As crazy as the opening weekend of the NCAA women's basketball tournaments is, it comprises a mere 48 games spread over four days. Softball fans, you see, are allowed to use "mere" to describe the pace at which the basketball postseason unfolds.

Spread over essentially three days, with the exception of two games played Thursday, the regional round of the NCAA softball tournament squeezed in 100 games this year. And that was a slow year, with only four sites forced to play an additional winner-take-all finale on Sunday.

Is it possible to condense all of those innings and still look ahead to eight super regionals in a mere five questions? Let's find out.

1. Which teams made the best impression?

No. 6 Alabama: We will get to the opening weekend's most indispensable player momentarily, but few were more impressive than Alabama's Haylie McCleney. Already known as one of the best all-around players in the sport, but someone whose power had to this point been largely of the gap variety, McCleney hit four home runs in three games in the Tuscaloosa regional.

Alabama's hitters had plenty to celebrate, and the Crimson Tide's pitching came up big in the regionals as well. Vasha Hunt/AL.com/AP

Contrast those circuits around the bases with the fact that it wasn't until the fourth inning of the regional final that an opponent got a runner as far as third base against Crimson Tide pitchers Alexis Osorio and Sydney Littlejohn.

Coming off a disappointingly meek exit in the SEC tournament (an event the Tide won en route to a national title in 2012), Alabama batters piled up 34 hits and 10 walks in the regional. Tide pitchers allowed just five hits, with Osorio virtually unhittable. Individually and collectively, Alabama put on the most impressive show in winning its three games against Fairfield and Washington, the latter twice, by a combined 28-1 score.

No. 3 Michigan: The only knock against Michigan is that it needed all seven innings to win the final in the Ann Arbor regional. Sorry, that's all the criticism we've got. A lineup that ranks in the top five nationally in home runs, slugging percentage, on-base percentage and runs lived up to those numbers. The espnW national player of the year, Sierra Romero, contributed a home run, a triple and four RBIs. The hitters around her contributed, as each of the top four in the order hit at least one home run. The bottom of the order contributed, none more than freshman Aidan Falk in her postseason debut. Everyone contributed. And the Wolverines beat Oakland, California and Pitt by a combined score of 28-5.

No. 7 UCLA: The Bruins didn't shut out the field, as they did in three wins a season ago, but they run-ruled Cal State Northridge, took and held early leads against both Texas and San Diego State and needed just 18 innings to advance. The program is again making regionals mundane, and that is a good thing given some recent memories (including a two-and-barbecue exit at home when the current seniors were freshmen in 2012). That said, as much as any team in the entire tournament, UCLA will be judged on what it does in the next round and whether or not it gets back to the World Series. But no errors in the field, good innings from Ally Carda in the circle and enough production at the plate are a start.

No. 1 Florida/No. 2 Oregon: We're not ignoring the top two seeds. Florida didn't allow a run in its regional, two starts going to Lauren Haeger and one to Aleshia Ocasio. But it also needed extra innings to score its first run in the regional final against Florida Atlantic. Oregon advanced with only one test against ranked North Dakota State and barely needed Cheridan Hawkins in the final, but like the Gators, the Ducks spent most of the weekend in fourth gear.

2. Who was the MVP of the first weekend?

Florida State was without the reigning player of the year, at least in the manner to which it had grown accustomed. Which is why Jessica Burroughs is the pitcher of the weekend.

It would have surprised no one in the preseason had a visitor from the future informed them a pitcher would play the leading role in Florida State reaching the super regional stage. Lacey Waldrop, after all, did just that a season ago as a junior, leading the Seminoles to not only a super regional but the Women's College World Series and winning USA Softball Player of the Year along the way. Her encore was anything but weak. Recently named ACC pitcher of the year, Waldrop went 28-6 with a 1.50 ERA in the regular season. But the control problems that plagued her in the recent ACC tournament appeared again in the opening game of the Tallahassee regional, six walks in three innings against Dartmouth enough to end her week.

And with it, many would have assumed, Florida State's chances.

With Lacey Waldrop in the dugout, Florida State's Jessica Burroughs carried the Seminoles in the circle. Graham Hays/ESPN

As a redshirt freshman a season ago, Burroughs pitched just nine innings through the entire postseason run, all essentially in mop-up duty. She nearly doubled that in this season's regional alone. In a relief appearance and two subsequent starts against UCF, a team that perhaps should itself have received a national seed, she totaled 16 1/3 innings, allowed five hits, one walk and one earned run and struck out 16 batters.

That included a complete-game shutout in Sunday's regional final.

"She really understands now that she doesn't have to blow the ball by people, that she can trust her spins," Florida State coach Lonni Alameda said. "She just mixes the curve with a little less speed sometimes and a little harder sometimes. She really trusts throwing to her defense. The maturity of her, and what Lacey has shared with her in the bullpen and during her games, it's just awesome to see come out. That's kind of how you write it up as a coach. You want your senior to give it to your younger kids, so they grow as pitchers and understand what they're trying to do. To see it come true this weekend, it was really neat."

Of course, the flip side is that while Waldrop appeared just as ecstatic as everyone else after Saturday's walk-off win courtesy of Alex Powers and again after Sunday's clincher, the opportunity for Burroughs came because one of the best in the game can't make the ball do what she did so well for so long. Had it looked as if UCF would force a second game Sunday, Alameda said the plan was to start Burroughs again with Waldrop available but only in reserve. The senior is fine physically, Alameda said, but one of the best players in program history sits for now.

"I think that everything is written for a reason, everything is done for a reason and everything happens for a reason," Alameda said. "I have to have trust and faith that there is something for this. It hurts sometimes. It's hard. You can't help [Waldrop], but all you can do is be there for her. That's what I'm going to do. I told her we're going to turn over every leaf and every rock possible to get us back on track. That's all we can do. ...

"It's very, very hard, but on the other side, I couldn't be more proud that Lacey couldn't be more proud of Jessica and how we've all developed [Burroughs] to be ready for this."

Next in line: Emily Weiman, NC State. The first super regional appearance in NC State history came courtesy of a walk-off home run from Maggie Hawkins, the second home run of the weekend for a first-year transfer from Hofstra. But Hawkins' bat only finished what Weiman started, which is odd only in that the latter generally finishes everything she starts herself. The NCAA active leader in career innings pitched, Weiman shut out No. 15 James Madison in Saturday's 2-0 win. And after finding herself on the wrong end of decisions in regional finals each of the past two seasons, she limited Fordham to a lone unearned run and waited for her teammate's walk-off heroics in Sunday's 2-1 win.

If Weiman starts twice in the super regional at No. 2 Oregon, and it's difficult to imagine a scenario in which she wouldn't bar injury, she will finish her career with more starts than all but seven players in NCAA history, of whom only Olympians and National Pro Fastpitch stars Monica Abbott and Danielle Lawrie pitched this century.

3. How do Bianka Bell and Amber Freeman explain the world?

If ever there is an opportunity for us to retire the explanation that winners are those who "want it more," let Sunday's softball games in Baton Rouge be it.

It isn't, and we won't, but what a pleasant world that would be.

No. 5 LSU beat Arizona State 4-3 on Bianka Bell's walk-off single Sunday not because she wanted it more than her opponents in a winner-take-all game. Arizona State senior Amber Freeman is one of the Pac-12's best hitters and still a good catcher when a body battered by injuries over the years acquiesced to spending seven innings behind the plate. She didn't finish her career as one of the sport's star-crossed standouts, robbed of a walk-off home run a season ago in a regional final, beaten on Bell's hit this season and forced to endure four Sunday losses in her final two seasons, because she didn't want it.

Sometimes you want it and win. Sometimes you want it and lose. The beauty, and the cruelty, of the NCAA tournament is that with rare exception, everyone wants it.

Games, seasons and careers turn on talent, skill, strategy and inevitably sheer good luck.

Bell surely must have feared her team would lose after she threw to an unoccupied third base in the seventh inning Sunday, thinking she caught a low line drive on the fly instead of on a hop, as the runner she thought she could double off third base scampered home with the go-ahead run for Arizona State. The tears she wiped away in the dugout after the inning were evidence enough of the gravity of the moment. But LSU rallied to tie.

It'll be the NCAA career home run leader, Lauren Chamberlain of Oklahoma, vs. Alabama's tough pitching in the Tuscaloosa super regional. AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki

Freeman might have thought the same as she watched from the dugout when LSU's Sydney Bourg slid home well ahead of any throw in the bottom of the ninth inning, the apparent winning run wiped out after umpires correctly judged the batted ball hit a different runner's foot and ricocheted off Arizona's Nikki Girard into the outfield.

The next batter to the plate, Bell ripped a line drive that brought home Bourg for the second time, this time to stay, as LSU became the 19th team to come through the loser's bracket and win back-to-back elimination games on the final day of a regional.

The batter who would have led off the top of 10th inning had Bell gotten out? Freeman.

That is the pleasure and pain of the postseason.

Kentucky senior catcher Griffin Joiner has played more college softball games than any active player save one, and Joiner has done so almost exclusively at a position that, as Freeman will attest, exacts a toll on even a young person's body. Among the best at her position defensively, she also matured over her four seasons into one of her team's best run producers, a power hitter with plate discipline. So even after all those innings in the tools of ignorance, she was precisely who the Wildcats would have wanted at the plate behind by a run in the seventh inning of a regional final against No. 16 Notre Dame.

And after working the count full, Joiner turned the seventh pitch of the at-bat into a hit that brought home the tying and eventual winning run and Kentucky's fourth super regional in the past five seasons. Joiner, it seems, wanted it.

Western Kentucky senior Miranda Kramer was precisely who the Hilltoppers wanted in the circle needing just one win at Georgia to reach a super regional, in large part because of the 14-inning complete game she threw a day earlier. But in this case, it wasn't her day. For the second season in a row, Georgia didn't just sneak away with two wins on Sunday but stormed back to win its regional in jaw-dropping fashion, piling up 29 runs in two games. After the losses, Kramer's older sister posted a photo of her younger sibling's index finger, the skin torn and red from the effort of spinning the ball. It wasn't an excuse for the runs, the damage a companion after performances both good and bad all season. It was just a reminder, in so many words, that Western Kentucky's pitcher wanted it, too.

4. Which super regionals are not to be missed?

No. 6 Alabama vs. No. 11 Oklahoma: Thanksgiving dinner tables offer less to feast on than this super regional pairing. Where do you start? NCAA all-time home run leader Lauren Chamberlain and Shelby Pendley can only finish their careers back in Oklahoma by winning two games in one of the toughest road venues in college softball. With the spotlight shining brightly, Alabama's McCleney can continue making an early start on next season's national player of the year race. Two aces among 10 finalists for freshman of the year, Alabama's Osorio and Oklahoma's Paige Parker, will try to pitch beyond their years. All that's missing for two teams that famously dealt in different ways with a rain delay during the 2012 championship series is a forecast that calls for rain in Tuscaloosa.

Prolific hitter Sierra Romero leads Michigan against Georgia in the Ann Arbor super regional. Eric Bronson/Michigan Photography

No. 7 UCLA vs. No. 10 Missouri: It's the only super regional between Pac-12 and SEC teams that will take place on the former conference's home turf (where Missouri, then in the Big 12, won a super regional in 2009). It's also the final chance for UCLA's seniors to get to Oklahoma City, a destination that once seemed as much a part of the schedule as Tucson. The key is likely to be the health and effectiveness of Missouri pitchers Paige Lowary, who missed the regional with an illness, and Tori Finucane, who missed time earlier in the season with injuries but shouldered a big workload this past weekend. On top of that, freshman Amanda Sanchez, who is slugging .634, is still limited by injury to only slightly less of a degree than Kirk Gibson was before the 1988 World Series.

No. 3 Michigan vs. No. 14 Georgia: The momentum born of rolling through a pair of regional elimination games a season ago fizzled quickly for Georgia, which didn't win a game in its super regional at home against Baylor. This time, the Bulldogs have to go on the road against a more daunting opponent. But five words explain why you need to set the DVR for the games in Ann Arbor: Sierra Romero and Alex Hugo. Two of the most powerful and charismatic hitters around are must-see viewing in every plate appearance.

5. Which team is the best bet to crash the World Series?

Let's exclude Florida State, Missouri and Oklahoma from consideration. All are technically underdogs and playing on the road this week, but it's hardly a stunner when the No. 10 seed beats the No. 7 seed or the No. 9 seed beats the No. 8 seed. And while Oklahoma has a more significant seed disparity on its hands in Tuscaloosa, it also entered the NCAA tournament ranked fifth in the Top 25, one spot ahead of Alabama.

No, if you wanted to go scouting for the likeliest potential party crashers, you had to stay up late Sunday night to make sure No. 12 Arizona and No. 13 Louisiana-Lafayette would first take care of business as favorites. Both did, albeit with varying degrees of difficulty, as Arizona beat Minnesota and Louisiana-Lafayette beat Baylor in winner-take-all finals.

Arizona's case is built in part on its opponent. As stirring as LSU's rally was Sunday, it marked the end of another weekend, coming on the heels of their earlier than expected exit in the SEC tournament, when the Tigers were far from invincible. If also imperfect, no one can say Arizona isn't similarly resilient, not after the wildest regional final of them all finally came to a close past midnight in some parts of the country with Chelsea Suitos sliding headfirst into home to score the winning run in the bottom of the eighth.

Not once but twice Sunday, Arizona gave up seventh-inning home runs to the Gophers that reversed the score, Paige Palkovich's walk-off grand slam winning the first game and Taylor LeMay's three-run home run in the finale. Fortunately for their sake, the Wildcats batted last in the finale, which allowed Chelsea Goodacre to tie the game with a two-run home run of her own. The day summed up Arizona, which doesn't have pitching it can count on, despite some good innings in the regional from both Trish Parks and Michelle Floyd, but has the power to erase mistakes.

Still, given LSU's pitching and the long-ball unfriendliness of Baton Rouge that awaits Arizona, the best bet is Louisiana-Lafayette. The Ragin' Cajuns hosted a super regional a season ago and would have liked to do so again, but you also get the feeling coach Michael Lotief won't mind playing the renegade spoiler to the genius of Clint Myers and No. 4 Auburn. With deep lineups, albeit one that in Auburn's case had stalled until a late rally Sunday, mix-and-match pitching staffs and really good coaching, the teams share a great deal in common. Auburn has home field. Louisiana-Lafayette has experience.