The Gophers made a nice jump in the Big Ten standings from 10th to fourth place this season and beat fifth place Purdue 5-4 in the first game of the Big Ten tournament.

So it was interesting to see that the Boilermakers, not the U, got the fourth and final Big Ten spot in the 64-team NCAA field.

Purdue (34-21) was one of the last teams named during the NCAA softball selection show on Sunday night. Yes, I watched it. Stumbled across it while switching channels and missed the first couple regions.

I expected to see the names of regular-season co-champions Michigan (48-6) and Northwestern (37-13) on the screen. The commentators seemed to like Michigan’s chances of making the final eight. Michigan is the No. 4 seed overall, NW the No. 12.

Third-place Iowa (40-18) also was selected and then Purdue. Seems most people at the U were not surprised.

Why? Strength of schedule. Purdue played 10 or 11 top 25 teams and beat a couple of them. The Gophers played only three top 25 teams and lost all three games.

What also hurt was that the Gophers and Purdue never met in the regular season. Their doubleheader was rained out. So the U was 1-0, not 3-0 against Purdue which might have made the decision a little tougher at least. The Gophers also had two games against Penn State canceled. And the Lions were a beatable team, so Minnesota could have had up to four more victories.

The Gophers could be even tougher next season with Briana Hassett back for her senior season. She keeps dropping her ERA by one-half run every year.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 5:09 pm and is filed under All. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.