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Softball to seed 32 teams for 2026 NCAA Tournament

Screenshot 2024-07-31 at 7.46.34 PMby: Brady Vernon08/19/25BradyVernon
Screenshot 2025-08-19 at 7.45.45 AM

After multiple years of discussion, NCAA softball will follow the footsteps of Women’s Volleyball & Women’s Soccer, seeding 32 teams. This does not change the 16 national seeds, but should help reward the top seeds with ‘easier’ matchups.

The seeding will not be a straight 1-32 matchup to allow the NCAA to protect the 400-mile geographic proximity parameters when possible and prevent conference matchups in regionals. The seeding will use ‘buckets’. The 1-4 national seeds will face the 29-32 seeds in a certain order that allows the committee to still use the past parameters. If there are three SEC teams in the top four, and one SEC team in the 29-32 bucket, the SEC team will face the non-SEC host essentially.

The Buckets

National Seeds 1,2,3,4 – 29, 30, 31, 32
National Seeds 5, 6, 7, 8 – 25, 26, 27, 28
National Seeds 9, 10, 11, 12 – 21, 22, 23, 24
National Seeds 13, 14, 15, 16 – 17, 18, 19, 20

 In addition to the expanded seeding, the NCAA Committee will continue to examine the following issues when it meets next in November.

  • Extending practice times at both the regional and super regional tournaments
  • Increasing the NCAA postseason squad size to 25.
    • Currently, the number of student-athletes who are eligible to play in a postseason game is 22.
    • If the committee adopts an increase, it would allow for more student-athletes to be listed on the lineup card and participate in the game, and teams that have an official NCAA roster larger than 25 would STILL be permitted to travel their entire roster; however, only 25 would be eligible to participate in the competition.
    • This would NOT include an increased financial commitment from the NCAA.
  • Continuing to explore the extension of the NCAA regional tournament from a three-day schedule to a four-day schedule.

College Softball Seeding 1-32

This is a mock of what a 1-32 seeding would possibly look like based on this past NCAA Tournament seeding.

1. Texas A&M
32. Arizona State

2. Oklahoma
31. UCF

3. Florida
30. FAU

4. Arkansas
29. Cal

5. Florida State
28. Kentucky

6. Texas
27. Stanford

7. Tennessee
26. Liberty

8. South Carolina
25. Virginia

9. UCLA
24. Georgia

10. LSU
23. Ohio State

11. Clemson
22. Nebraska

12. Texas Tech
21. Auburn

13. Arizona
20. Mississippi State

14. Duke
19. Ole Miss

15. Alabama
18. Oklahoma State

16. Oregon
17. Virginia Tech

More from Softball America:

2025 Recruiting Rankings
2026 Recruiting Rankings
2027 Recruiting Rankings

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