Guest Post: NCAA Softball Bracketology

Brian Hansen is our go-to guy when it comes to all things JMU and NCAA softball. Here’s his quick look at how the NCAA tournament might shakeout prior to the field being announced this evening. 

So the softball Dukes cruised through the CAA Championship and I’m not sure the tournament could have gone any better for JMU. Most importantly, the Dukes went 3-0 in the tournament and avoided adding a loss to its resume. Second, the results of the tournament also broke Madison’s way since they didn’t end up having to play Elon, preventing them from adding another 100+ RPI game to its resume. The only thing that could have gone better is if JMU got to play Charleston twice instead of Towson since Charleston is slightly higher in the RPI than Towson, but the margins there may not be of value.

The selection show is set for this evening at 10 p.m. and will air on ESPNU and before I take my guess at how I think the selection is going to go, here is a quick breakdown of how the tournament works. The committee will select 64 teams with 32 teams receiving automatic bids and 32 at-large bids. The top 16 teams will be ranked by the committee and will host regionals. Each regional is a 4 team, double-elimination, mini tournament. The 16 teams that win the regionals advance to Super Regionals which is a best-of-three series with the winner of the #1 regional drawing the winner of the #16 regional and so forth until you get to the eight-nine matchup.

Eight teams will advance from Super Regionals to the Women’s College World Series and eventually those eight teams will whittle down to two teams who will play a best-of-three series in the championship round.

The 16 Regional hosts

So I’m not going to try to predict how all 16 regionals are going to end up. Instead, I’m going to start by just predicting who will be the top 16 teams that will end up hosting regionals. The key line to keep in mind here, is that the top eight seeds, if they win their regionals, will be guaranteed to host their Super Regional. JMU is, unless some true shenanigans take place, going to host a regional. The truly interesting point is whether or not they’ll be at eight or higher. I think the Dukes will get there with the top 16 seeds looking like this:

#1 – Florida

#2 – Michigan

#3 – Oklahoma

#4 – Auburn

#5 – Oregon

#6 – Alabama

#7 – James Madison

#8 – Florida State

#9 – Washington

#10 – Tennessee

#11 – LSU

#12 – UL Lafayette

#13 – Baylor

#14 – UCLA

#15 – Missouri

#16 – Kentucky

So who’s coming to Harrisonburg …

The key here is to look at that 16 line and whether or not Kentucky edges out Fresno State and a couple other teams to get that last hosting spot. This is because if Kentucky doesn’t get a hosting spot, they’ll be in strong consideration to be one of the teams to travel to Harrisonburg for a regional. If the Wildcats do get hosting duties, they’d be, in my opinion, the best team not to host. They are an all-around good team with a deep pitching staff, that is going to give somebody hell if they don’t end up hosting.

The selection committee is also charged with trying to limit the number of teams it has to fly to its region. The travel radius for busing to a site instead of flying is about 400 miles, so it’s best to start there. Based on how I have the bracket falling, there is really only one team that would be a two-seed and that fits inside that travel radius and that’s South Carolina. Kentucky is just outside that travel radius at 415 miles, but JMU bused to Lexington 2 years ago, so I guess that radius can be stretched. Now, if South Carolina ends up busing to a different site that is in JMU’s radius, then all bets are off and any team on the two seed could end up in Harrisonburg because they’d all be flying and there is no discernable difference to the NCAA between flying in, say, Texas A&M and Notre Dame.

The three seed has a few more options in the same travel radius, but the one that makes the most sense to me is North Carolina. JMU didn’t play them this year (unlike two other options) after having the doubleheader rained out and they fit in perfectly in the travel radius.

The four seed is a crap shoot with Longwood, USC Upstate, Princeton and maybe St. Joseph’s (if they win the Atlantic Championship game today, all fitting inside the radius. My guess is it’ll be Longwood, but I also would have said that last year when Fordham came to JMU. My thought is the Harrisonburg Regional will look like this:

#7 James Madison

South Carolina

North Carolina

Longwood

Other possibilities at two include Kentucky if they slide to a two seed. Georgia would really be stretching the travel radius. Ohio State, Virginia Tech already played JMU, but could also end up as the three seed along with Louisville if they get in and the committee doesn’t mind stretching the radius some more. The four seed makes the most sense if it is Longwood, but some of the previously mentioned alternatives exist along with Miami (OH), Fordham and Army depending on who wins the Patriot and Atlantic 10.