Men's VB is already named the top seed in the VB tournament. Well deserved - a terrific record against one of the toughest schedules in the country. Like Beach VB, just playing in their conference assures them of facing the best teams in the country on a regular basis.
The thought here is that these games are extremely competitive. They aren't runways most of the time. Just two or three unlucky bounces at the net or slight errors can make the difference between winning or losing. To me, it looks like our chances of winning the NC here are the best of anyone's but it's still likely to require some really great games - best performance when the very best is required.
Softball - think we are clearly and deservedly the #2 team in the country. Think the lineup of teams with reasonable chances to win the NC runs just two deep - #1 Oklahoma and #2 UCLA. OK is a killer's row - they destroyed Faraimo and the
Bruins when they met early in the season. It was 14-0 and mercy rule. Both teams are brilliant on defense; UCLA's hitting is fantastic but OK's is even better. Faraimo is clearly an All American pitcher but she has shown a tendency to give up HRs at times and OK really got to her when they met. More, our second pitcher is also national quality but not at the same level as Faraimo and we're pitching vulnerable once you get past her. IMO we might just be able to win one against OK but not two.
Beach VB has an announcement presentation - streamed live on. ncaa.com - tomorrow morning early - think it's at 8 am Pacific but double check me on that. IMO the best breaks down as follows: #1 and #2 TCU and UCLA. (We beat them head to head, but we have lost three games while - going in to their conference matchup with LSU, they had lost only that one. Our losses have been to top ranked teams but it wouldn't surprise me to see TCU get the top seed in the national tournament. Our argument is we lost to #8 Stanford - at Stanford - then swept through #3 SC, #8 Stanford and #9 Cal. Yes, a couple of those were hard-fought and not the runaway usually implied by the word "sweep," but they were all wins and all wound up 3-0 (leaving the other matches unfinished and simply listed as incomplete).
There's a space between the top two and #3 - SC. The Trojans could certainly beat TCU and they have beaten UCLA once this yer - first time they met. They are the back-to-back defending NCs. There's another break in my mind between #3 and the next group of teams which are somewhat bunched. Cal and Stanford are in that group as are LSU, Florida State, Loyola Marymount, Long Beach, Grand Canyon and Hawai'i.
In my mind, we're the best of all the teams but everyone has vulnerabilities. We're very suspect at the highest level with regards our #1 pair. The #2 team has faltered at times. Our #3 were nearly unbeatable most of the season but were quite vulnerable in the conference tournament. Our greatest strength vis-a-vis the competition may very well be our 4s and 5s (the latter provided the decisive point in all three duals contested yesterday in the final day of the conference tournament).
Couldn't find a confirmation of time on ncaa.com but we should know the seedings for the tournament on the Gulf in Alabama - where Bob will be our ambassador rooting the team on - relatively early tomorrow.