Softball Regionals (NCAA)
For the first time since 1994 (27 tournaments), Michigan will not go to an NCAA Regional. Their 26-25 record was their fewest non-COVID-year wins since 1981 and their exit as the 10th seed in the Big Ten tournament was the first time there's been a Big Ten tournament without Michigan at least in the quarterfinals.
So, much to improve on for Bonnie Tholl's second season. Hopefully the top recruits for next season will impact the lineup and this year's highly-rated group only needed more time.
Invitations/seeding was close to RPI rating. The lowest non-automatic bid RPI to go is #45 Notre Dame (Michigan was #48), next closest was #40 Missouri. If there are snubs, #42 South Alabama, #43 Penn State and #44 Ohio State might have a case, but the Big Ten had the benefit of the doubt last season with similar numbers. In the end, I think Michigan squeezes in if it had beaten Penn State in the first round of the tournament, then upset Indiana, maybe even needing to reach the final.
On the seeding end, 1-16 received seeds and host Regionals, except for #11 Louisiana - Lafayette, with surprise Pac-12 tournament champion #24 Utah hosting in its place.
Oklahoma, Big 12 champ, only one loss on the season, two-time defending champion, new home of Alex Storako (17-0, 0.75 ERA, 104 K in 93 IP) is the #1 seed.
The SEC has 5 seeded teams, Pac-12 4, ACC and Big 12 3 each and Big Ten 1. Overall, the SEC received 12 bids, Pac-12 and ACC 6, Big 12 and Big 10 4, four mid-majors had 2.
Northwestern, winner of the Big Ten Tournament and only ranked league team, is seeded 12th and hosting a regional with Kentucky (#27), Miami (Ohio) (#82) and Eastern Illinois (#202). Very winnable. They would play the winner of the Alabama regional in a Super Regional if they get through.
Minnesota (#25) is going to the 7th-seeded Washington regional along with McNeese State (#38) and Northern Colorado (#218).
Indiana (#32) is going to the 4th-seeded Tennessee regional along with Louisville (#34) and Northern Kentucky (#221)
Nebraska (#37) is going to the 6th-seeded Oklahoma State regional along with Wichita State (#20) and Maryland - Baltimore County (#153).
#lacrosseschool
Unfortunate roster construction for Tholl to take over in Year 1. Offense has struggled in recent years and then you lose your top pitchers to boot… As if taking over for a legend wasn’t tough enough.
We were spoiled. This new normal is going to take getting used to.
Hutchins never had a great track record recruiting great bats.
She had pitching and defense which was got her to the tourney each year. But then Michigan ran into good pitchers and good defense and good hitting teams. Michigan couldn’t stay afloat at that point because of its lack of hitters vs top pitching.
Michigan softball is in a mess now. There # 1 pitcher went to Oklahoma and a top player transferred to Auburn. Those were 2 losses Michigan couldn’t afford.
It wouldn't be a stretch to say Michigan softball now lacks Hitting Pitching and Defense. They looked awful this season vs quality teams.
Michigan should of hired a top coach in the country, one who can not only coach but recruit top talent. Promoting in house was not only a head scratcher but unwise.
Tholl has accomplished absolutely nothing in her coaching career that warranted being handed the Head Coaching gig at a perennial top 15 college program.
These results are no surprise. Warde flubbed the hire up big time.
Agree, really did not like the hire at all. I would have strongly preferred they went after Marissa Young at Duke. UM grad who played under Hutch and has now built Duke softball out of nothing. 23-4 before Covid, 42-10 in 2021, 41-8 in 2022, and 45-10 this year. Really doubt she turns down the UM job.
I will say that it's hard to turn down Coach Hutch's assistant without looking like a dick. The softball team has slowly declined from their 2015 finals team. This year the bottom fell out. I wish they would have at least gone around the country and looked at some options like the Northwestern coach.
Annabelle Widra was a great recruit, but through a season at Michigan and another at Auburn has not been much of anything at the plate or in the circle. Would agree though, they are a mess and Warde botched this one. What scares me more is if he'll care to fire Bonnie if things don't turn around in the next couple years... Which would then of course make the turn around harder when you are moving in on a decade of irrelevance. Then you're getting into a territory especially of wondering if Marissa Young even wants to leave Duke (I question if she would now, unless she just loves Michigan, which is possible) after almost a decade and a top ten program she built from nothing in an area that is way easier to recruit talent, and at a place she can sell academics just as easily at Michigan (if that's even a selling point, though it should be in a sport like softball).
I'm not sure what Warde's stance on nonrevenue sports is. Those sports have done well under him but also did well under Hackett, Brandon, Bill Martin etc. The volleyball, wrestling, and gymnastics teams play in Cliff Keen Arena which is quite old and small so they have to move most meets to Crisler. OSU recently built a new arena for those sports but we haven't seen much movement at Michigan. Bakich was reportedly turned down for baseball facility improvements by Warde and the university hasn't bid on hosting a hockey regional in years.
The whole baseball debacle irritates me to this day. I understand Clemson and the draw that it was, and the reality of Michigan's ceiling never being what Clemson's is... But it seemed like he was willing to turn down schools and try to build Michigan if he had the support and this was the chance Michigan had to have a fair amount of success, with a guy who had done it and was just starting to see the recruiting wins get to campus from 2019.
Volleyball having to train at Cliff Keen is crazy when considering how it's a lot easier of a sell that Michigan could be a consistent top 15ish team with the draw of the Big Ten and not having to fight the same issues the warm weather sports face.
The issue is simply that Hutchins announced her retirement on August 24 2022, just 1 week before the players came back to school and reported for fall practice.
Hutchins (probably strategically) put Michigan in a position where no good coach would have been willing to leave their team and come to Michigan on such short notice, and Michigan could only promote from within. If Hutchins had retired in May when Michigan's season ended, they would have had time to conduct a national search.
It's a tough sell to find an established coach willing to go to the Big Ten, where there are no home games early in the season and you're practicing indoors. The Big Ten is the number-five league out there.
So you're limited to up-and-coming coaches at mid-major programs in warm-weather areas. You might have two or three real candidates.
On the other hand, you have Tholl, who knows the players and the culture here and helped recruit the current players. Two very strong recruiting classes in a row now.
Every recruit has to be sold on dealing with the upper Midwest weather limitation - recruits that mostly grow up playing travel ball in warm-weather areas.
Coaching softball is about training and recruiting and some scouting. It is not football. There's no TCU in the other dugout doing weird bat things you can't defend because you didn't think it through properly.
Tholl was absolutely the right hire. If this continues, and good recruits continue to produce mediocre results, then they might need to make a change. Maybe hitters aren't training properly. Maybe they're targeting players based on reputation and not doing the right scouting work. Too early to tell.
As for Michigan never hitting, that's not true. It's been a while, but we're not too far removed from the Sierra days when Michigan reached the championship game in 2015. And before that, the national championship team of 2005 was part of a long run of teams that were often close to leading the country in home runs. This power outage is relatively recent and they have had some bad luck with elite freshman power recruits getting injured in recent years (Allan, Vallimont).
Michigan has two of three Big Ten appearances in the championship game, the only Big Ten national championship and close to half of the overall World Series appearances. That's quite a legacy. I understand why people expect it to continue, maybe even demand it continue. But I don't know that it will or whether anyone, Tholl or a magic outsider willing to come to the Big Ten, can make it happen.
Apparently, I'll be the lone voice for Bonnie Tholl. Bonnie Tholl is a winner. They have gone to the tourney every year she has been coaching at UM except her first year as an assistant and her first year as a head coach, that's 25 of 27 years. She has been the primary recruiter for Hutch for twenty years as the Assistant Head Coach and brought in another top 10 class this year. She's a decorated UM alum and has been waiting in the wings for Hutch to retire.
The team played to their ability this year. Unfortunately, she lost a ton of All Stars except Lexie Blair and even she got hurt and missed major portions including the Big Ten tourney. Alex Storako is a superstar. She has her UM degree and she has one last shot. Expecting her to stay when we don't have a roster like Oklahoma is like asking a first round NFL / NBA draft pick to stay.
In the 20 years that Bonnie was the Assistant Head Coach, they won 14 Big Ten Championships and a National Championship. Keeping her was the right thing to do when you are a perennial power. Maintain the culture and hire from within. Culture is incredibly powerful, and I trust her to get us back to the top.
You're not the only voice. Far from it, I'm sure.
The pitching issue is a difficult one. The Storako situation is a strange one in that usually top pitchers come in, throw four years, graduate. If a pitcher gets hurt (and they do), they're rarely the same afterward. COVID granted a bonus year. So now, if they're still playing, they're in graduate school. In many fields, you want to go to graduate school somewhere else - it's better for your career. I don't know that it was the case with Storako, since it seems more than coincidence that a program like Oklahoma - the only program in the country that hits like that - needed 100 innings the way they did.
They have needed pitchers in the last couple of classes. Erickson was supposed to be the pitcher in this group, but didn't try. The portal brought some relief, but not at the level they needed. And there's only one pitcher in the next group - hit or miss. It's a real need and it might well be the big issue next season. They will need another pitcher in the portal, and that's not an easy find.
But Tholl earned this chance and I think it would have been very damaging not to hire her. Not to mention that Hutch surely talked about this with the athletic department long before she retired. If she said Tholl was the best hire, why in the world would anyone doubt her?
I'll be cheering for the softball team again next year. Hoping this is just a "one year bump" in the road.
Go Blue!