Latest Softball America Bracketology Features Potential Bedlam Super Regional

With two weeks left of the regular season, programs are making their last push leading up to conference tournaments.

Per usual in the last four weeks, a new No. 1 has emerged, Jordy Frahm's Nebraska Cornhuskers.

On a 12-game win streak, following a three-game sweep over Washington, the Oregon Ducks re-earned Softball America's forecast at a Regional host site. Florida State is back in it as well after three dominant ACC victories over North Carolina.

The Cowgirls of Oklahoma State also busted into the top 16 for the first time in this year's Bracketology, after a Big 12 series win against Arizona.

Alternatively, Virginia Tech, Stanford, and Mississippi State all got the boot out of the predicted Regional home-field advantage.

As a reminder, 31 automatic bids from each conference and 33 at-large bids will determine the Field of 64. Each conference tournament winner claims an automatic bid to the NCAA postseason, excluding the WCC, which has yet to add a conference tournament. The regular-season standings will decide which program goes dancing in that case.

The automatic bids are selected based on a combination of current conference standings and RPI in Softball America’s bracketology prediction. The at-large bids are rooted in RPI, wins against the different RPI quadrants, and Strength of Schedule, while factoring in other datasets such as KPI and DSR.

The SEC continues to set the standard at 14 total bids, followed by the ACC and Big Ten at eight apiece, and the Big 12 not far behind with six.

New Postseason Seeding in 2026

This year, the WCWS will now seed 32 teams, mimicking recent changes made to Women's Volleyball and Women's Soccer. These additions will not alter the 16 national seeds, but will help boost the top seeds with "better", well-deserved head-to-head contests.

By using "buckets" (see below) to seed teams, the hope is to prevent league matchups in the Regional tournaments and thus protect the 400-mile geographic proximity parameters.

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

Here are the projected hosts and top two seeds per Regional as predicted by Softball America for the week of April 22.