(SB) Ongoing UF Softball Commentary

Each stadium has its own quirks, and they discuss the ground rules where the game is played.
I am trying to search for KSP, but no luck so far.

1.10 Ground Rule An allowable amendment of the playing rules to accommodate a particular circumstance (usually a field condition). Ground rules cannot conflict with or supersede a playing rule. (See also Rule 5.8.3.) 1.11 In Flight Any batted, thrown or pitched ball that has not touched

 

OK ET. I'll take UK and bet you a beer. You will have to wait awhile to get paid. I won't be back in Florida until January.

 

https://www.ncaa.com/news/softball/...-softball-rankings-conference-tournament-week

 

ETGator1 Predictions for top 8 national seeds:

1. Texas
2. Tennessee
3. Oklahoma State
4. Oklahoma
5. Duke
6. UCLA
7. Stanford
8. Florida

The selection committee likely has the top 8 seeds written in ink. These teams are the composite the top 8 teams when considering the KPI, D1 Softball, Softball America, USA Today Coaches, ESPN.com USA Softball, and how the teams performed in their conferences and nationally. The selection committee will defer to the regular season for these picks. To do otherwise would cheapen the regular season.

The conference tournaments will determine seeds 9-16. The pool of teams for seeds 9-16 in no particular order:

Missouri
Arkansas
LSU
Texas A&M
Georgia
Florida State
Washington
Virginia Tech
Louisiana
Alabama
Mississippi State

Two teams of interest to watch:

Ole Miss trying to be the SEC's 13th team in the NCAA tournament

If a very good Louisiana team that walked away with the Sunbelt by 4 games, broke Oklahoma's 71 game home winning streak, and beat LSU late in a midweek game will be treated more fairly than the pollsters who have Washington too high and Louisiana too low.

 

My understanding is they placed a new rule that the safety bag can be used in any game as long as both teams agree to use it. Why it has not been used at all, anywhere, is beyond me. It has no effect on the game in any possible way other than possibly providing a little additional safety to avoid collisions at first, even if only one. A side benefit might be keeping the batter in the proper running lane and avoiding any interference from a throw from the catcher. It should be mandated next year at all levels of softball and baseball including MLB but it probably won't.

 

Emily. Congrats to her. No finer representative of Gator softball and UF both on and off the field. Elite level young woman and I'm a big fan. I'm going to tell a story. Years ago...has to be at least five....I'm watching her play a travel game. I even remember where...it was at the USSSA field in Vierra. There was a center field camera. Must have been a championship game because that is rare. Anyway, it was closely zoomed in on Emily as she hit. She actually let out a giant scream at the ball in the middle of her swing and then hit a rope to the center field fence that never went more than 10 feet off the ground. I had never seen anyone attack the ball so much that they actually screamed at it. I couldn't wait to see her in a Gator uniform.

 

I found some concerning information as I was looking at the ERA numbers of the top 8 teams in the ESPN rankings. Please don't shoot the messenger. The top 8 teams not including Florida have an overall ERA of 1.89 compared to Gators 2.90. The top 8 teams not including Florida have a conference ERA of 2.25 compared to Gators 4.12 and that difference is huge.

 

My only thought is who are we to pass? Yes, UF finished strong, but so did UCLA and Stanford. If UF hadn't swooned in April, we'd be looking at a top 5 seed. I'd happily take the 8 seed and host right through to the WCWS. If that means we get Texas in a first-round game, so be it. I really have no fear of any team at this point knowing that UF will do just fine if the Gators play up to their capabilities.

 

How long has it been down to #4?
I believe them and Texas will certainly have a tougher time in the SEC.
I can't wait to see it.

 

Of those 8 teams I think only Oklahoma and Texas average more runs per game than the Gators...someone earlier did post that we allowed 20 runs or so in 2 games BUT WON!

I also think that while those two teams are extremely good, that conference is not especially deep which pads those numbers a bit. Watching out of conference games the last couple of weeks I saw a few top level teams really leaning on one pitcher for a series sort of similar to what we have done.

Ex...Kilfoyle came in after a couple innings game 1 and 2 vs Oklahoma. Wright from Duke piched an out or two shy of half their innings last week vs NC St. Stanford had one pitcher throw 11 of 21 innings. Point I think I'm trying to make is more of these top ranked teams have squeezed their rotation at season's end and if we can run one off early it's all up for grabs because lots of teams are doing fairly similar pitching rotation as us, relying on few arms even though they have 4 or 5.

Someone mentioned Miller possibly getting regional play. I really liked how OK St just wanted 6 outs to start a game then brought in their ace. I think that's a better way for us possibly as opposed to bring one in late in the game when you're put of options. Thoughts?

 

the surprise to me will be if i miss on any of my top 8 predictions.

 

Reddit College Softball post:

 

And whose odd bracketology is that?

 

I also think there is an unspoken consideration of what face your stadium will put on the sport for television. If that's true, KSP has to help us.

Wasn't there a situation a few years ago where the host stadium was such a dump that the regional went elsewhere, but the host still got to be the "home" team?

 

Duke. I think the lost too

 

Interesting comparison of statistics between Jocey and Kinzie Hansen. OK probably wishing Kinzie had transferred.

Year Team POS BA OBP SLG OPS GP PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI HBP BB K SB CS
2024 Florida C .399 .495 .690 1.185 55 200 158 40 63 13 0 11 70 5 31 13 9 0

2024 Oklah C .415 .474 .669 1.143 44 133 118 27 49 6 0 8 28 0 14 8 3 0