WCWS

This team just makes way too many mistakes. common theme for Beth Torina coached teams.

 

Sorry.....obviously way too late to the party. It's stupidly confusing the way it's set up. If a team wins its first game, but loses its second, that team would “swap” or go into the other bracket. And then for example:

If Team A defeats Team B and Team C beats Team D, that puts Team A and Team C in a matchup.

Now, the winner of that hypothetical game advances to the final bracket game on Sunday. The loser, however, goes down to the other bracket and would face off against the winner of the first loser’s bracket game.

The same goes for the other bracket. Again, for example only, let’s say Team E beats Team F then has to face Team G, who might defeat Team H, that puts E &G against each other in winner’s bracket game.

The winner would wait to play until they see who advances out of the loser’s bracket while the loser of the hypothetical E/G game would go up and face (in our scenario from above) the winner of D&B.


Precisely why I hate the set up.

 

Not a lot but I really thought Fla St was going to do that yesterday. They played a God-awful first game against Georgia but they have had the pitching to get it done. Auburn is just a really solid hitting team and they never quit. Having Clint Myers as a coach made a huge difference. Auburn was basically nobody in softball until he arrived 3 years ago. In just his 2nd year there, they had a record 56 wins, first NCAA Regional champ, first NCAA Super Regional champ, first WCWS appearance EVER. And now 1 year later, they are in the finals.

Now you have a former Pac 12 coach in Myers facing Gasso who is from Southern California (the area, not the school). 9 players on both rosters from CA, although I give Myers bonus points for recruiting the Southeast particularly Bama and Georgia.

 

shes an excellent coach. Has 2 position players that made over 40 errors between them, Tough to win against the best with shitty defense. thats one thing carrying the mens team thus far. nothing wrong with torinas coaching that i can see. shes clearly one of if not the best coach we have on campus.

plus she steals signs so jaquish can hit bombs. the difference between her and dear yvette is obvious.

 

ok I cant follow all the hypotheticals. Tell me what they do differently than a normal bracket in a trny. Is it the losers switch sides of the bracket and the winners remain? Or is it all dependent on something else. Losers bracket youre always fucked and have to play nonstop til you reach the winners bracket on any level. Unless its one of those round robin things.

 

I'm not sure that's a true assessment. Errors on the season were fairly consistent from Giourard to Torina. The last few years with Giourard had a definite ebb but both coaches have consistently maintained fewer errors than opponents. Here's how it looks under Torina with LSU errors vs Opponents from 2012-2016: 67-54, 51-56, 50-74, 70-78, 80-78. So after her first year, LSU did better in the field than their opponents. If you wonder what happened this season? Bell and Quinn are error-making machines. They accounted for 38 of those 80.

There were 2 teams in the WS with more errors than LSU. Georgia with 7 and Fla St with 10! Consequently Auburn and Oklahoma have the fewest but Bama isn't far behind and they got eliminated Saturday. Shit happens that way. I still don't think this WS should be considered a disappointment for LSU. They went in ranked 10th so it was a pleasant surprise they made it to the semi's and it showed some tenacity. The skill is there but not the consistency. That said, you might still want to look for another HC. This one didn't quite stay in the ring.

 

Bracket jumping. I think it's just easier if teams stay in the same bracket as long as they win and once you hit the loser's you stay there until there is ONE winner who goes to the final.

 

The reason for the bracket swapping ....
If you have the 2 best, or hottest teams, in the same bracket, the one team could essentially eliminate the other.

By moving 2 teams into different brackets several things are accomplished.

1.) You're changing up the match-ups.
2.) Potentially, you're moving 2 teams from the losers brackets into different brackets. Which gives them a chance to compete against different teams, that they may be better than. They want the 2 best teams in the finals.

 

On the one hand, one could argue that AT THIS TIME, the two best teams are in it. However, what they tried to get isn't what they got, IMO. Michigan and Oklahoma should be in the final. Instead, they faced each other on Saturday, giving Michigan their first loss. And then Michigan was eliminated on almost a fluke 1-0 loss against Florida St, a team that had 10 errors in this WS. Auburn punched their ticket by beating Florida St who was playing their second game of the day and they committed 3 errors in that game. Auburn had the easiest road of any team IMO, playing #'s 8, 12, and 16.....never had to play Michigan OR Oklahoma.

So for the next few days....Boomer Sooner!