WCWS is icing on the Athletic Cake
What a Incredible year in Michigan athletics..Probably the best overall year in decades. The Softball team making it to the WCWS is just the icing on the cake. Its been a season of National Championships, National Championship game appearnces, Final fours, Sweet 16s, College World Series and numerous NCAA appearnces across the board at Michigan Athletics. Congratulations to all the Wolverine teams and remember.......Its GREAT to be a MICHIGAN WOLVERINE!
Been a great year for all Michigan Sports (Tigers, hopefully Redwings pull it off).
Hopefully we do it again in 2013.
was UM hockey breaking the 22 year tourny run.
There were certainly a lot of mitigating factors (it being only Hoke's second season, Denard's injury, etc.), but I wouldn't consider 8-5 a good record by Michigan standards - and I know Hoke wouldn't, either. Fortunately, I think this represents the floor for the program.
Congrats to all teams of UM.
Now all we need is another solid year from hoops team. With McGary and GRIII, I am very optimistic
Now all we need is another solid year from hoops team. With McGary and GRIII, I am very optimistic
It was a weird year though. Of the three big sports, the two that have usually been very good (football and hockey) were not so good, and the one that's been mediocre for most of the last 15 years (basketball) was awesome. I can't wait for a year when all three are on top of their game . . . that hasn't happened since the '90s.
seems like all sports are going to have exciting seasons going forward. . .
It's been a fantastic year for basketball (both M and W) and nonrevenue sports, but given our performance in football and hockey, not sure I can agree about it being the "best year in decades." For 99% of the fanbase, the big three sports carry more weight than the rest, and we were only a national contender in one of them (though that one did give us a heck of a ride).
2013-14 looks even better.
To add to the excitement, Men's Rowing just won their sixth consecutive ACRA national championship down in Gainesville, Ga! A strong showing from the entire squad was able to hold off a very good Virginia team, 46 of the 67 Michigan athletes came away with medals in their respective events.
1st varisty 8 came back for a poor race at Dad Vails to win the ECAC championship and ACRAs,
2nd varsity 8 won all three of their championship races over the last few weeks.
Freshman 8 took 3rd.
Freshman 2nd 8 took 2nd.
Both the freshman heavyweight and lightweight 4s took second.
And next year could be even better! The football team is poised for a huge year (I predict two Ohio State games followed by a BCS Bowl), and the basketball team is getting enough new talent to reload pretty effectively. I couldn't have picked a better time to start freshman year
Now I want cake.
Just awesome.
Interestingly, 4 conferences are represented with two teams each:
Big Ten: Michigan and Nebraska
Pac-12: Arizona State and Washington
Big 12: Oklahoma and Texas
SEC: Florida and Tennessee
Michigan faces #1 Oklahoma at 9:30 on Monday 30th in their first game of the double-elimination WCWS format. Oklahoma leads the nation in scoring (7.89 runs per game) while Michigan is second (7.16). Oklahoma also leads the nation in ERA (1.16) while Michigan is 36th (2.28). Needless to say, Oklahoma is pretty good, winning 5 straight NCAA regional/super regional games by a combined score of ¡¡¡¡¡59-8!!!!!, winning 3 games in five innings, 1 in six innings and only needing the full seven innings once. They've lost 4 games this year (52-4), one each to Nebraska, Louisville, Texas and Kansas. Michigan's gonna need something special from the pitchers and the hitters to pull this one out. Oklahoma is quite simply the best team in the nation, by a decent margin and has been all season. But that's why they play the game.
The winner/loser of Michigan/Oklahoma will play, respectively, the winner/loser of Texas/Arizona State. The loser of that loser bracket game will be eliminated. Michigan is 2-2 against the WCWS field this year, 1-0 against Arizona State and 1-2 against Nebraska (who plays in the other bracket, there is the possibility of a cross over, it's weird, look at the bracket: http://www.ncaa.com/interactive-bracket/softball/d1)
Great summary; thanks. One small typo in your post, though: the opening game is not Monday the 30th, but Thursday the 30th. 9:30 pm on ESPN2.
The winner plays Friday at 9:30; the loser has to wait until Saturday at 2:30 and must win 4 games in 2 days to make the finals.