -- pre-season favorites Texas and Oklahoma -- have each lost a few games. Instead, for the moment at least, the focus is on Texas A&M (15-5 vs. RPI top 25 and winners of 16 of its last 17 games) and Tennessee (winners of four out of six games combined vs. Oklahoma and Texas, but only 10-8 vs. the RPI top 25).
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.