LSU, Duke Emerge as Projected WCWS Regional Hosts in Latest Softball America Bracketology

With a new No. 1 on the block in the Alabama Crimson Tide, not only were Softball America's Top 25 rankings shuffled around, but the bracketology projections were too.

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 remains the frontrunner in most Regional hosting spots at eight total. Missouri made the cut this time around as one of the Last Four In. The ACC and Big 12 each charted three Regional hosting slots and the Big Ten tallied one. The Power 4 conferences, as expected, dominate the playing field, accounting for a total of 36 bids.

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 8.