5. The BYU effect: You’ll notice that the Stanford Regional begins play on Thursday, a day before the rest of the tournament gets underway. BYU, which is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, does not participate in any athletic events on Sundays, and when the Cougars officially punched their tournament ticket with a WCC championship on Saturday, current NCAA rules mandated that one regional would start a day early to limit the scheduling impact of avoiding Sunday: If a fourth day of play is needed for a seventh, deciding game and BYU is one of the two teams involved, the Stanford Regional will take Sunday off and play the game Monday. (If BYU has been eliminated, the final game would be played Sunday.)

It ultimately may not make much of a difference for BYU’s fate—the Cougars enter the postseason with the No. 59 RPI in the country and a 4–4 record against teams with a top-50 RPI—but No. 8 national seed Stanford, Cal State-Fullerton and Sacramento State all will begin their tournament runs with one fewer day of rest for their pitching staffs than they expected, and if BYU forces a do-or-die regional title game, the winner won’t make up that day of rest on the back end. BYU’s presence previously forced the tournament to take a day off in 1979, 1994 and 2002.