Forget groundhogs; it's time for grounders. Put away the wool gloves; break out the leather mitts. Sure, you still have Super Bowl leftovers in the refrigerator, but spring must be right around the corner because the NCAA softball season is upon us. A few thousand games over the next four months will reveal all answers, but let's start with the basics for the season ahead.
It is Oklahoma's turn to chase history
Oklahoma might be on the verge of the greatest run in the history of NCAA softball. Already two-time defending national champions, the Sooners return 11 of the 12 players who saw the field in the final game of the Women's College World Series a season ago, including all of their pitchers.
They were also three outs from elimination in their NCAA regional a season ago.
This season will center on Norman, Oklahoma, but that is not to say it will be merely a coronation.
It has been more than a quarter of a century since UCLA became the first and only program to win three consecutive NCAA championships, with Florida the most recent to come up short in an attempt to match that after winning back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015. But with the Gators as proof, winning three in a row in this day and age is in some ways an unprecedented challenge. The NCAA tournament format in 1990, when UCLA won the last of its three in a row, required the Bruins to win two games to reach the World Series. There were around 150 Division I softball programs in 1990. There were nearly 300 teams in 2017, and the easiest path to the World Series required five wins over two weekends. Thanks in no small part to what those UCLA teams accomplished in their time and place, it's a different sport now.
Oklahoma lived all of that a season ago, when it started slowly, then picked up momentum, only to nearly run itself off the road in its regional opener. Coach Patty Gasso said the group that won the first title in 2016 wasn't ready for the burden of expectations. Softball's first million-dollar coach insists that what she saw through the most recent fall and winter was the opposite: a group that has learned how to handle success and playing as the favorite.
With Paige Parker, who could become the first three-time championship ace since Debbie Doom (who had some help alongside her in the circle, as Parker does from Paige Lowary), and a lineup loaded with run producers Fale Aviu, Caleigh Clifton, Shay Knighten, Nicole Mendes, Nicole Pendley and Sydney Romero, the Sooners are the favorites.
The best bet to deny Oklahoma is the team that lost to them a year ago and the team that lost its chance at a third consecutive title the year before that. With Kelly Barnhill back in the circle, no matter the ups and downs of last year's World Series, and Amanda Lorenz anchoring the offense, Florida can compete with any team in college and perhaps a few beyond.
The Pac-12 is ready to strike back
The SEC might be home to the team best positioned to take down the Sooners, but the sport's balance of power is ready to return to the West Coast for at least a year.
Once the conference that all but made the World Series its unofficial conference tournament, the Pac-12 hasn't had a team play for the title since 2011. Oklahoma's singular success and the collective strength of the SEC have squeezed out the league from the geographic region that still produces much of the talent filling rosters throughout the country.
The funding and facilities available to other programs play a role. Other regions producing more and more talent plays a role. But some of this shift is cyclical. The cycle appears ready to come back around to the Mountain and Pacific time zones for at least a season.
Arizona, Oregon, UCLA and Washington begin the season ranked in the top seven. The Ducks and Bruins earned first-place votes from voters unimpressed by Oklahoma's array of talent and titles. A year ago, there weren't any Pac-12 teams in the top seven. The last time there were four was 2012. Of the 2018 four, all but the Wildcats reached the World Series last season, and each of those three returns its No. 1 pitcher (in Oregon's case, its top three pitchers).
Arizona added Louisiana-Lafayette slugger Aleah Craighton to its young power (and pitcher Alyssa Denham to its staff). Oregon added All-American DJ Sanders from ULL's exodus. UCLA still has pitching/hitting star Rachel Garcia supplying all the runs she needs. Star power abounds.
It won't take long to see if the top of the Pac-12 sinks or swims. Arizona plays Oklahoma on Feb. 24. Oregon plays LSU, Tennessee and Texas A&M that weekend. Washington hosts Alabama for a pair of games the following weekend.
Auburn, Louisiana-Lafayette and Missouri are starting over
The offseason was not kind to NCAA softball, which saw three high-profile programs beset by controversy that led to coaching changes.
Clint Myers retired at Auburn after details emerged of improper conduct by his son, assistant coach Corey Myers. Michael Lotief, the architect of the most successful mid-major program in the sport, one that went 47-8 last season, was dismissed by Louisiana-Lafayette. The school cited allegations of verbal and physical abuse. Lotief, who briefly resigned in 2013 in a dispute over athletic department support of the program, said it was retaliation for years of vocal advocacy.
But as much those developments rocked programs with World Series pasts, new Auburn coach Mickey Dean and new Louisiana-Lafayette coach Gerry Glasco, though hired later than most new coaches, had some time over the fall and winter to figure out how to proceed. That wasn't the case for Missouri interim coach Gina Fogue, who took on that job two weeks before the Tigers open the regular season, after the school dismissed Ehren Earleywine. Missouri cited leadership concerns, an assertion Earleywine aggressively countered.
Rewind a few years, and Missouri would have been expecting to host the SEC tournament in its new stadium with Earleywine in the dugout and Paige Lowary and Parker Conrad leading the pitching staff. Instead, Lowary and Conrad transferred to Oklahoma, Earleywine is gone, and the Tigers -- picked to finish 11th in the SEC before the coaching change, despite some good offensive assets -- will be challenged to qualify for the conference tournament they host.
Injuries are already taking their toll
In addition to the coaches, some high-profile players already have been ruled out for the season.
On top of Dean's departure to Auburn, James Madison will be without Megan Good, who suffered a knee injury, this season. That costs the team one of the top contenders for national player of the year. As a pitcher, Good went 38-3 with a 0.63 ERA and 271 strikeouts in 244 2/3 innings. That alone would put her in the award discussion, but she also hit .383 with 12 home runs and a .464 on-base percentage.
As much optimism as there is about the Pac-12, Washington suffered an early setback with news that Morganne Flores will miss the entire season because of injury. If pitcher Taran Alvelo was one breakout star for the Huskies a season ago, the catcher on the other end of the pitches was no less impressive. After reaching double-digit home runs with 74 RBIs and a 1.072 OPS, she would have entered the season among the favorites for Pac-12 player of the year.
Looking for another mid-major to make some noise if James Madison regresses? With a long history of success and a senior ace, Jacksonville State fits the bill. Perhaps the Gamecocks still will, but it will be without Whitney Gillespie. The pitcher who pushed Auburn in the 2016 NCAA tournament and would have ranked 10th nationally in ERA among returning pitchers had to leave the sport with a year of eligibility remaining because of shoulder pain.
The softball world is expanding
Duke will play the program's first NCAA softball game on Feb. 8 at Florida Atlantic. With a roster that includes 12 first- or second-year freshmen and just five other players, it might not win that game. If the history of expansion in just about every sport (all right, not the NHL at the moment) is any guide, Duke might not win many games in its inaugural season. But the short term presumably isn't the primary objective for coach Marissa Young, who was hired nearly three years ago.
Perhaps more useful is the example of Montana, which went 16-34 in its 2015 debut but last season won the Big Sky and made the NCAA tournament.
What makes Duke's arrival interesting beyond the ACC is whether or not it proves to be the first domino. We know the Blue Devils won't be the junior ACC team for long, with Clemson taking the field in 2020. But for all the sport's growth, there are nine schools in the five biggest conferences that don't sponsor softball: Miami and Wake Forest in the ACC, Kansas State, TCU and West Virginia in the Big 12, Colorado, USC and Washington State in the Pac-12 and Vanderbilt in the SEC. In many cases, limited space on or around campus is an issue, but a crowded landscape was also mentioned as partly to blame for Duke's absence.