2024 Softball Season

racerx5908 said:
I don't understand the math behind RPIs. But would it help or hurt their RPI to play Texas?
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You make a very good point racer. Does it help your RPI by playing in a conference with 3 of the 4 best ranked teams in the nation? Baylor and tech for instance lose 9 games to these schools. Does this help or hurt! The commentator in the Baylor/Texas game stated Baylor was hoping to host a regional?? WTH?? I guess it all depends on how many wins you have against teams with strong RPI’s. Pretty sure Baylor and BYU make the Tournament, besides the okies and us, but Tech, not so much!
 
Ellis21d said:
You make a very good point racer. Does it help your RPI by playing in a conference with 3 of the 4 best ranked teams in the nation? Baylor and tech for instance lose 9 games to these schools. Does this help or hurt! The commentator in the Baylor/Texas game stated Baylor was hoping to host a regional?? WTH?? I guess it all depends on how many wins you have against teams with strong RPI’s. Pretty sure Baylor and BYU make the Tournament, besides the okies and us, but Tech, not so much!
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Baylor is sitting at an RPI of 17. The top 16 RPI usually gets to host regional. So on one hand, losing to us weakens their winning percentage, but strengthens their SOS. And IF we beat OU, then it makes their RPI even better.

I say usually because they like to factor in the distance between hosting schools. Like it's "unfair" two schools hosting Regionals are so close to each other (Texas and Baylor). But, then ADs will point to OU and OSU both hosting Regionals and say, "what about them?" RPI's of note:

1. Texas
2. OU
10. OK-State
16. A&M
17. Baylor
20. Texas St.
39. Texas Tech
 
racerx5908 said:
I noticed that Czech got the Senior send off and remembered she's got a bonus COVID year she could have used for next year. This tells me Mike told her there wasn't a place for her next year. I don't know if Simpson is going to get "the talk" like O'Leary got telling her "if you want a full time starting job, best to look elsewhere" at the end of the season. But maybe Simpson loves Texas enough to accept her job as a closer - albeit with a large lead. I almost went and made a cut up video of her pitches she made last night to show the skips and over-the-head pitches she made trying to compensate for the low ball.

Added: And when she walked the first player and that player scored later, her ERA went above 1.00.
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Please get your info right before you make your sensless speculations . This post among OTHERS are WAY off
 
End of season thoughts. I still think we have the chance to win the World Series. Idk what it is against OU but we always seem to have a block against them and Maxwell. I don’t think they have pitching depth like we do to make it all the way. If they play a decent team in supers they will struggle. They struggled against us and Oklahoma State. Two teams with decent pitching and offense to back it up. But back to Texas.

Our offense is amazing. Maloney, Scott, Martinez, Atwood, Stewart, and Dayton have been phenomenal. Henry, Mitchell, and Washington/Goode have fell off a little but still 6/9 in the lineup is to for sure get a hit or a productive out. That’s confidence.
Atwood .427
Maloney .426
Scott .413
Stewart .397
Dayton .388
Mitchell .378
Henry .373
Martinez .367
Washington .348

I mean this is a stacked lineup. This is the only team in the country to have all 9 starting hitters hitting over .300 as we lead the country in hitting percentage.

Now on to the pitching. We are 7th in the country in ERA behind Boston, Tennessee, Duke, Southern Illinois, Stanford, and Saint Francis. So technically 4th behind Tenn, Duke and Stanford. What makes our pitching staff so great is that we don’t really have an ace and that’s what separates us from other teams. He has pitched Kavan in game 1, 2, and 3 of series. Gutierrez in game 1, 2, and 3 of series. And Morgan in game 1, 2, and 3 of series. While Stanford you will always see Canady in game 1 and game 3. With OU you will always see Maxwell in game 1 and game 3. With OSU you will always see Kilfoyl in game 1 and game 3. Same with Florida always Rothrock in game 1 and game 3. We have the luxury of throwing 3 different decent consistent arms in any game. Gutierrez has looked amazing. Her only bad game of the year was against Houston. But she’s been solid. I feel so bad for her after her performance last night. A career high 10 K’s! Against OU at that. I think Kavan was starting to be overused and the fact that there so much more film on her. And then when you look at it. She leads the team in opponent batting average. Teams are hitting only .179 against her. FYI teams are hitting .173 against Kilfoyl, and .177 against Maxwell. Which is where you look at well why is her ERA 2.00? She is a riseball pitcher so if she misses her spot, that ball is gone. She’s given up 8 home runs this year. Some of those 2 run and 3 run home runs. She’s a freshman and I still trust her. She’s getting less strikeouts because I can tell she’s working more on pitches down in the zone and pitching to contact towards the end of the season. At 17-2 this year with a 2.00 ERA and .179 OPP BA, I trust her to get the ball in any game of the postseason. 12-1 Morgan will continue to pitch to contact and get some hits off her as she has a .212 OPP BA and 2.14 ERA only giving up 4 home runs. Morgan is good when she gets a strike at the knees and gets that hard drop ball called as a strike. She struggles when she doesn’t get the call and has to bring it up. She was our ace last year and her ace her freshman year at Arizona State so I still trust her but preferably in a game 2 situation or non elimination game type situation. Gutierrez has been phenomenal. As stated earlier, her only bad game was to Houston. I love that she has introduced more pitches in her arsenal. She got OU multiple times last night with a changeup, off speed curve, curve ball, drop ball, and screwball. She has the lowest ERA on the team with a 1.57 ERA despite having an OPP BA of .216. To me it shows that when runners are on base, she is tough as nails. To me she is our ace despite only being 10-1 on the season. I trust her in any game to get the ball. She already has a W against OU, OSU, Tennessee, UCLA, UCF, and should’ve got the win against Stanford but the defense let her down just as they did last night against OU.

Czech I feel so bad for her as well. She should’ve gotten the W against Stanford and W against Houston if the defense wouldn’t have let her down. She does her job and has the most postseason experience out of our pitching staff. She’s done great in relief and good when she’s gotten starts.

now on to the sad case of Sophia Simpson. I have defended her multiple times this season for lack of mound time but now she has gotten worse and worse falling behind in counts. She doesn’t look confident on the mound anymore. She always looks nervous like she has so much pressure when she’s out there to prove herself. I honestly don’t know what happened because she was good in high school and so good in travel ball. And then I saw old videos and there it was. He has completely changed her pitching motion up. The slow rocking back and forth before she releases the ball. The glove across her body. And she’s like bent over when she releases the ball which explains why she’s off balanced and wild. Her pitching motion has completely changed. It was faster and she stood tall. Now it’s slower and she doesn’t stand tall.

In conclusion, I still believe we could win the whole thing.
 
Modelo22 said:
Please get your info right before you make your sensless speculations . This post among OTHERS are WAY off
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It might be helpful to the conversation if you could point out specific speculations or comments that are mistaken, and provide some correction since you have personal insight into the team. At your discretion of course — thanks!
 
I like our pitching depth for a deep run, but it is concerning how poor our offense can become against the elite pitching. I know that it was elite pitching does but an elite offense shouldn't look that bad. When you are facing pitches like that you have to become more selective, and pick a part of the plate to zone in on, and take walks.

Here is to hoping OU gets Tennessee, Ok State, Stanford, and UCLA all on their side of the bracket. All the teams with the pitching I think that could beat them.
 
Really disappointed Texas only had one player, Reese Atwood, on the 3 team NFCA All American list. Ou had 4, OSU had 2, even Miami of Ohio had 2 players on the 3rd team because of their gaudy numbers!!


 
This girl!
Reese Atwood from the University of Texas, Stanford University’s NiJaree Canady, Claire Davidson of Duke University and Jocelyn Erickson from the University of Florida are the four finalists for the Class of 2024 Honda Sport Award for Softball as announced by Chris Voelz, Executive Director of THE Collegiate Women Sports Awards (CWSA) today.
 
I was looking over the class of 2024 and 2025 and decided to input the future roster spots for the next two classes. Of course, this doesn't include transfers in/out of the program. Tell me where I got anything wrong:
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racerx5908 said:
I was looking over the class of 2024 and 2025 and decided to input the future roster spots for the next two classes. Of course, this doesn't include transfers in/out of the program. Tell me where I got anything wrong:
gG4bfzO.png
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Racer I always enjoy your spread sheet with player eligibilities.
I would not be surprised to see several players hit the transfer portal. Firstly Katie Cimusz. She would have started for every team in the Big 12 except ou. We only lose Bella in the outfield next year and I see Victoria Hunter being her replacement. Leighann Goode will take Washington's place. Sophia Simpson could leave as well. Nothing is changing in the number (4) of pitchers she will be competing against. Cam Salmon will be taking Estelle Czech's spot and she looks pretty dynamic on paper coming in as a Freshman. And Sophia is well.....Sophia. The others with potential to leave are Vanessa Quiroga and Ryan Brown. Vanessa was hurt part of the year but her potential for playing time is almost nil. Ryan Brown played least of all the Freshmen and looked pretty bad when she did get a chance to bat. Not sure how tough and direct Coach White will be during their performance review. Or how he sees her potential.
Would not be surprised if he did pick up another batter in the portal similar to what Joley Mitchell brought, if one is available and willing? Would have to bring a very good batting average to the team. No way he picks up a pitcher unless Canady wants to come to Texas. With 4 stud pitchers like we have it is hard to provide them as much playing time as they may like.
September 1 is when offers go out to the class of 2026 and players will be making official visits and committing shortly after. We got commitments into October last year. Always exciting times!!
 
I agree with some of your guesses as potential transfer candidates. You see some of their frustration in the dugout at not getting any playing time. Or maybe the camera just caught them at a bad angle at the wrong time. My wife gets on my case when I say, "I think she'll be hitting the portal" because she thinks I'm being negative on the player, as if they're being selfish. And since we went so deep in the tournament, we had to wait for the "other shoe" to drop since it's a no-no for a player to enter the portal while their team is still in it.

I also imagine one of our star players leaving and then I get sick thinking about it and try not to.
 
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