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2026 NCAA Tournament Geospatial Maps and Preview

This year's NCAA softball tournament gets underway Friday. As is my annual tradition, I have created the following geospatial maps based on the regional assignments, showing which teams are traveling from where to the 16 regional sites.

I would have thought winning the SEC regular-season title would have been enough to give Oklahoma the No. 1 national seed, the Sooners' loss in the conference tourney notwithstanding. Instead, the top seed went to Alabama, followed by No. 2 Texas -- even though the Longhorns beat the Crimson Tide 7-1 in the SEC tournament final. Alabama and Texas's draws appear below, with both teams looking like strong favorites to advance to the super-regionals.
OU dropped to No. 3. where its main regional competition will likely be Michigan and Kansas, middle-of-the-pack teams from the Big 10 and Big 12, respectively. Nebraska, the Big 10 champion of the regular season (23-1) and tournament, comes in as the No. 4 seed. Star pitcher Jordy Frahm makes the Cornhuskers a strong contender to reach -- and do damage in -- the Women's College World Series,

No. 5 Arkansas finished the season as the No. 1 team nationally on the RPI statistical metric, even though the Razorbacks came in seventh in the SEC regular-season standings. SEC colleagues Florida and Tennessee follow at the No. 6 and 7 seeds, respectively.

UCLA, which tied with Oregon for second in the Big 10 at 20-4, is the No. 8 seed. The Bruins' Megan Grant set a new NCAA single-season home-run record this year with 38. No. 9 Florida State is the highest-seeded team from the ACC this season.
Another SEC team, namely Georgia, comes in as the No. 10 seed, followed by Texas Tech, the controversial No. 11 seed. Led by the pitching one-two punch of NiJaree Canady and Kaitlyn Terry, the Red Raiders were ranked No. 1 and 2 nationally at various parts of the season and won the Big 12 regular season pretty easily. On the other hand, Texas Tech's schedule was not extremely tough and the Red Raiders' six losses included three to unranked Texas State, Baylor, and Utah (the others were to Nebraska, Arizona, and Arizona State, the latter in the conference-tourney final). Some slippage in Texas Tech's seeding is warranted, in my view, but not all the way to No. 11.
Among the remaining seeded teams, No. 13 Oklahoma State (who did not play Texas Tech during the Big 12 season) is one to look out for. The Cowgirls recorded April nonconference wins over Oklahoma and Texas.

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