Many readers of this blog will be familiar with the "Sports Illustrated Jinx." If you appear on the cover of the famed magazine, misfortune has a good chance of following (SI actually did a study in 2002, tracking what happened to nearly 2,500 individuals and teams that had graced the cover; 37% of them experienced a setback, but no "control group" of non-pictured counterparts was studied, so there's no way of knowing if being on the cover actually increases bad outcomes above what the rate of occurrence otherwise would have been).

Perhaps my college softball blog has a jinx of its own. No sooner did I prominently feature Oregon State in yesterday's posting (below), than did the Beavers drop consecutive 1-0 games to Washington and to UCLA. OSU has one last chance Sunday against the Bruins to salvage a win for the weekend.

Northwestern, another team I recently featured, showed no signs of a jinx, however, defeating Illinois in the opener of the teams' series to clinch the Big 10 regular-season title. It was the Wildcats' first since 1987.

In a nationally televised ESPN2 contest, Tennessee shut out LSU 4-0 in the opener of a double-header. Then, in the non-televised second game, the Vols won big again.