My annual maps, visualizing the NCAA softball brackets geographically, are here. There are 16 seeded teams (with seed number in parentheses) in the 64-team field. The key thing to remember is that each set of four schools with the same color and design (based on the seeded team's school colors) are playing in the same regional. To minimize clutter, I have once again divided the regionals into those I consider relatively compact and those I consider scattered. Relatively compact means that all four teams in a regional are geographically close together, or three teams are close together and one distant team is being brought in. These regionals are shown in the following map, which you may click to enlarge. The Auburn (No. 4 seed) regional, for example, includes teams only from the adjacent states of Alabama and Tennesee. The UCLA (No. 7 seed) regional contains three teams from southern California, plus the University of Texas. The next map shows the scattered regionals, which...

Here are some miscellaneous items, leading into the revealing of the NCAA-tournament brackets on Selection Sunday ... Auburn continues to swing a hot bat, leading Alabama 5-1 in the bottom (Auburn-half) of the third in one SEC semifinal ( scoreboard ). In the other semi , Florida will take on Tennessee , which yesterday bounced host LSU . [ Update: Auburn wins 7-1 and will face Tennessee, a 2-1 winner over Florida, in Saturday's championship game.] Michigan coach Carol Hutchins discusses in this article how star shortstop-turned-second-baseperson Sierra Romero doesn't need to improve her playing skill-set so much as, "She needs to make her teammates better. She needs to start imparting her wisdom on them..." The Wolverines easily won their game today in the B1G tourney, a run-rule 16-1 rout over Penn State. Another B1G team piling up runs is tourney host Ohio State . The Buckeyes ripped Indiana 24-1 (run-ruled) yesterday, scoring 12 in the bottom of th...

For many conferences, this weekend was the last one of regular-season play, with conference tournaments taking place next weekend. These leagues include: The Big 10 (B1G), in which Michigan clinched the regular-season title . The conference-tourney bracket should appear soon on the Tournament Central site of host Ohio State. The SEC, in which struggling LSU today avoided a three-game sweep by up-and-coming Auburn. The 12-team bracket is available here , with the top four seeds, in order, being Florida, Auburn, Alabama, and LSU. The ACC, whose bracket will be headed up by Florida State, winner of the conference's regular-season championship three years running . Major circuits without a conference tourney include: The Pac 12, whose title will come down to Oregon (19-2) and UCLA (18-3 17-3, with the Bruins finishing up this weekend's series with Arizona tonight in a rare Sunday-evening contest ). Next weekend, Oregon plays three at Arizona, while UCLA does the same ...

Oklahoma's Lauren Chamberlain hit the 91st home run of her collegiate career yesterday in a game against North Texas, giving her the NCAA record for career round-trips. ESPN-W puts the record in historical context , observing among other things that: Even more impressive than the record itself is the fact she has broke the mark in 52 fewer games. Chamberlain has played 212 games in her career, while former record-holder Stacey Nuveman played 264.

LSU ended its three-game losing streak on Monday, with a 9-0 run-rule win over Missouri. The losing streak included the final game of last week's LSU series with Texas A&M and the first two games of the Mizzou series.

As seen this afternoon on regional Fox Sports television, Oklahoma's Lauren Chamberlain has just drilled a Baylor pitch to straightaway center, over the fence, to tie UCLA great Stacey Nuveman for the all-time NCAA Division I home-run record at 90. Click here for the Twitter tweet from the official OU softball feed. *** In anticipation of bad weather on Sunday, Alabama and Auburn are playing two today to complete their three-game series. Following up its 6-0 opening win Friday night, the visiting Crimson Tide has taken Saturday's first game, 13-3 . Game 3 is currently underway. Alabama looked well on its way to a series sweep, jumping out to a 5-2 lead after three and one-half innings. However, Auburn tied the game 5-5 in the bottom of the fourth... The Tide puts up a five-spot in the top of the sixth, to lead 10-5... But Auburn's not going quietly, narrowing the deficit to 10-9 after six... Tigers have the tying run on third and winning run on first, with one...

The series I'm most looking forward to this weekend features Auburn hosting Alabama tonight (7:30 Central), Saturday (5:00), and Sunday (1:00). Auburn is ranked No. 6 and Alabama No. 7 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll, whereas the positions are reversed in the USA Today/NFCA poll. Whereas Alabama has already achieved elite national status, winning the 2012 NCAA title and making the 2014 final round, Auburn is trying to reach a similar tier. That effort was given a big boost when, after the 2013 season, Auburn hired  Clint Myers  away from Arizona State, where had led the Sun Devils to two NCAA titles ( article ).   Former Auburn coach Tina Deese had a strong record of getting to the NCAA tournament, doing so eight of the last 10 years before she was fired two years ago . Auburn has never made it to the  Women's College World Series  or a super-regional, however. In 2014, with Myers in his first season at the Auburn helm, the Tigers  nearly reached ...