Gopher Softball 2017

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Tucker said:
Thanks for posting.

I find the statement to:
1-be completely unsatisfying
2-add significant insult to injury
3-be patronizing
4-just make me more pi**ed off all over again
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I guess you can lose as many games as you want against top 10 and top 25 teams as long as you win a couple
 

http://www.startribune.com/ncaa-issues-statement-about-gophers-softball-not-being-seeded/422400633/

Before NCAA statement, the StarTrib attempted to contact the committee chair:

The Star Tribune made repeated requests for comment from Keisha Dunlap, chair of the NCAA softball selection committee, following the news Sunday night that the 54-3 Gophers didn’t land one of the tournament’s top 16 seeds.

Late Monday afternoon, the NCAA said Dunlap was unavailable for comment, instead giving a statement on behalf of the committee:
 

Ignatius L Hoops said:
http://www.startribune.com/ncaa-issues-statement-about-gophers-softball-not-being-seeded/422400633/

Before NCAA statement, the StarTrib attempted to contact the committee chair:

The Star Tribune made repeated requests for comment from Keisha Dunlap, chair of the NCAA softball selection committee, following the news Sunday night that the 54-3 Gophers didn’t land one of the tournament’s top 16 seeds.

Late Monday afternoon, the NCAA said Dunlap was unavailable for comment, instead giving a statement on behalf of the committee:
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Two (or four) things that jump out:

1. The NCAA knows they effed up and are trying to cover their behinds.
2. They conveniently left out the release of their own top 10 rankings, of which the first ranking had Minnesota at No. 8 and the second (released a week before the final pairings), which had the Gophers at No. 7. So, sometime in the space of a week the Gophers dropped 10 spots in the committee's own rankings. The only way they can explain this is to claim those rankings don't mean anything, but they can't, because every other team on the second list received a seed.
3. Taking the above into account, it's nothing more than utter cowardice and complete cronyism any way you slice it (Ole Miss magically got a seed despite 18 losses and a 23 RPI. Oh looky here!: One of the committee members is an Ole Miss employee!).
*4. Also, when actively and proudly screwing over a team in your tourney, don't say politician worthy bullcrap like "This shouldn't take away from the great season Minnesota had" or any other gutter tripe that folks like you like to spew. It's an even bigger lie than the lines you wrote in your carefully worded "cover our asses" statement.
 

So the team should figure out where the NCAA camera or directors are at the game and stare them down after every home run or strikeout ending an inning.
 

Have to take a 24 hour sabbatical from here. I'm even more pi$$ed off after reading that statement.
 



Ignatius L Hoops said:
http://www.startribune.com/ncaa-issues-statement-about-gophers-softball-not-being-seeded/422400633/

Before NCAA statement, the StarTrib attempted to contact the committee chair:

The Star Tribune made repeated requests for comment from Keisha Dunlap, chair of the NCAA softball selection committee, following the news Sunday night that the 54-3 Gophers didn’t land one of the tournament’s top 16 seeds.

Late Monday afternoon, the NCAA said Dunlap was unavailable for comment, instead giving a statement on behalf of the committee:
Click to expand...

Obviously, the NCAA forgot the quote attributed to Will Rogers:

If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

This is totally unfair how the NCAA ripped off the Gophers in the seeding of the tournament. No matter what the team may say this takes a lot of wind out of the sails. I am upset because these girls have worked their tails off to get to this point and the committee stomped all over it. They talk about too 25 teams but when they rank the 25 they never drop a SEC team which inflates the strength of schedule. Truthfully they took all the wind out of the sails for all northern teams in the future as well. To boot they kick them while they are down by giving them Florida in the super regional.
Follow the money and stomp on a successful season for Monies.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 





rowdaboat said:
So the team should figure out where the NCAA camera or directors are at the game and stare them down after every home run or strikeout ending an inning.
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I'm'm going to email the head of the committee after every win. I encourage everyone to do the same.
 





If anybody has the time, you should check out the In The Circle podcast addressing this situation. It's a great listen and those two gentlemen do a masterful job of taking the selection committee apart piece by piece. It's beautiful.

link: https://twitter.com/InTheCircleSB
 

MRJ said:
If anybody has the time, you should check out the In The Circle podcast addressing this situation. It's a great listen and those two gentlemen do a masterful job of taking the selection committee apart piece by piece. It's beautiful.

link: https://twitter.com/InTheCircleSB
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18 minutes in but my upstairs wifi is pathetic so hopefully can stream it now from ethernet. I'll forward the link to all the committee members to see if any are actually responding
 

Here's my late night email blast to the committee and cced Mark Coyle. Shanker out of office, Central Ark and Rutgers emails bounced. This is shanker's please contact address instead: [email protected] You can probably fill in the blanks yourselves on what got edited out, it was not clean in the email


To all, and Mark Coyle since hopefully you'll have some leverage as the AD to make sure necessary people read this, and Rutgers on committee even though I don't know why you are on committee with how poor the Rutgers program is...

I'm sure you have already been informed how poorly you ****ed up the bracket by not seeding Minnesota. You clearly did not have enough information to justify it given your ****ty coverup statement released earlier today. I will ask though if you actually did any research beyond the RPI data? I know I would fail any sort of project or get flagged for plagiarism by matching your research level. Given that I have watched nearly 20 of the Gophers games, I feel like I have some authority here. Great job backing up the rankings like every other college sport does after the selection shows. Instead it took the national attention to require you to send out an email defending yourselves.

I will not beat the dead horse on that, since perhaps you maybe have watched one more of their games vs prior to the seeding. Instead, I will provide you with a great podcast and blog that breaks down the important statistics. Here is the podcast, it's out of a Florida softball radio/podcast show that has no affiliation to Minnesota or otherwise reason to have their back, the lead guy states he is from UCF who is out of the tournament. https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/inthecirclesb/episodes/2017-05-14T15_24_46-07_00 Here is a blog in case you want to save time https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/inthecirclesb/episodes/2017-05-14T15_24_46-07_00

Top 25 games are entirely useless as a statistic considering how heavily overranked SEC and Pac are in the polls. For example, Minnesota has #81 non-conference schedule, which is almost entirely on the road. Perhaps the road doesn't make sense, the weather here is not able to host games until April. Minnesota was 8-2 vs top 50 out of conference. Comparatively, Florida 6-1, UCLA 12-5, FSU 8-6-1, Oklahoma 6-5, Alabama 2-4, LSU 4-4, Utah 2-3, Kentucky 2-2, Ole Miss 1-3.

So then, how are teams outside of SEC and Pac supposed to get top 25 wins? By a rough count, 17/25 teams ranked are from SEC and Pac. Georgia is #25, they are dead last in SEC with 6-18 conference record. So 18 teams got a top 25 wins by beating a bad team. South Carolina is ranked above them, 8-15 in conference. That's a top 25 win for 15 teams. Teams hosting regionals and conference losses in SEC: Alabama 11, Tennessee (super) 7, Mississippi 14, LSU 13 (the Gophers shut them out @ LSU), Kentucky 12, Auburn 7. I don't care if you play in the best conference in any sport, if you can't put up a winning record in your conference you have no place getting seeded above all the other more worthy teams.

Back on Minnesota. You've got weather here that allows 6 months outdoors and 6 months in domes (do they know what those are in the south?). Team recruits the best kids from Minnesota, Iowa, and Canada. Now you're going to tell those recruits that they are never going to be good enough to get national recognition? Or is it about money? Albany and LATech sure won't travel to Alabama. 54-3, 16-0 at home, 22-1 in conference, 38-3 on road, W25 to close the season, swept the 4 major conference awards, 5 on first team, 3 on second team. Groenewegen #3 in ERA. Lindaman top 10 freshman of year and likely wins or top 3. Very likely could be #1 in coaches poll this coming week with Florida's 2 losses. #3 teaam batting average, #2 team ERA. You've also got likely the starting pitcher for Canada in the 2020 Olympics.

If you search any national media about the tournament, the vast majority is defending Minnesota. If you thought the school was so insignificant, you've just made a bunch of more fans. Alabama now will get blown out at their own regional. And guess what? You've set up #1 and #2 best of 3, great job. It's not in OKC though, it's in super regional. So the seeding guarantees that at least one of the top 2 teams in the nation does not make the WCWS. And Alabama probably rightly can be pissed that you set them with the toughest regional.

Enjoy watching the Gophers games. I'll be sure to forward y'all the streaming links so you have a chance to catch up, as well as the postgame highlights. Enjoy watching Alabama lose their regional. And enjoy the #1 team being tested and very possibly beaten at home to miss the regional. I'm sure you'll see a lot more maroon and gold traveling than you expected coming into the tournament. Hopefully you didn't kill all the momentum that the sport has, you're turning D1 softball into SEC and Pac softball. I'm sure I'll see the effects from umpiring varsity and top club teams in the state.

In the words of Jake Taylor,
I guess there's only one thing left to do. Win the whole ****ing thing.
 

That podcast was really good. Two guys who love the sport but are outside commentators (UCLA fans) and they let the committee have it. They are as angry as I am and they unload. Worth the listen if you have time. I'm going to try and let that go now and move on with cheering on our team.
 

One last thing I hope the Big Ten Conference is looking into this issue.
The Big Ten representative should be held accountable as well. They are there to ensure stuff like this does not happen.
The more I read the facts the more appalled that I am on this snub job.


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Ignatius L Hoops said:
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I spoke directly with the NCAA staff person responsible for softball who referred me to the statement which I also thought was completely unsatisfying. When I used the word "corrupt" she took exception and she did insist that everyone on the committee had something to do with softball. Insisted that the committee is not biased toward warm weather programs and is geographically even. When I asked who represented the Midwest, she told me Rutgers, which I insisted was New Jersey and not the Midwest, but by virtue of the B1G they are "Midwest." Biggest thing to come out of the conversation was that she believed the committee made a "big mistake" by releasing the pre-tournament list that had Minnesota very highly rated and they did not deserve to be based on strength of schedule. It was largely bureaucratic speak but she was gracious enough.

When I asked about the math, I got what was the most absurd answer imaginable. She said the RPI for the Gophers was skewed because they had so many wins, so that was not an accurate factor in determining the seeds. Forgive my lack of journalistic skills as I did not follow up on why the math mattered for SOS but not RPI.

For the record, I am not backing down from the words "biased" and "corrupt."
 

The press conference was great, but I wish at least 1 member of the press would have asked about LA Tech and Alabama.
 


Holy Man said:
I spoke directly with the NCAA staff person responsible for softball who referred me to the statement which I also thought was completely unsatisfying. When I used the word "corrupt" she took exception and she did insist that everyone on the committee had something to do with softball. Insisted that the committee is not biased toward warm weather programs and is geographically even. When I asked who represented the Midwest, she told me Rutgers, which I insisted was New Jersey and not the Midwest, but by virtue of the B1G they are "Midwest." Biggest thing to come out of the conversation was that she believed the committee made a "big mistake" by releasing the pre-tournament list that had Minnesota very highly rated and they did not deserve to be based on strength of schedule. It was largely bureaucratic speak but she was gracious enough.

When I asked about the math, I got what was the most absurd answer imaginable. She said the RPI for the Gophers was skewed because they had so many wins, so that was not an accurate factor in determining the seeds. Forgive my lack of journalistic skills as I did not follow up on why the math mattered for SOS but not RPI.

For the record, I am not backing down from the words "biased" and "corrupt."
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Wait a minute, so they WON TOO MUCH??!! What kind of idiocy is this?

Okay, time for a sanity check here. This is simply one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Nothing else need be said.
 


Holy Man said:
I spoke directly with the NCAA staff person responsible for softball who referred me to the statement which I also thought was completely unsatisfying. When I used the word "corrupt" she took exception and she did insist that everyone on the committee had something to do with softball. Insisted that the committee is not biased toward warm weather programs and is geographically even. When I asked who represented the Midwest, she told me Rutgers, which I insisted was New Jersey and not the Midwest, but by virtue of the B1G they are "Midwest." Biggest thing to come out of the conversation was that she believed the committee made a "big mistake" by releasing the pre-tournament list that had Minnesota very highly rated and they did not deserve to be based on strength of schedule. It was largely bureaucratic speak but she was gracious enough.

When I asked about the math, I got what was the most absurd answer imaginable. She said the RPI for the Gophers was skewed because they had so many wins, so that was not an accurate factor in determining the seeds. Forgive my lack of journalistic skills as I did not follow up on why the math mattered for SOS but not RPI.

For the record, I am not backing down from the words "biased" and "corrupt."
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The math response is interesting because RPI (I believe) is one simple equation. It's like A+B=C but we are rejecting the A. I'm assuming there was some NCAA guidance that the committee interpreted as a requirement. Thanks for the recap
 

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Sorry GopherGoldy4, did not realize you had already posted this.
 

MRJ said:
Wait a minute, so they WON TOO MUCH??!! What kind of idiocy is this?

Okay, time for a sanity check here. This is simply one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Nothing else need be said.
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Now it's time to do it on the field, and give back a big poke in the eye to the committee. I do hope the women can overcome the disrespect. Allister has proven herself to be a great motivator. Those skills will be tested.
 

Holy Man said:
Now it's time to do it on the field, and give back a big poke in the eye to the committee. I do hope the women can overcome the disrespect. Allister has proven herself to be a great motivator. Those skills will be tested.
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Yep and I have full faith in the ladies. That's what happens to an admitted cynic like me when you go 54-3 during the season. :eek:

Just had to point out how unabashedly dumb such reasoning truly is.
 

LOL! What a relief to see on the Coaches' Poll website -- https://nfca.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3046&Itemid=295 -- that it indicates that all of the 32 coaches who vote in this poll "Cannot Be Reelected." Those 32 must know nothing about softball. How the Gophers could be ranked higher than 17th is truly a mystery. Those 32 coaches have surely set back their coaching careers.
 

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