There’s a major change coming to how teams in the NCAA softball tournament will be seeded in 2026.
College softball’s postseason will begin seeding the top 32 teams in the tournament, following the same model used by women’s soccer and volleyball. Softball America was the first to report the change.
The top 16 national seeds will still host during the tournament’s opening weekend, but seeding 1-32 will reward better teams with more favorable matchups.
For example, No. 1 Texas A&M was upset during the opening weekend of the 2025 tournament by Liberty, which would’ve been tabbed as the No. 26 seed. In this new format, Texas A&M would have faced No. 32 Arizona State and Liberty would’ve played against No. 7 Tennessee. This format would have also helped a competitive team like Oklahoma State last season, as the Cowgirls — which would’ve been the No. 18 seed in this system — were sent to No. 4 Arkansas. In this new format, Oklahoma State would’ve been sent to the regional hosted by No. 15 Alabama.
However, the seedings won’t always be straight-up matchups 1-32. To protect the NCAA’s 400-mile geographic proximity rule — which is designed to help prevent excessive postseason travel — and to prevent same conference matchups in the regional round, the seeding matchups will be placed into buckets. So, national seeds 1,2,3,4 will face seeds 29, 30, 31, 32, but can be mix-matched to prevent excessive travel or a same conference matchup. Hypothetically, if there were three ACC teams in the top four, and one ACC team seeded 29th to 32nd, that team would get sent to the regional not hosted by an ACC team.
The top 16 seeds have been seeded for several years now. While the top 32 seeds will now be seeded, the second half of the field won’t be. Those teams will still be sent to regionals by the selection committee, based on performance and geography.
According to Softball America, the NCAA Softball Committee is still examining a few other potential changes to the postseason tournament, including practice times, roster sizes, and moving the regional tournament to a four-day schedule instead of a three-day one.
