Gopher softball 2021

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let'sbeclear said:
On the online TV schedule site I look at, it shows that ABC will be showing a super-regionals game this Saturday. They will be showing "Oklahoma vs. Washburn." And some people still say the media shows little respect for college softball!
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Well, if you want to get really cynical, which maybe some of us are, you could surmise that the media are owned and run by men, and "real men" don't play women's softball, that's for women. Maybe racism isn't the only thing that's systemic?
 






Just watched James Madison beat Missouri 2-1 on a one-hitter. But the home plate umpire did his level best to shamelessly give the game to Missouri, blatantly, and if not worse by design, it seemed. JMU went into the bottom of the 7th with a 2-0 lead. The record will show that the JMU pitcher walked 4 batters in the 7th inning, but in reality two of those walks included pitches that were clear game-ending strikeouts, only to be called balls. The umpire was calling balls on pitches right down the middle of the plate over & over again. No reasonable human could possibly have seen those pitches as balls.

Watching JMU's pitcher, Alexander, an African American, struggle --- and succeed --- at keeping her compusure while being jerked on pitch after pitch made me, being white, think, at least symbolically, what it can feel like being black in our society on a daily basis.

The thought came to me that I hadn't seen umpiring so clearly and purposefully leaning toward cheating since the SEC & Alabama. Then I remembered Missouri is in the SEC. Then it all made sense. Now if someone could make sense of NCAA tournament selection committee decisions.....
 


ClassOf98Gopher said:
You can’t imagine how hard I was rooting for Georgia today over Florida. Yippee! No OKC for Florida!
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Because I am a vindictive person I am going to go ahead and say something I shouldn’t. I think, while completely unknowable, it is “possible” that Kendyl Lindaman would have gone further in the NCAA tourney both in 2019 and 2021 if she had stayed a Gopher.

I think my contention is more clearly true in 2019, where both Florida and Minnesota were both two and done at OKC. But even this year, put Lindaman in the 3/4 spot in the lineup and we probably are not in the UCLA region, and we would have had a punchers chance at OKC again this year.
 

Watching a lot of softball this week and seeing many bad call by the umps. Any chance we start seeing replay during the tournament in the near future.
 




ClassOf98Gopher said:
Because I am a vindictive person I am going to go ahead and say something I shouldn’t. I think, while completely unknowable, it is “possible” that Kendyl Lindaman would have gone further in the NCAA tourney both in 2019 and 2021 if she had stayed a Gopher.

I think my contention is more clearly true in 2019, where both Florida and Minnesota were both two and done at OKC. But even this year, put Lindaman in the 3/4 spot in the lineup and we probably are not in the UCLA region, and we would have had a punchers chance at OKC again this year.
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As I recall, FLA not only lost but got shellacked by Alabama in the 2019 WCWS. I was thinking of writing a post almost identical to yours. I'm glad you beat me to it. I agree with you and have thought both Allister and Lindaman made a major strategic mistake by leaving MN.
 

dlw4gophers said:
Watching a lot of softball this week and seeing many bad call by the umps. Any chance we start seeing replay during the tournament in the near future.
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It's tough if it relies on the schools to have the camera angles and feeds ready, softball facility funded a lot less than football is to do that
 

rowdaboat said:
It's tough if it relies on the schools to have the camera angles and feeds ready, softball facility funded a lot less than football is to do that
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That is why I said for the tournament only. NCAA would foot the bill for this
 



dlw4gophers said:
Watching a lot of softball this week and seeing many bad call by the umps. Any chance we start seeing replay during the tournament in the near future.
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To me, the most egregious umpiring occurs on subjective balls and strikes where one team's pitcher gets the ball thrown low and in the opposite batter's box a strike and the other team doesn't (or vice versa where pitches grooved across the plate are called balls a la Groenewegen vs Alabama). I don't think replay would change any of that. Regardless, the bigger the NCAA playoffs get and the more camera angles, one would think they could do replay now.
 

FormerFatOL said:
To me, the most egregious umpiring occurs on subjective balls and strikes where one team's pitcher gets the ball thrown low and in the opposite batter's box a strike and the other team doesn't (or vice versa where pitches grooved across the plate are called balls a la Groenewegen vs Alabama). I don't think replay would change any of that. Regardless, the bigger the NCAA playoffs get and the more camera angles, one would think they could do replay now.
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Homerism is so obvious on ball/strike calls in the NCAAs that it's nauseating. Does the NCAA not regulate the appointment of umpires?
 

Looks like the SEC is way overrated this year. By my count they had 5 host sites in the super regions. Only one of those teams is going to win. Sure they put two teams in the college World Series, but those teams beat other SEC teams to get there. Time for the selection committee and the NCAA to figure this out. There is a lot of good teams out the and stop giving the SEC all the advantages.
 

Gophers need to get as much permanent seating in as they can fit. Kinda boxed in with the baseball field but put what they can in and push the bullpens out a bit towards the rec field and sidewalk

 

FormerFatOL said:
To me, the most egregious umpiring occurs on subjective balls and strikes where one team's pitcher gets the ball thrown low and in the opposite batter's box a strike and the other team doesn't (or vice versa where pitches grooved across the plate are called balls a la Groenewegen vs Alabama). I don't think replay would change any of that. Regardless, the bigger the NCAA playoffs get and the more camera angles, one would think they could do replay now.
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I'll add... Case in point this year was at Arizona. As much as I like Candrea and AZ fastpitch, umpires can make weird calls out in the Tucson desert. The dust-up that occurred with Ole Miss was all about that umpire being in the bag for AZ (or against Ole Miss). Some of those calls were blatantly bad.
rowdaboat said:
Gophers need to get as much permanent seating in as they can fit. Kinda boxed in with the baseball field but put what they can in and push the bullpens out a bit towards the rec field and sidewalk

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There's a LOT of room for expansion in the existing upper bowl...if they choose. The general admission erector-set bleachers are set up very inefficiently IMO.
 

"I'll add... Case in point this year was at Arizona. As much as I like Candrea and AZ fastpitch, umpires can make weird calls out in the Tucson desert. The dust-up that occurred with Ole Miss was all about that umpire being in the bag for AZ (or against Ole Miss). Some of those calls were blatantly bad." FormerFatOl

I thought the Super at Missouri was set up for Missouri, another SEC team, to win. The home plate umpire in inning 7 of game 1 vs. JMU used bad bad ball/strikes to nearly rob JMU of the game. It was really admirable that JMU kept their cool and hung in there to win against the odds.
 

dlw4gophers said:
Looks like the SEC is way overrated this year. By my count they had 5 host sites in the super regions. Only one of those teams is going to win. Sure they put two teams in the college World Series, but those teams beat other SEC teams to get there. Time for the selection committee and the NCAA to figure this out. There is a lot of good teams out the and stop giving the SEC all the advantages.
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The system is set up to be favorable to southern teams. They play the entire non-conference schedule ( 6 or 7 weeks) on their home fields or one that is close to their home. The other teams usually travel a distance to play them. Add to that the home conference umpiring and all of them complete the non-conference part of their schedule with impressive records. So, when they start conference play, they are playing 'high quality' opponents. Which, of course, inflates the criteria used by the selection committee. It is unfortunate that nobody can talk any sense into the selection committee.
 

Gopher68 said:
The system is set up to be favorable to southern teams. They play the entire non-conference schedule ( 6 or 7 weeks) on their home fields or one that is close to their home. The other teams usually travel a distance to play them. Add to that the home conference umpiring and all of them complete the non-conference part of their schedule with impressive records. So, when they start conference play, they are playing 'high quality' opponents. Which, of course, inflates the criteria used by the selection committee. It is unfortunate that nobody can talk any sense into the selection committee.
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It's not easy to talk sense in a corrupt system. Arthur Ashe wrote how it was in shamateur tennis in his day. The corrupt tennis authorities had to relent & admit African Americans in the sanctioned tournaments; Ashe wrote that schedule makers "solved" that problem in their own way. If, say, six black guys entered a tourney, they all had to play one another in the first round, thus halving their numbers immediately. The NCAA seems to "remedy" their situation by starting the season in softball and baseball but especially in softball, way early and then letting the SEC host an inordinate number of regionals. It's common knoweldge that's unfair to most of the nation, but officials in the rest of the country do nothing to question and stop the injustice.
 

Gopher68 said:
The system is set up to be favorable to southern teams. They play the entire non-conference schedule ( 6 or 7 weeks) on their home fields or one that is close to their home. The other teams usually travel a distance to play them. Add to that the home conference umpiring and all of them complete the non-conference part of their schedule with impressive records. So, when they start conference play, they are playing 'high quality' opponents. Which, of course, inflates the criteria used by the selection committee. It is unfortunate that nobody can talk any sense into the selection committee.
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It’s an unsolvable challenge for Northern tier/ Big Ten programs to be regularly nationally competitive in softball/baseball assuming that you don’t support changing the academic calendar for colleges and universities across the nation which currently include a summer break. All collegiate athletic programs are going to want to play their seasons when their general student body are present on campus.

To be clear, I don’t support changing the Fall through Spring academic calendar at our colleges and universities. Society has shaped itself around the reality of a summer break for college/graduate/law students. There would be too much societal disruption by eliminating the summer break.

Therefore, expectations management for your preferred Big Ten program is important - I try to think of the Big Ten tournament as my NCAA tourney and anything that comes after is just gravy. And, as importantly, is appreciating that great runs by Big Ten teams can occasionally be made. Michigan baseball did it in 2019. Gopher softball did it also in 2019.
 

ClassOf98Gopher said:
It’s an unsolvable challenge for Northern tier/ Big Ten programs to be regularly nationally competitive in softball/baseball assuming that you don’t support changing the academic calendar for colleges and universities across the nation which currently include a summer break. All collegiate athletic programs are going to want to play their seasons when their general student body are present on campus.

To be clear, I don’t support changing the Fall through Spring academic calendar at our colleges and universities. Society has shaped itself around the reality of a summer break for college/graduate/law students. There would be too much societal disruption by eliminating the summer break.

Therefore, expectations management for your preferred Big Ten program is important - I try to think of the Big Ten tournament as my NCAA tourney and anything that comes after is just gravy. And, as importantly, is appreciating that great runs by Big Ten teams can occasionally be made. Michigan baseball did it in 2019. Gopher softball did it also in 2019.
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IMO the academic calendar year makes little or no difference. DI college basketball plays straight through the T'giving & Christmas breaks and the CWS in baseball doesn't end until June 30; the WCWS extends into June. In addition, the largest age group among crowds at DI sports events is off-campus older people. The student attendance at Gophers volleyball or Gophers men's & women's events in general never approaches even 50% undergraduate students in any season, usually far, far below 50%. I think this is true at campuses across the country. I believe extending the spring season well into the summer would increase attendance rather than lessen it, partly because of better weather. True, not many students would show up to see games in summer, but they don't in spring either. Lots of people from the off-campus community would be there in summer, which is where the true fan interest is to begin with. The old college spirit may still exist somewhere, but I think it's dying because the need for income dominates.
 

The best fixes are play in more invitationals like St Pete's, permanently start the conference season early with 2 weeks in Clearwater, or host teams at indoor stadiums in February
 

Looking forward to Oklahoma putting up like 20 on JMU tomorrow. Other region much closer Alabama slight edge and UCLA might be even with FSU after looking bad several games
 


rowdaboat said:
Looking forward to Oklahoma putting up like 20 on JMU tomorrow. Other region much closer Alabama slight edge and UCLA might be even with FSU after looking bad several games
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Care to reassess the Oklahoma outcome? Quite a surprise!
 

Georgia player gets thrown out at home doing a head-first slide around home plate. A hard traditional feet-first slide straight into home (bothering the catcher) would have been safe. I don't understand why so many fastpitch players slide head-first. It's often ineffective.
 

Hrothgar said:
As I recall, FLA not only lost but got shellacked by Alabama in the 2019 WCWS. I was thinking of writing a post almost identical to yours. I'm glad you beat me to it. I agree with you and have thought both Allister and Lindaman made a major strategic mistake by leaving MN.
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Just getting caught up on previous posts. Allister, I can understand. She was given an opportunity to coach her alma mater back to contention following several down years. Also, she is a native Californian. Lindaman is a real puzzle. She was a two-time BIG 10 Player of the Year and All American at Minnesota. She never achieved near that recognition in the SEC. At least, we don't have to be reminded of her exploits any longer.
 


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