WCWS selection and RPI

[TropicalSooner]

Bottom post of the previous page:

I tuned into ESPN2 late, did not see who will be in OU's regional as the #1 seed? Anyone have a link to show the pairings?

yeah...give me a sec...

[White River]

Sooner Bracket.png (56.47 KiB) Viewed 600 times

[OU_Tom]

[TropicalSooner]

Thought I had a picture but here's the link.

https://www.ncaa.com/brackets/softball/d1/2023

[TropicalSooner]

Thank you!
That's the picture I saw on another site that I was trying to copy for BudaSooner but couldn't find the original and what I had wouldn't copy.

[OUBeliever56A]

I tuned into ESPN2 late, did not see who will be in OU's regional as the #1 seed? Anyone have a link to show the pairings?

OU plays Hofstra at 4 PM on Friday.
California and Missouri plays at 6:30 following the OU game.

Not too bad of a draw for OU.

Boomer Sooner!

[TropicalSooner]

Saw on another site that this is the first time since 1986 that neither Michigan nor Arizona made the tournament. I have not verified that, but no reason to think it's not true.

Bet Storako is really glad she transferred to OU now !

[TN Sooner]

I think the SEC was way, way overvalued. The SEC has been slipping lately, but they still carry a lot of weight.

They significantly underperformed their seed last year:

Arkansas (4) lost in regional
Alabama (6) lost in regional
Tennessee (11) lost in regional
Florida (14) - only seeded team to win regional. Won Super also and went 1-2 in CWS
Missouri (15) - lost in regional

Unseeded teams - only MSU won a regional, but lost in Supers. A&M (OU), LSU (ASU), ole Miss (ucla), Georgia (Duke), Kentucky (Va Tech) and Auburn (Clemson) all lost in regionals.

I did not do the research, but believe results were similar in 2021 also.

[OUBeliever56A]

How does Alabama get the #5 seed when they were tied for 4th in the SEC? Alabama was 14-10 in the SEC and 41-18 record overall. To me Bama is not worthy of a #5 seed.

I also think that OSU was given too much credit for the early season and not penalized for their closing run.

If I calculated this correctly, the Top 32 teams (1st and 2nd seeds in the regionals) where made up of:

11 SEC teams - 4, 5, 10, 11, 14, 17, 20, 21, 24, 30, 32
5 PAC 12 teams - 2, 7, 9, 15, 22
4 Big 12 teams - 1, 6, 13, 18
4 ACC teams - 3, 8, 16, 19
3 Big 10 teams - 12, 26, 29
5 others - Liberty 31, Charlotte 25, Wichita State 27, Central Arkansas 28, Louisiana 23

11 teams are too many for the SEC, IMO.

I will be an interesting regional for OU with Missouri and California both here. OU plays at 4 against Hofstra on Friday. Then Cal and Mizzou play after.

Then, if the Sooners get out of the Regional, they will probably face either Clemson or Auburn. What is about teams that wear orange and/or yellow to potentially play OU?

I think Oklahoma has played 28 games against teams in the Tourney. 28 of 52. That is better than 50% of the teams.

Boomer Sooner!

[White River]

To add to the Bama seeding mystery, Fouts may be unable to play due to injury. Bama's not even a top 25 team without her.

[TropicalSooner]

I have very serious doubts that the cowgirls can even get out of their own regional.
Alabama? Maybe......with a healthy Fouts. But without Montana, no chance for them either.

[inconnu]

I would estimate that their opponents in their regional smell the blood in the water, too.(re both Bama and LosuR)

[Bixby_Sooner]

Get your May Madness Brackets filled out before it's too late:

[TropicalSooner]

To add to the Bama seeding mystery, Fouts may be unable to play due to injury. Bama's not even a top 25 team without her.

You know.....after sleeping on this....fallout from the selection committee....I still can't get my mind wrapped around their seeding. The only possible thing that in my wildest dreams I could come up with is that they put Bama at 5 and osu at 6 because they are rolling the dice that Fouts and Maxwell will come around and be the pitchers they once were in the beginning of the season, and the higher seedings maximizes their chance with "easier paths" than if they were seeded elsewhere. I guess they hope that Fouts' injury is not anywhere near as serious as it appears, and they can get a matchup between OU and Fouts to send Montana's career out with a top draw game. As far as osu.....perhaps they are thinking Maxwell somehow regains form and pitches lights-out and maybe even get that "Bedlam Final" that they should have gotten last year when the cowgirls threw it away.

Beyond those two scenarios? Absolutely nothing else makes any sense at all.

[White River]

When you have a committee environment like this one, there are a number of factors that contribute to the outcome. Where the committee members are from, what biases they bring to the table along with their credibility within the committee and the strength of their personalities all impact the results. It's certain that some members carry more weight than others or are at least more effective at making their case than others. There have always been disagreements with the outcomes of NCAA committees. The good news for Oklahoma is anything short of a championship will be a disappointment and regardless of when they lost, we would be wildly disappointed. That's not the case for all teams and seeding for those teams are more critical. The Sooners have to beat the best, to be the best and that's our goal so the path to the top is less critical.

We would like for the seeding to make sense and we would like them to be as fair as possible but as an old friend of mine says: "Fair is where you go to ride the rides and see the ponies. It doesn't exist anywhere else!"

[OUBeliever56A]

To add to the Bama seeding mystery, Fouts may be unable to play due to injury. Bama's not even a top 25 team without her.

You know.....after sleeping on this....fallout from the selection committee....I still can't get my mind wrapped around their seeding. The only possible thing that in my wildest dreams I could come up with is that they put Bama at 5 and osu at 6 because they are rolling the dice that Fouts and Maxwell will come around and be the pitchers they once were in the beginning of the season, and the higher seedings maximizes their chance with "easier paths" than if they were seeded elsewhere. I guess they hope that Fouts' injury is not anywhere near as serious as it appears, and they can get a matchup between OU and Fouts to send Montana's career out with a top draw game. As far as osu.....perhaps they are thinking Maxwell somehow regains form and pitches lights-out and maybe even get that "Bedlam Final" that they should have gotten last year when the cowgirls threw it away.

Beyond those two scenarios? Absolutely nothing else makes any sense at all.

IF the committee did that, that is completely out of their mission and purpose. The committee should never speculate in that way.

I really think that the flawed RPI calculation makes it very tough on the committee along with the 400 mile rule. The RPI needs to punish teams more for losses IMO. For Bama to be a #5 seed with 18 losses and I think 9 losses to non-ranked teams, they are giving too much credit for top 10 wins. ALL Wins and Losses count. Not just a few of them.

IMO, Clemson w 19 losses, Bama with 18 losses, Arkansas 17 losses, LSU with 15 losses and OSU with 14 losses were seeded higher than they should have been. Losses by SEC teams to other SEC teams are not valued highly enough. The SEC benefits from that every year.