After a flurry of activity this weekend, we are finally ready to move on to the Super Regional games in the 2024 Division I softball championship. What started as 64 teams has been weeded down to 16 and from here we will work out way down to 8, then two to face off for the title.
Being a double elimination format, there is a lot going on in the Regional games. Much like their days playing travel softball, some of these young ladies saw themselves playing three or four games in one day. It's a stark contrast to what you generally see at the university level. Typically, you might have a double header, but beyond that, you aren't constantly on the field.
If you were a team that found yourself in the elimination bracket, but then fought back to force a game seven, you likely saw a lot of softball this past weekend.
Thankfully, ESPN has been doing a pretty good job of keeping us all up to date on everything that is happening. My only regret is that I don't get all of the ESPN channels through YouTube TV, and I dropped the ESPN piece of my Disney+ subscription a while ago. I am likely going to have to pick it up in the future to watch Radford games though.
ESPN had a show called "The Seventh Inning" where they would give you some multi-views of all the games that were on. I was happy to discover this since YouTube TV doesn't seem to allow their new multi-view option for softball. They really need to expand that and make it more accessible to everyone for any type of show.
We found ourselves watching The Seventh Inning more than we watched individual games which was kind of nice.
As I said, we went from 64 teams this past weekend down to 16, so here is the rundown of what we have to look at. Also, let's see just how poorly I did anticipating who would make it to the super regionals.
I'm off to a pretty good start with my prediction of Texas vs. Texas A&M being the first big match up we see in the super regionals. I should have went with my brain on the next one. If you read my post last week you saw me point out that LSU and Stanford were the clear choices, but I instead went with California vs. Mississippi State.
Congrats to LSU and Stanford for making it to the super regionals.
I got the first half of the next one right when I picked Oklahoma State. What I had neglected to take into account is the rich and storied history Arizona softball has. It slipped right under my radar and I went with Arkansas versus Oklahoma State.
So in case you didn't follow that. It's OK State versus Arizona.
Finally, to close out this side of the bracket, I once again went 50/50 with my picks. I hit the nail on the head by picking Florida to advance, but I didn't take into account Baylor edging out everyone else including Ole Miss. In fact, I think Ole Miss was out of the regionals fairly early.
As much as I didn't want Alabama to make it to the super regionals, I had a feeling they would and I am batting .1000 when I made the choice of Tennessee versus Alabama. They are both ranked teams, so it was a bit of a no-brainer. It wasn't an easy road for Alabama though. I hope The Lady Vols come out on top.
Once again, my instincts were right on the money when I picked UCLA vs. Georgia in the next super regional. It wasn't easy for Georgia though and I think that might give us an idea of how the next series is going to go. We will see...
While I won't say that Missouri isn't good, I do feel they had a bit of a "home field advantage" during the regionals. I was pretty sad to see Indiana get eliminated since they were one of my picks to make it to the super regionals. My pick had Indiana facing Duke and the actual result was Missouri facing Duke.
Honestly, this is a throwaway part of the bracket for me, but I'd rather see Mizzou win than Duke I guess.
Finally, I was really hoping UCF could be a bit of a Cinderella and make it to the super regionals to play against Oklahoma, but it turns out Florida State was the better team and they advance to face the reigning NCAA champion.
Be sure to check back to get my picks on who is going to win the next games before the super regionals start on Friday.
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