NCAA Softball Shifts to 1–32 Seeding, Eyes Further Adjustments
Post Season Changes for NCAA Softball
The NCAA Softball road to the Women’s College World Series will look a little different starting next season. Like women’s soccer and volleyball, the field will now be seeded 1 through 32, as reported by Softball America and others.
This move does not change the 16 national seeds, but it does give the top seeds an added boost with matchups that should be more favorable. Because the NCAA still has to protect the 400-mile travel guidelines and avoid early conference rematches when possible, the bracket will not simply run 1 vs. 32 and so on. Instead, the committee will use a bucket system.
Here’s how it breaks down:
- National Seeds 1, 2, 3, 4 paired with seeds 29, 30, 31, 32
- National Seeds 5, 6, 7, 8 paired with seeds 25, 26, 27, 28
- National Seeds 9, 10, 11, 12 paired with seeds 21, 22, 23, 24
- National Seeds 13, 14, 15, 16 paired with seeds 17, 18, 19, 20
This format is meant to strengthen the bracket while still keeping balance.
The committee will meet again in November to look at a few more tournament issues:
• Extending practice times at both the Regional and Super Regional tournaments.
• Expanding the postseason roster to 25 players. Right now, only 22 are eligible. If approved, teams could list more players on the lineup card and get more athletes into games. Schools with rosters over 25 could still travel their full team, but only 25 would be eligible to compete. This change would not require any added financial cost.
• Moving Regionals from a three-day format to four days.
If these adjustments are made, they would join the new seeding format as the next steps in shaping the road to Oklahoma City.
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