FratHouseSports

The Cinderella Team
Let’s go Minnesota. The Golden Gophers are the only four seed in the tournament to go 2-0 over the first two rounds. Yesterday they had to rally from 3-0 and 4-3 deficits to come back to beat New Mexico 6-4 in 10 innings. Now all they need is one more win to reach the Super Regionals for the first time in school history. Up next for them is the winner of the CS Fullerton/New Mexico game, the two teams they’ve already beat.

The Biggest Losers
16 teams are already gone and we’ve broken them down into two categories. There’s your losers and then there’s your biggest losers. Eleven out of the 16 teams were the four seeds…teams we expected to sent home first and teams that nobody cares about.

Then there were your teams that were supposed to be still playing. Teams like Stanford and Cal who sucked balls the hardest…both were two seeds and both are now gone from the tournament like a fart in the wind after stinking it up. Pac 10 = overrated.

Well I was mistaken twice. I thought the Florida Gators girls would have a cake walk in the final against Stanford and they end up losing 4-3. I think I was thinking with the wrong head and letting the beauty of their team cloud my better judgement.

In my defense though it was close…in the end it was Mallory Burdette’s 6-4, 6-7 (4) 7-5 victory over Florida’s Marrit Boonstra in the last match of the day that would clinch the title for the Cardinals. This is Stanford’s 16th NCAA championship.

But like I said I was mistaken twice. Below is the men’s championship recap.

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Women’s Final (3) Florida vs (8) Stanford: We have seen this final, before back in 2003. Then it was Florida who defeated Stanford and this year Florida will go into the match the heavy favorite. They’re coming off of a 4-0 win over second seeded UNC, have won 22 straight matches, and are 7-0 this season at UGA’s the Dan Magill Tennis Complex (where the finals will be played). The Cardinal might as well just give them the trophy.

Men’s Final (2) Tennessee vs (5) USC: Even though the Trojans knocked off the one seed (Virginia) last round and are the returning champs, they are the underdog in this one. That’s because they are going up against a Vol squad that had the best record in the NCAA (31-1), with their only loss coming to Virginia.

Matches will air live on ESPNU starting at 2:00 pm ET with the women’s final

Condoleezza Rice knows her football, maybe better than Bo. After serving under President George W. Bush as the National Security Advisor for one team and Secretary of State for another, she’s returned to her alma mater Stanford as a political science professor and as a “special assistant coach” on the football team.

This year she was on the sideline, in the coaches booth with the headphones on, and even on  the recruiting trail trying to get players to come to Stanford. She might be Stanford’s biggest weapon in the fight to dethrone USC as top dog in the Pac 10.

Quotes from Rice on football below…

The past three seasons, the Women of Troy have been one of the most dominant water polo teams in the nation, entering the NCAA tournament ranked first, second and third in the country, respectively. Never winning less than 19 games each year.

Three consecutive years, three consecutive top-three finishes, but zero titles. The past 3 years their title dreams were ended by crosstown rival UCLA, who had won the last five national championships. But this year with UCLA not in the way it was the Trojans time.

For the fist time since 2004 the Women of Troy claimed the NCAA National Championship by beating the Stanford Cardinal, a team they had lot to twice this season in an ESPN Instant Classic 10-9. It is the programs third title and schools 112th overall.

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The first two rounds might not have went 100% as I thought they would, but I got the end result right…in the NCAA Women’s Water Polo title game it will be a battle between the two beat teams, #1 Stanford against #2 USC. This will be USC’s third straight trip to the NCAA finals and this time they won’t have to worry about UCLA getting in their way.

But they will have the Cardinal who have given them plenty of problems this year. The two teams have already met three times this season…Stanford won the first match 10-7, USC took the second 10-6, and Stanford the last on April 24 by a score of 7-6 in overtime. This one should be a good one, the game starts at 8:00 ET on CBS College Sports.

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If you would have asked me two weeks ago who I thought would be playing for the women’s water polo championship this Sunday, then I would have said without hesitation USC and Stanford. They were the two most dominant teams all season, beating everyone they played and all the teams in the top 10…their only losses coming to one another.

But after both USC and Stanford lost to UCLA last weekend as the Bruins took home the MPSF Tournament title, I feel as though anybody can win this weekend.

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