Oklahoma softball: Sooners should advance in NCAA Regional, but not without a fight
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma softball went 50-8 in the regular season and won both the Big 12 regular season and conference tournament championships. But the postseason is a brand new season and past performance means little moving forward.
You still have to bring it on the diamond, and the defending national champions begin their title defense at home in the NCAA Norman Regional. This is the seventh consecutive season that the Sooners have hosted one of the 16 softball regionals. in each of the past six years, Oklahoma won its regional and moved on to the Super Regional weekend.
The Sooners are the No. 10 overall seed in this year’s NCAA Softball Championship, something that doesn’t sit well with OU head coach Patty Gasso, who is making her 24th consecutive appearance in the NCAA Championship, all with the Sooners.
“We still feel, quite honestly, a little bit disrespected,” said Gasso in an interview this week with the local sports radio program “The Franchise” that was subsequently cited in an article in the Oklahoma City Oklahoman. “We won 28 of our last 29 games (sic), and we’ve done everything right, and they didn’t move us enough in my opinion.”
By national ranking alone, the Sooners are No. 6, and that would be good enough to become one of the eight Super Regional host sites. But here’s the rub: OU is No. 12 in RPI (ratings percentage index), which takes into account not only who you play, but who your opponents play and how they do against the teams they play.
The way the bracket is set up this season, Oklahoma is on the same side of the bracket as Auburn, the team the Sooners defeated two games to one to win the Women’s College World Series last season. If the Sooners win their regional this weekend, as expected, they will likely go to Auburn next weekend for the Super Regionals. The Tigers are 48-10 this season and No. 6 in RPI.
Oklahoma’s only hope for serving as a Super Regional host, which it has in four of the last five years, would be for Auburn to lose its regional this weekend. Minnesota, Baylor and Tennessee are ranked immediately above the Sooners in RPI.
Baylor finished four games behind Oklahoma in the Big 12 standings this season, but the Bears have a higher RPI ranking (10) than the Sooners. OU is No. 6 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball top-25, Baylor is 13th in that poll. Go figure.
Oklahoma is making its 24th consecutive appearance in NCAA postseason play and comes into the NCAA Softball Championship as the hottest team in college softball. The Sooners have won 27 of their last 28 games (the only loss in that span a 4-3 defeat to Baylor).
OU has won its last 16 games in the NCAA regionals and 20 of its last 22.
The Sooners will face North Dakota State (28-31) in Game 2 of the Norman Regional on Friday afternoon. OU is 2-1 all-time against the Bison, the champions of the Summit League. The Sooners one loss to North Dakota State, however, came in an NCAA regional.
If OU gets by the Bison, it will move on to play the winner of the game between Tulsa and Arkansas in the late game Friday night. The Sooners are 40-10 all-time against Tulsa and 22-4 when the two teams play in Norman. Oklahoma owns a 22-2 record all-time vs. Arkansas.