Following another exciting college softball season, the NCAA is doubling the number of teams it will seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
According to Softball America, softball will follow the format of college volleyball and women’s soccer with the seeding of 32 teams. Only the top 16 seeds, which hosted the regional, were previously seeded. In theory, the committee is seeking to reward the top seeds with “easier” matchups.
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However, to protect teams from having to travel too much for regionals, the 1-32 seedings will not be straight up to protect 400-mile geographic proximity parameters and avoid same-conference matchups in the regionals.
The No. 1-4 national seeds will play seeds Nos. 29-32; however, an adjustment will be made if it pairs two conference opponents who are scheduled to meet one another. There will not be a seeding for the rest of the 64-team field.
National seed buckets
Here’s a look at how the national seed matchups will be determined, based on the No. 1-32 seed rankings:
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
If the 2025 NCAA Tournament followed the seeding based on the 1-32 ranking, this is how the field would have looked:
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 NCAA Softball Tournament changes
According to Softball America, the NCAA Committee will continue to examine other issues when it meets in November. Here’s a look at other changes currently under consideration:
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.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NCAA Softball Tournament to double seeds from 16 to 32 in 2026
