UL Softball Projected To Travel For Regional
The Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns are projected to be part of a field of three in-state college softball teams for the 2021 NCAA Regionals.
Earlier this week, Hayden King of College Sports Madness projected Louisiana to play in the Baton Rouge Regional, along with LSU, Baylor, and Northwestern St.
Yeah; it's still early, with over half the season remaining, so you shouldn't buy too much into this quite yet.
That being said; projections are always fun to talk about, and these guys normally do a very good job of doing this kind of thing.
The Cajuns are currently 22-6, overall, and 8-1 in Sun Belt Conference play.
Louisiana returns to action on Friday when they travel to Atlanta, Georgia to face the Georgia St. Panthers in a Sun Belt Conference doubleheader representing the first two games of a three-game league series.
The projection by College Sports Madness has LSU as the top-seed, with Baylor, UL, and Northwestern St. following.
Officially, there are no 2-4 seeds in the NCAA Regionals. The NCAA only recognizes the top seed. But we can all easily figure it out.
The tournament field will be released on Sunday, May 16.
Louisiana will be looking to qualify for their 23rd-consecutive NCAA Regional appearance, including their 30th in the last 31 years, excluding 2020, when there was no postseason.
The only year since 1990 in which Louisiana failed to appear in a regional was 1998.
Louisiana has had a lot of success in postseason play, advancing to Super Regional play for 5-straight years, from 2012-2016, prior to playing on Championship Sunday in the last two Regionals.
Oklahoma is the top-seed in the projections, followed by Oregon, UCLA, Arkansas, Florida, Alabama, Duke, and Washington.
Last season, Louisiana was 18-6, ranked in everyone's top ten, and number one in the RPI poll when the season was shut down in mid-March due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
We'll never know how things would have played out, but it's almost certain UL would have hosted a regional for the first time since 2016, and very likely would have hosted a Super Regional for the first time since 2014.
Louisiana is one of only 9 programs to appear in an NCAA Regional every year since 2000, joining Alabama, Arizona, Florida St., Michigan, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, UCLA, and Washington.
Again; it's early, so don't read too much into this, but you can view the complete projections, here.