Saturday’s frustrating events show that the NCAA needs to offer more transparency into its weather delay process.
LSU is 4-0 in the NCAA tournament and one win away from its first College World Series appearance since 2017.
Despite that undefeated record, there’s been some frustration at Alex Box Stadium from LSU fans this month. This postseason has provided weather delay after weather delay.
It’s not unusual. It’s the summer, and it’s the south. There are going to be thunderstorms and lightning out of nowhere on any given afternoon.
Just as LSU and Kentucky were getting ready for game one early Saturday afternoon, a lightning strike pushed first pitch back. Moments later, the teams left the field, and it was clear this game wasn’t starting anytime soon.
First pitch got pushed back even further into the evening only for the radar to look even worse as the evening approached. There were two more delays before the game finally got underway at 9:06 p.m. CT.
Fans at the Box were puzzled and grew frustrated. A glance at the sky didn’t reveal anything that looked like it should threaten play.
The initial delay made sense. Every outside sport is disrupted by lightning. Nobody is arguing with that. And yes, sunny skies don’t always tell the full story there.
After that first 30 or 45-minute delay is where it gets murkier.
The choice to push the game into the night was a questionable one. You had a situation where rain was likely at night, too. Meanwhile, fans were sitting around The Box without much knowledge of when the game would actually be played.
Both coaches said they wanted to avoid a situation where the game was stopping and starting. Games like that can put more stress on the players and make it difficult to manage a pitching staff. I understand that and I’m sure every fan does too.
But there becomes a point where you just have to play with what you got. It’s hard to pick and choose when it comes to weather at this point in the year.
The significant delay risked the game not getting played at all on Saturday, potentially leading to a situation where a doubleheader or playing on Tuesday was required. Either one of those options could have caused the same inconvenience of a start-and-stop game.
The choices made ended up being fine. Alex Box remained full, and the game got underway well before the deadline. But the NCAA needs to improve how it does business in this department.
It starts with transparency. Much of Saturday’s frustration grew from confusion. A fan base that sat through several delays last weekend was once again doing it, except this time, it wasn’t pouring rain.
It wasn’t until after the game that [autotag]Jay Johnson[/autotag] was able to give a complete answer on what happened behind the scenes.
Johnson detailed conversations with the NCAA and National Weather Service, saying there was too much lightning when they tried to first get underway. That’s a respectable process, but there’s no reason the answer Johnson gave after the game couldn’t have been sent in a Tweet hours earlier.
The fans at Alex Box are some of the best in the sport, and more needs to be done to limit frustration on a day like Saturday.
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