Welcome to Andy's Sunday Sports Alley! Every Sunday at 7am, we will be dropping an article with some highlights to watch out for during the upcoming week in the world of sports both locally and nationally. Plus an occasional opinion piece on any recent sports news that strikes me.
- Final week of the regular season for IHSA Softball. Watseka visits Milford/Cissna Park on Monday at 4:30pm for a Vermilion Valley Conference between two of the best teams in the area. As for playoffs, click here to see the schedules for Regionals of our local teams starting the week of May 18.
- Another high profile softball matchup will see Westville (currently 19-3) host LeRoy (#3 ranked in 1A and currently 30-0) on Friday at 4:30pm
- IHSA Baseball seedings come out Tuesday with the Pairings/Schedule coming out on Wednesday around 4pm each day.
- KCC baseball won their Region 4 Division II Sectional Tournament by beating Harper College twice on Saturday 6-2 and 5-1. They advance to the Region 4 Division II four-team, double-elimination tournament this Thursday-Saturday at Madison College for a chance to clinch a spot in the World Series Tournament. Click here for the bracket.
- First round of the Crosstown Classic is Friday-Sunday (May 15-17) as the White Sox host the Cubs.
- NFL confirms that the regular-season schedule will be announced on Thursday
- NBA Draft Lottery is tonight at 2pm in Chicago. The Bulls have a 4.5% chance to land the #1 pick and a 20.3% chance to land in the top-four. Toni Kukoč will be the Bulls’ Lottery representative on Sunday. Pacers have a 14% chance to land the #1 pick and a 52.1% chance to land in the top-four. T.J. McConnell will represent the Pacers.
- The NCAA Tournament will officially expand to 76 teams starting in 2027. The 8 additional teams are at-large selections.
The 12 lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers and the 12 lowest-seeded at-large teams play in the Opening Round, previously known as the First Four. 12 games, with 6 at-large and 6 automatic qualifier games each, will be played as triple-headers on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The 12 teams advancing from these games would join the other 52 teams in the round of 64.
6 of the games played Tuesday and Wednesday will continue to be played in Dayton, while the other 6 games will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday at a yet to be determined site.
Opinion: Personally, I am skeptical of the expansion as I thought the current, or now former, format was fine and there was no need to expand. I will give it a chance as they are essentially adding some additional play-in games but I feel like this is just a money grab move by the NCAA and will not add to the quality of the tournament but rather hurt it.
