Huskers near the top of wide-open WCWS field
Plus, baseball hangs onto a Regional seed despite early Big Ten Tournament exit and some thoughts on anonymous coach quotes.
After metaphorically ending last season stranded on third, two runs short of the Women’s College World Series in a 1-0 loss at Tennessee, Nebraska softball is really headed to Oklahoma City this time. The only shocking thing was how easy the 4th-overall-seed Huskers made it look with 8-1 and 9-1 wins over 13-seed Oklahoma State in Lincoln, a team it split two games with during the regular season.
Thursday’s opening game was halted due to severe weather in the bottom of the first, but Nebraska came out swinging when the game resumed, scoring three in an opening frame that ended nearly 24 hours after it began. Jordy Frahm went the distance, scattering five hits over seven innings while striking out seven for her 20th win of the season.
NU made it look even easier Saturday. The Cowgirls scratched out a run in the first off Alexis Jensen, but the Huskers retook control with two in the third and then exploded for seven in the fifth to run-rule their way to OKC. Jensen improved to 25-2 with the win, striking out seven and allowing two hits over 4 innings pitched.
Nebraska will face 5-seed Arkansas Thursday in Oklahoma City with game time yet to be announced.
Despite a tough draw against the toughest team the Huskers could’ve faced based on seeding, Nebraska will head to the WCWS among the favorites to lift the trophy. Prior to this weekend’s Super Regional round, Draft Kings put out title odds that had Oklahoma at +250 (implied chance of winning: 29%), UCLA and Texas each at +550 (15%) and Nebraska and Alabama at +600 (14%).
But a funny thing happened on Oklahoma’s way to the stadium just up the road from Norman—the Sooners didn’t make it, getting upset by Mississippi State. Assuming no major shakeup in the odds—and new ones hadn’t been released as of Sunday night—that would make UCLA and Texas1 the new, slighter co-favorites with Nebraska and Alabama being close to third-choice. The absence of Oklahoma, which had title odds twice as good as the next two teams, is a significant development. The Huskers’ national title odds very likely improved over the past three days.
Don’t take it from me. Take it from Oklahoma State head coach Kenny Gajewski.
“I voted them No. 1 the last couple weeks. I think they are that,” he said. “They’ve been doing everything that they’ve been asked. They’ve played as tough a schedule as anybody. I know their league may not be the highest-rated league, but they walked through that league, and they played the schedule in the beginning and came [to Stillwater] when they didn’t have to.”
Gajewski said that before his team was outscored 17-2 over two games in Lincoln.
Husker baseball is hosting
Nebraska baseball did not take home its third-straight Big Ten Tournament title, falling 8-0 to Oregon Saturday night. This might be a blessing in at least one regard. The Twitter-bots—and I suppose some actual users—were active through weather delays Friday wondering why this tournament couldn’t be played in always-perfect California. Had the Huskers won the tournament for a third-consecutive time, it only would’ve gotten louder.
No need to worry about that after the Huskers were shut out by the Ducks, and no need to worry about any potential damage to NU’s chances to host a Regional as the NCAA released that information Sunday night, though it was a bit nervy in the hours after Saturday’s loss.
Warren Nolan’s real-time RPI had Nebraska third among Big Ten teams Sunday night, trailing No. 1 Oregon and No. 9 USC. Oregon was 15th. The Bruins, Ducks and Huskers will all get to host while the Trojans are likely going to be a tough 2-seed somewhere. Kansas, 18th in real-time RPI but 2-0 against Nebraska this season, had faded a bit down the stretch but still earned the right to host.
Not a bad development for Midwest pride if you include West Coast teams that play in a Midwest conference. The SEC took seven of the top-16 seeds, the ACC and Big Ten three, the Big 12 two and Southern Miss represented the non-power field.
The full NCAA Baseball Tournament bracket will be released today at 11 a.m. CT.
Odds & Ends
If you were wondering if most of what you heard about the end of the Dylan Raiola era at Nebraska resembled reality, CBS Sports put a little bit of reporting to it. I kind of had a shoulder shrug to all this as I did with that Anonymous Coach Quote about NU’s former quarterback that had everyone talking last week. I tend to love those quotes, though I do worry they’re losing their utility. Last year’s collection was extremely bullish on Nebraska. Now that the Year 3 breakthrough didn’t happen, they’re all trending down. What I want from this is the people who know more about football than I ever will giving me insight that matches that level of expertise. Instead, the (often useful) veil of anonymity gives these coaches the chances to just spitball like regular old media members, a group they often decry for “creating narratives.”2 If you’re just going to give me the same take I could get from a morning host on Oregon sports talk radio, I don’t really need or want that.
Happy Memorial Day. If you’re into firing up the grill (which I very much am at any opportunity), I hope the weather wherever you are cooperates. If we all lived in California, I am led to believe, this would never be an issue.
The full field includes 1-seeds Alabama, Nebraska, Texas; 2-seeds Arkansas, Tennessee, UCLA; 3-seed Texas Tech and 5-seed Mississippi State.
I understand that creating a narrative is by default a divergence from “the truth,” but it’s literally a journalist’s job. The gig is to boil down happenings, big and small, into a format that makes people riding the train to work feel like they have an idea of what’s going on. You can call that “creating a narrative,” but if the possessor of “truth” isn’t willing to offer much if any, I don’t understand the criticism. Creating narrative is how we make sense of the world for most of the people in the world.