2023 NCAA Tournament Geospatial Maps and Preview

With this year's NCAA women's softball tournament beginning Friday, it's time for my annual geospatial maps of where the 64 teams have been sent to play. As shown below, all the teams in a given four-team regional are color-coded in the school colors of the nationally seeded, host team. The seeded team in each region is also indicated by the adjoining seed number in parentheses. 

Oklahoma is clearly the prohibitive favorite, sporting a 51-1 record. The Sooners have a reasonable chance, in my view, to break the record for fewest losses en route to a Women's College World Series title, currently held by the 1992 UCLA Bruins with a 54-2 record. And OU's dominance covers far more than just the current season. Oklahoma has won the last two WCWS, four of the last six, and five of the last nine, one of the best runs in the modern history of women's collegiate sports.

As NCAA.com writer Michella Chester asks, "Who on this planet Earth can compete with the reigning back-to-back champions?"

OU did drop the one game -- an early-season tournament game vs. Baylor -- and also had a couple of close calls (April 1 vs. Texas and May 6 at Oklahoma State). Beating the Sooners is therefore not impossible, but one gets the impression that, even when they're losing going into the seventh inning, the OU players are thinking "We have them right where we want them!"

All-time NCAA home-run leader Jocelyn Alo completed her college career last season, but OU has most of its top hitters back from a year ago. Using 2023 On-base Plus Slugging (OPS) values, Sooners among the nation's leaders include Jayda Coleman (1.383), Alyssa Brito (1.272), Tiare Jennings (1.265), and Haley Lee (1.240), the latter a graduate transfer from Texas A&M. Likewise, the Sooners have two top pitchers back from last year, Jordy Bahl and Nicole May, with Michigan transfer Alex Storako adding depth in the circle. All three of these pitchers have WHIP (Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched) values below 1.00, an impressive level of success.

No. 2 national seed UCLA (52-5) has recorded some long hot streaks during the season, but when the Bruins faced the Sooners in a February tournament, it was ugly, a 14-0 run-rule OU win. UCLA probably won't be shut out very often in the tournament, however, with sluggers Maya Brady (1.417 OPS), Jordan Woolery (1.135), and Aaliyah Jordan (making a midseason comeback from injury) in the lineup. In the circle, Bruin ace Megan Faraimo recorded a .83 WHIP for the season, but has been somewhat inconsistent, exiting early in high-profile appearances against OU in an early-season tournament and Utah in the Pac-12 tourney final.

This year's tournament is also noteworthy for who is not in the field. Arizona is absent from the NCAA field for the first time in 35 years, Michigan is for the first time in 27 years, and Arizona State is for the first time in 17 years (excluding the COVID year of 2020 in all cases). Two-time champion Florida (2014, 2015) is in the field, but for the first time since the regional/super-regional format was introduced in 2005, is not hosting in the opening round. 

On to the maps. As you'll see, most of the regionals consist of three teams that are geographically close together, when one distant team brought in. A couple of regionals contain four geographically close teams and a couple bring together four distant teams. Oklahoma's region fits the latter description, with teams coming to Norman from as far west as California and as far east as New York.

Florida State, a team that often flies under the radar during the season but shows up among the final few teams in the WCWS, is the No. 3 seed. Tennessee, which achieved a program first this season in winning both the SEC regular-season and tournament titles, is No. 4. The Knoxville regional will include two of the nation's OPS leaders, Tennessee CF Kiki Milloy (1.527, fourth) and Indiana 2B Taryn Kern (1.561, third).

The tournament committee's awarding of a No. 5 seed to Alabama is highly controversial. As Yahoo! Sports notes:

The Crimson Tide is certainly one of the best teams in the country, but in the final poll that was posted on May 8, they were ranked No. 13. 

Since that ranking was released, Alabama was defeated in the SEC Tournament semi-final by the Tennessee Volunteers, and their star pitcher, Montana Fouts, suffered an injury with the extent of it unknown. The Tide was also the No. 5 seed in the SEC Tournament, so for them to earn the same exact seed in the NCAA Tourney threw people for a loop.

Oklahoma State, which had been ranked as high as No. 2 in the polls during the season after a 32-2 start, finished the season 41-14 and received the No. 6 seed.

Duke, which lost to UCLA in the super-regionals a year ago as a No. 12 seed, improved to a No. 8 seed this year, which puts the Blue Devils on a path to host all through to the WCWS if they keep winning. Duke gave Florida State all it could handle in the ACC tournament championship game.

Florida shortstop Skylar Wallace, whose team will be playing at No. 9 Stanford, led the nation with a 1.650 OPS. Stanford first-year pitcher NiJaree Canady, possessing a .67 WHIP, will try to shut down Wallace and her Gator teammates.

LSU (No. 10) and Arkansas (No. 11) join Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia (No. 14) as hosting national seeds from the SEC. Meanwhile, Northwestern (No. 12) is one of four Big 10 (B1G) teams in the field but the only one hosting.

No. 13 Texas, this year's Big 12 tourney runner-up and last year's WCWS runner-up (both times to Oklahoma), and Pac 12 tourney winner Utah (No. 15) are among the teams hoping to keep their momentum going into the WCWS.

Clemson 1B Valerie Cagle (1.444 OPS, sixth in the nation) leads the No. 16 Tigers into play in a regional consisting mainly of other teams from the southeast US. 

Enjoy the games!