NCAA Softball Tournament to Expand to 32 Seeded Teams Starting in 2026

NCAA Softball Tournament 2026 32-team seeding bracket

The NCAA is doubling the number of teams it will seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament after yet another exciting college softball season.

Softball America states that the 32-team seeding process for softball will be similar to that of women’s soccer and collegiate volleyball. Prior to hosting the regional, only the top 16 seeds were seeded. The committee’s goal, in principle, is to give the top seeds “easier” matchups.

However, the 1-32 seedings will not be straight up to respect 400-mile geographic proximity limitations and avoid same-conference games in the regionals to prevent clubs from having to travel too far.

If it pairs two conference opponents who are scheduled to face each other, the No. 1-4 national seeds will play the Nos. 29-32 seeds; otherwise, an adjustment will be made. The remaining 64 teams in the field will not be seeded.

National seed buckets

Based on the No. 1-32 seed rankings, the following is a look at how the national seed matches will be decided:

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

How the 2025 NCAA Softball Tournament would be impacted

The field would have looked like this if the 2025 NCAA Tournament had been seeded according to the 1-32 ranking:

No. 1 Texas A&M vs. No. 32 Arizona State
No. 2 Oklahoma vs. No. 31 UCF
No. 3 Florida vs. No. 30 Cal
No. 4 Arkansas vs. No. 29 FAU
No. 5 Florida State vs. No. 28 Kentucky
No. 6 Texas vs. No. 27 Virginia
No. 7 Tennessee vs. No. 26 Liberty
No. 8 South Carolina vs. No. 25 Stanford
No. 9 UCLA vs. No. 24 Georgia
No. 10 LSU vs. No. 23 Ohio State
No. 11 Clemson vs. No. 22 Nebraska
No. 12 Texas Tech vs. No. 21 Auburn
No. 13 Arizona vs. No. 20 Mississippi State
No. 14 Duke vs. No. 19 Ole Miss
No. 15 Alabama vs. No. 18 Oklahoma State
No. 16 Oregon vs. No. 17 Virginia Tech

Future changes to the NCAA Softball Tournament

At its November meeting, the NCAA Committee will continue to look at additional issues, according to Softball America. Here are some other adjustments that are presently being considered: