OKLAHOMA CITY — When top-seeded Texas A&M softball suffered a pair of stunning losses to Liberty in the NCAA Tournament’s College Station Regional, the annual chorus of concerns about the seeding of squads at the Women’s College World Series began.
It grew louder after the super regionals, when four SEC heavyweights all seeded among the top seven — No. 2 Oklahoma, No. 3 Florida, No. 6 Texas and No. 7 Tennessee — were placed on the same side of the bracket.
And it may have reached a crescendo Friday evening, when Tennessee beat Florida, sending a talented Gator squad seen as a national-championship contender home after wrenching losses to the Vols and Texas.
Why, ask critics of the NCAA Tournament format that builds its bracket before the tournament, should the highest-rated squads in the WCWS have to play each other so early?
Texas softball coach Mike White, never one to shy away from an opinion concerning the sport, answers with a shrug.
“I don’t necessarily think that (reseeding) is what needs to be done,” he said after his team beat Florida 3-0 in game one of the WCWS Thursday, “Would you re-seed the College Football Playoff? Would you re-seed the NCAA basketball playoffs? It is what it is, and that’s what makes it interesting, in some respects.”
And he’ll quickly point out that the ever-expanding parity across college softball has closed the gap between programs. The difference between a team like four-time defending champion Oklahoma and an unseeded squad such as Ole Miss isn’t as big as a decade ago. That makes the Rebels, No. 9 UCLA, No. 12 Texas Tech and No. 16 Oregon almost as dangerous as the SEC powers that populate the higher seeds, White said.
“I know some people say the top bracket is more loaded than the bottom, but the bottom teams are pretty good, too,” White said. “There’s really good pitching down there, and offenses. How would you do it? Straight off seedings? Just not something I’m a fan of.”
Most of White’s peers tend to agree, even if softball message boards seem to go up in flames each May when discussing the seeds at the WCWS
“If you’re going to win a championship, you have to play good teams anyway, so what’s it matter?” Florida coach Tim Walton said before the start of the WCWS. “To me it doesn’t matter. We’ve beaten everybody in the country, and we have lost to people, so I think it’s just going to be who can handle the moment and who can make less excuses and figure out how to play softball.”
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