Latest news with #upsets
Forbes
4 days ago
- Sport
- Forbes
Are NCAA Baseball Hosts Losing Their Advantage On The Road To Omaha?
AUSTIN, TX - JUNE 01: UTSA players celebrate as others fall to the ground after winning the NCAA ... More Division I Regional game between Texas Longhorns and UTSA Roadrunners on June 1, 2025, at UFCU Disch-Falk Field in Austin, Texas. (Photo by David Buono/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) While the Women's College World Series was setting records for viewership, the 2025 NCAA Baseball Tournament was delivering a series of stunning upsets that challenge long-held beliefs about the sanctity of home-field advantage. For only the second time since 1999, the top two seeds in the NCAA Baseball Tournament were eliminated in the Regionals as No. 1 Vanderbilt lost to Wright State in Nashville and No. 2 Texas lost to UTSA in Austin earlier this week. In addition to Vanderbilt and Texas, No. 7 Georgia, No. 10 Ole Miss, No. 11 Clemson, No. 12 Oregon, and No. 16 Southern Miss were eliminated in the regionals despite their home turf advantage. As the tournament progresses to the Super Regionals, these developments prompt a reevaluation of the presumed benefits of home-field advantage on the road to Omaha. The DI baseball tournament is comprised of 64 teams. These teams include 29 conference champions who receive automatic berths and 35 at-large teams selected by the NCAA DI Baseball Committee. The selection committee will also rank the top 16 teams nationally. These 16 teams host the first of four stages in the tournament called Regionals. FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS - JUNE 01: Ben North #11 of the Creighton Bluejays fields a throw and tags ... More out Wehiwa Aloy #9 of the Arkansas Razorbacks at Baum-Walker Stadium at George Cole Field during the Fayetteville Regional on June 01, 2025 in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The Razorbacks defeated the Bluejays 8-3. (Photo by) The NCAA baseball tournament begins with the Regionals, where 64 teams are divided into 16 four-team brackets. These four teams are then seeded No. 1-4 within their region with the nationally ranked team claiming the No. 1 seed in the region. Each four-team bracket follows a double-elimination format, meaning a team must lose twice to be eliminated. The 16 Regional winners then advance to the Super Regionals, where they are matched into eight head-to-head best-of-three series. The Super Regionals are hosted by the higher ranked team in the head-to-head matchup. The winners of the eight Super Regionals punch their ticket to Omaha for the Men's College World Series (MCWS). There, the teams are split into two four-team, double-elimination brackets. The final stage of the tournament is the MCWS Finals. The last two teams standing in the double-elimination bracket compete in a best-of-three showdown that crowns the national champion. OMAHA, NE - JUNE 27: Players of the Florida Gators hold up the National Championship Trophy after ... More defeating the LSU Tigers 6-1 at the College World Series on June 27, 2017 at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo by) This year's Regionals were one of the worst on record for the host teams in the round of Regionals with only 9 out of 16 teams advancing. That represents a rate of 56.25%. While all 16 Regional hosts have never advanced in a single year, recent seasons suggest that hosting is becoming a less reliable path to the Super Regionals. In the NIL and post-COVID era, no more than 11 host teams have made it through Regionals in any given year. Since the introduction of national seeding in 1999, there has been a slight but consistent decline in the percentage of Regional hosts advancing. To be sure, hosting still confers a meaningful advantage, as host teams continue to have a better-than-even chance of advancing. Their chance of advancing is stronger than the combined odds of the three visiting teams. The trend in win percentage by Regional hosts shows a small but steady decline over time. The Super Regional round starts tonight and is sure to feature some excellent high-stakes baseball. Hosts have reason to feel even less comfortable in the Super Regionals, as the competition reaches new heights. Much like in the Regionals, data from the Super Regionals shows a declining trend in host win percentage over time. Although the sample size is smaller, only eight Super Regional sites per year compared to 16 Regionals, certain years stand out for how poorly hosts fared. In 2013, 2016, and 2022 hosts had particularly bad streaks with only 50%, 37.5%, and 25% winning their Super Regionals, respectively. It is difficult to determine if those years are representative of a larger trend of decreasing home field advantage or simply random outliers in an otherwise steady trend. However, a t-test revealed a statistically significant decrease in the Super Regional host win percentage when comparing pre-NIL to NIL era results with a p-value of 0.088. While just above the conventional 0.05 threshold, this result suggests that the erosion of home-field advantage in Super Regionals may be more than anecdotal. The trend in win percentage by Super Regional hosts shows a slow and steady decline pulled further ... More downward by outlier years in 2016 and 2022. Using betting odds Circa Sports recently posted the Super Regionals, it is possible to estimate the number of host teams that are expected to advance to the College World Series in Omaha. Betting odds can be converted to implied probabilities of host teams winning their Super Regional. For example, Duke has the highest implied probability at 83.38% and Oregon State has the lowest implied probability at 52.38%. ATHENS, GA - JUNE 01: The Duke Blue Devils won the NCAA Division I Athens regional tournament ... More beating the Oklahoma St. Cowboys on June 1, 2025 at Foley Field in Athens, Ga. (Photo by John Adams/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) The sum of implied probabilities results in the expected number of Super Regional Hosts heading to Omaha. In 2025, the oddsmakers have placed that number at 5.4 Super Regional hosts. That would represent a win percentage of 67.48% for Super Regional hosts. This follows closely in line with the historic mean win percentage of around 70%. However, the slight dip below the long-term average could also reflect a subtle market adjustment to recent upsets and the increasingly competitive nature of these series. OMAHA, NEBRASKA - JUNE 24: Head coach Tony Vitello of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates after ... More defeating the Texas A&M Aggies to win the Division I Men's Baseball Championship held at Charles Schwab Field on June 24, 2024 in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo by Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos via Getty Images) While we are far from a world of perfect parity in the NCAA Baseball tournament, the data indicate that cracks are starting to form in the hull of home-field advantage for Regional and Super Regional hosts. This year was an extreme example of two top teams bowing out of the tournament before the Super Regionals and five other hosts failing to advance, as well. From the Regionals to the Super Regionals, trends suggest a slow erosion of the dominance once enjoyed by top-seeded home teams. While betting markets and historical averages still favor the hosts, the road to Omaha is more uncertain than ever making 'the greatest show on dirt' more intriguing than ever.
New York Times
4 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
NCAA baseball Super Regionals live updates: Today's scores, results and latest news
Hello, baseball fans. Welcome to The Athletic 's live coverage of the NCAA baseball tournament's Super Regionals. We have eight intriguing matchups to follow this weekend and possibly into Monday. Will the upsets continue after seven unseeded teams survived the regional round last week? Or will the favorites take control? Either way, we will have eight teams advancing to Omaha, Neb., for the College World Series with a national title on the line. Follow along with our coverage from across the country.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
By holding out for more, boxing keeps missing the moment
For a sport built on unpredictability, boxing sure does love trying to script the future. Ryan Garcia vs. Devin Haney 2 and Caleb Plant vs. Jermall Charlo are fights that fans wanted to see. They're matchups that should've been made when the chance was there to make them. But instead, we got four bouts across two cards in the month of May, none of which anybody had much desire to watch, with two promised pots of gold at the end of the rainbow that now may never come. Advertisement Turki Alalshikh's Ring Magazine even went to the trouble of hosting the Garcia vs. Rolando Romero and Haney vs. Jose Ramirez double-header at New York's historic Times Square crossing in an effort to add intrigue to the show that the main two fights simply did not provide by themselves. When Plant and Charlo shared a card at the Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas this past Saturday, it was free to watch on Amazon Prime Video — a widely accessible service. It was an investment from the event partners in building a future fight that they hoped would repay dividends from pay-per-view revenue. Both cards had a clear narrative and a logical path forward. The aim was to maximize the potential of two huge all-American showdowns. But it all came crashing down when it was main event time — on both occasions. Romero and Armando Resendiz ripped up their scripts and pulled off shocking upsets over Garcia and Plant, respectively. And now, instead of the two perfect build-ups the sport attempted to create, boxing has lost two big pay-per-view rivalries that its limited arsenal of major fights could not afford to lose. Advertisement Of course, this isn't a new problem. Boxing has long attempted the concept of two co-main events sharing a card, with the two big favorites planned to face each other afterward. And it's gone wrong before as well, even in recent years. In December 2023, Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder finally signed contracts to battle each other — a fight that was years in the making. All the pair had to do was get past Otto Wallin and Joseph Parker respectively, but Parker showed fans just how faded Wilder actually was and dominated their 12-round heavyweight contest. The upset victory killed all interest in a Joshua vs. Wilder bout, which already was many years too late. Now, in June, Wilder will return to the ring against the little-known Tyrrell Herndon. He hopes to make a comeback to the world level and possibly rekindle any interest in a money-spinning Joshua showdown. But if it does eventually happen, the fight will be a shadow of what it once could've been when the pair owned all four of the heavyweight titles in the late 2010s. The promoters and broadcasters will almost certainly rely on the nostalgic element of the fight, knowing full well that the in-ring action won't deliver what fans have been sold — as was the case when Netflix and Most Valuable Promotions advertised heavily-edited 30-second clips of 58-year-old Mike Tyson on the pads before his fight with Jake Paul. Advertisement The rivalry between Plant and Charlo dates back to July 2023 at the weigh-in for Terence Crawford vs. Errol Spence Jr., where Plant was filmed delivering an open-handed slap to Charlo's face. Plant claimed that Charlo had disrespected his wife and grabbed him by the beard. Plant vs. Charlo was perfectly set up to be a major attraction — a bad-blood battle between former world champions in a division home to the planned Saul "Canelo" Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford spectacle in September. And with Plant, 32, and Charlo, 35, the clock was already counting down on their windows in the sport. But event organizers chose not to go straight into the big fight, perhaps viewing Charlo's extended period out of the ring as less than ideal in building a blockbuster clash. They were both offered tune-up bouts instead. Advertisement Charlo's well-documented struggles outside of the ring and lingering inactivity mixed together perfectly for an upset. But surprisingly, it wasn't Charlo that lost his warm-up bout — it was Plant. And maybe the warning signs were evident there, too. Plant faded late in fights with Alvarez and David Benavidez, and was hurt early by the unheralded Trevor McCumby in his most recent bout this past September. Plant went into the Resendiz fight owning a rematch clause, so we could see a second meeting between the pair. Alternatively, Resendiz could replace Plant's position in a Charlo fight. But whatever the next step, it won't be the build-up and fight we could've had with Plant and Charlo. Ryan Garcia vs. Devin Haney 2 was right there to make, and yet it didn't happen. (Cris Esqueda/) (Cris Esqueda/Golden Boy via Getty Images) In the case of Garcia and Haney, boxing lost out to marination it didn't even need. When Garcia and Haney battled the first time around for the WBC super lightweight title in April 2024, the build-up was nothing short of insane, with Garcia documenting himself smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol in late-night live transmissions leading up to the bout. Advertisement Serious questions arose about whether Garcia should've even been in the ring in the first place. He was more than three pounds overweight for the contest and seemingly chugged a beer bottle as he tipped the scales 24 hours before the fight at a ceremonial weigh-in. But Garcia — temporarily, at least— proved the doubters wrong. He scored three knockdowns of Haney in a big upset and provided the sport with another dramatic night. A few days after the fight, news broke that Garcia failed a drug test for the banned substance ostarine and that his win over Haney would be turned into a no-contest. To add fuel to the fire, Haney initiated legal proceedings against Garcia for having performance-enhancing substances in his system in their fight. The rivalry was already at a boiling point, and boxing should've struck while the iron was hot. But greed took over. The powers that be thought that the fight could be a little bit bigger. And by holding out for a tiny bit more, boxing keeps missing the moment — and ends up with a lot less.
Forbes
19-05-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
NCAA Softball Postseason Parity Sees Overall No. 1 Seed Texas A&M Fall
On Sunday night Liberty Lady Flames softball beat the overall No.1 seeded Texas A&M to advance to Super Regional play for the first time in program history. However and perhaps the most shocking first was the premature exit of the overall No. 1 seed, a feat that had yet to happen in the modern collegiate softball era. The 64-team regional post season play that began on Friday, May 16 saw several upsets demonstrating the parity and growth within collegiate softball, especially in the NIL era. University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) knocked out Power 4 foe Arizona State, a program with a history steeped in post season play including winning the national title in 20o8 and 2011. UCSB eventually fell to 12 time national champions and softball powerhouse UCLA in the championship game, but not before knocking out the Sun Devils and San Diego State Aztecs. In a similar trajectory to Liberty, Southeastern Louisiana shocked and eliminated the No. 10 LSU Tigers in the opening game 4-3, booting them into the losers bracket. The Lady Lions would defeat the Tigers a second time, 8-7, eliminating them from the tournament. Southeastern would eventually fall in the championship game to the Nebraska Cornhuskers led by Player of the Year finalist, two way player Jordy Bahl (formerly of Oklahoma softball). This parity continues to evolve in the game with more teams not only making the post season, but taking games from larger, stacked Power 4 teams. Despite this parity, only eight mid-majors (Fresno State in 1997, 1998, & 1999; UMass in 1998; DePaul in 1999, 2000, 2005, & 2007; Louisiana-Lafayette in 2003, 2008, & 2014; Hawaii in 2010; South Florida in 2012; Southern Mississippi in 1999 & 2000; and James Madison University in 2021) have made the Women's College World Series since 1997 when the tournament took its permanent residence at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City, OK. The Lady Flames will look to be the ninth team added to this small, but mighty list of mid-major teams etching their name into the Women's College World Series history books. For the full schedule and bracket for Super Regionals, click here. Follow me for more collegiate softball and women's sports news on X, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
