Minnesota has, for all intents and purposes, started off white hot: they've finished up "tournament season" and are heading into Big Ten conference play in first place at 25-2 (Wisconsin also has only two losses, but only 20 wins).

The two losses: both to Washington, in Seattle. In fact, the second was a 5-inning drubbing. Maybe it was weather, maybe it was just a bad day at the office ... not sure.


But looking at Washington: they're only the third best team in the PAC. They've had some nice wins, but also some odd losses.


Anyone else follow the sport?

I don't follow softball other than occasionally checking the standings, but I just wanted to say thanks for not using "for all intensive purposes"

Doing well enough in the PAC will ensure a decent postseason bid, so the non-elite PAC teams will typically try out some lineup variations, look at pitching depth, and explore the bench a little in the preseason. In baseball and softball, we tend to save the aces for the weekend conference play and test pitcher depth midweek in OOC games.

That's how we won the PAC in baseball last year despite some bad OOC losses and how we just swept UCLA in softball this weekend.

The NCAA maintains a ranking system on their site. Minnesota was one of the few non-Sun Belt teams in the top 25.

Washington and Oregon are in the Sun Belt?

I know you didn't mean the conference, rather general geography. But still ... that's quite a large swath of the country you're painting there ...

(03-20-2017 10:46 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Washington and Oregon are in the Sun Belt?

I know you didn't mean the conference, rather general geography. But still ... that's quite a large swath of the country you're painting there ...

Didn't say Minnesota was the only Northern team.

Fair enough.

Using the March 14 top 25, and using the wikipedia definition of sun belt, we have:

Top 25 in sun belt: 13
Top 25 outside sun belt: 12

Cincinnati doesn't have softball. Much to my wife's chagrin.

Auburn's softball team is doing well again. Minnesota has one fantastic pitcher, who can also hit. But, Florida is a beast this year and Washington is pretty solid too.

Cal Poly won both of their games vs Oklahoma.

Do the Houston Cougars play softball? Are they any good?