Happy Monday, friends and fans!

Last evening, he Oklahoma Sooners softball team was rewarded with the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Softball Tournament and will host a regional in Norman for the ninth season in a row. This is the second time in program history OU has received the tournament’s top-overall seed. The first time came in 2013, when Patty Gasso won the second of her four national titles.

The other teams in the Norman Regional field are Notre Dame, Wisconsin and UMBC. All bracket play features a double elimination system, so one loss is not the end of a team’s tournament hopes. Games will begin this Friday, May 17, and the Sooners will put their No. 1 seed and 39-game winning streak to the test against the UMBC Retrievers at 8:30 p.m. CT on ESPN2. Does UMBC have any more tricks up its sleeve?

Now onto this week’s Monday edition of Hot Links! Oklahoma men’s golf is in action at the Pullman Regional, Dede Westbrook gives thanks to new mothers, Kawhi is a clutch king and more!

OU Links

• As you’ve likely heard by now, OU president James Gallogly has announced that he is stepping down from his position. For a number of reasons, Gallogly was never going to be a long-term solution, but his tenure will be even shorter than anticipated. His legacy? Bringing beer sales to athletic events, his handling of the blackface video, cutting a bunch of spending (and positions) and reportedly threatening his predecessor.

• Tickets for the Norman Softball Regional were completely sold out just minutes after going on sale at 10 a.m. this morning. If you build it, they will come.

• The OU men’s golf team is off to a great start (sitting at -10 as of publishing) in the first round of the Pullman Regional, and you can follow the live scoring right here.
• While you were sleeping, cornerbacks coach Roy Manning was busy getting to work and spreading his energy around the Twitterverse. I might be just as excited to see how he operates on the sideline during games as I am for anything else this upcoming season.

• This works on the playground, but I already know my heart would stop right then and there if I ever saw Spencer Rattler try to pull this off in a game. Still, this guy is insanely talented.

• The first round of the Pullman Regional began this morning. As of 11:25 a.m. CT, the No. 1 seeded Oklahoma men’s golf team leads the rest of the field by four strokes.
• Former Sooner and Biletnikoff Award winner Dede Westbrook spent Mother’s Day giving flower bouquets to new moms and soon-to-be moms at a maternity ward. Great stuff.

Around the Sports World

• Kawhi Leonard sent the Philadelphia 76ers home with a fortuitous buzzer-beater in Game 7. That looked like one of those overly-dramatic shots in a low-grade basketball movie. Wow.

• After 12 seasons at Michigan, John Beilein has agreed to become the next head coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
• Notre Dame under Brian Kelly has been about as hot and cold as a program can be. From making the 2013 BCS National Championship and last season’s College Football Playoff to being completely out of title contention in most other years, the Fighting Irish are intriguing to Bill Connelly going into this fall. Can ND finally get over the hump and reach Alabama-Clemson levels of consistency?
• High school track sensation Matt Boling continues to astonish with his unprecedented speed. Over the weekend, the Georgia commit rallied on the last leg of a relay race to win despite being behind by nearly three seconds. Incredible.
• As had been rumored, Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers was an extra in Sunday night’s Game of Thrones episode. Judging from his costume, he was somewhere in King’s Landing. If that’s the case, R.I.P. A-Rodg.

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