Five Big 12 Softball Squads Ranked in USA Today/NFCA Preseason Top 25

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Texas A&M has earned a No. 2 ranking in the 2008 USA Today/National Fastpitch Coaches Association Preseason Top 25 Poll, leading five Big 12 squads in the first ranking of the season. The Aggies, the conference's preseason favorite, are joined in the top 10 by Oklahoma (No. 5) and Baylor (No. 8). The Big 12 is one of two conferences to have three squads in the top 10. Texas (No. 22) and Missouri (No. 25) also earned spots in the first ratings.

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[Bball Girl]

Good for the Big 12 - I'm hoping to see Tech sneak in there this year.

I'm pleased at the #1 - we'll see what the Cats do without Candrea (most of the time) and with a new pitching coach and pitching philosophy. Balko is going to call pitches this year (with the pitching coach providing some overrides).

[spooky]

This is one of those polls that makes it pretty clear that there's no way the coaches can have any clue in the preseason. With one exception, the teams in the preseason poll are the exact same teams in the final poll from last year, even though many teams have a very different makeup this year. It's not the coaches fault - they've got more to do this time of year than research all the other teams. It just shows that preseason polls aren't real useful.

I guess Arizona's as good a guess as any to repeat. Mowatt proved she can carry the team last year, but I'd think she's gotta get some help to do it again. Plus, they lost some pretty special players and coaches during the fall. The last time Candrea took time away for the national team, Arizona suffered a bit.

Baylor's a perfect example. We lost our workhorse #1 pitcher, 2 All-Americans who provided the bulk of our power, and a couple of other starters. Yet we dropped only 3 places. I'm glad to see we've begun to get enough reputation as a program that we get the respect of the polls, but #8 might be a stretch.

It's kinda surprised to see Tech snag a few votes. Wilson is definitely not among my favorite coaches, but she seems to have made some recruiting strides lately, and is most definitely a talented coach on the field. I didn't expect any results in the standings just yet, but the bottom half of the league seems pretty even to me, so it's definitely possible.

[Bball Girl]

Yeah...losing Fox and Lowe is tough. The pre-season polls mean very little. But it should be fun to see what happens. I had a blast with softball last season.

I'd like to see the Aggies do really well this year.