Alabama Crimson Tide Softball Awarded 15 Seed in NCAA Tournament; Bracket

Once again the NCAA Softball Selection committee has chosen Alabama (37-21) as a top 16 seed and a Regional host honor. The Crimson Tide is seeded No. 15 and will host Virginia Tech (41-11), Belmont (40-14), and Jackson State (29-23). Bama’s first game will be Friday, May 16 vs JSU at 5pm/6pm on ESPN+.

NATIONAL

1. Texas A&M with feisty Liberty
2. Oklahoma with Cal and don’t-sleep-on-them Boston U
3. Florida pretty easy road with FAU and Georgia Tech
4. Arkansas with Oklahoma State!! What?
5. Florida State with Auburn and dangerous USF
6. Texas with Michigan and UCF
7. Tennessee with Ohio State and UNC
8. South Carolina also pretty easy with Virginia, North Florida and Elon
9. UCLA with Arizona State
10. LSU with Nebraska
11. Clemson with Kentucky and Northwestern
12. Texas Tech with Mississippi State and Washington
13. Arizona with Ole Miss
14. Duke with UGA
15. ALABAMA
16. Oregon with Stanford

SEC

All SEC teams except Mizzou made the Tournament.

• Texas A&M – Top Seed
• Oklahoma – 2 Seed
• Florida – 3
• Arkansas – 4
• Texas – 6
• Tennessee – 7
• South Carolina – 8
• LSU – 10
• Alabama – 15
• Mississippi State at Texas Tech, possible upset material
• Ole Miss at Arizona
• Georgia at Duke, another potential upset
• Kentucky at Clemson
• Auburn at FSU

Not in the field – Missouri.

ALABAMA

Tuscaloosa Regional

Friday:

• Game 1: Jackson State vs. No. 15 Alabama, 5pm/6pm, ESPN+
• Game 2: Belmont vs. Virginia Tech, 2:30/3:30, ESPN+

Saturday:

• Game 3: Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2, 11am/noon
• Game 4: Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2, 1:30/2:30 (loser eliminated)
• Game 5: Winner Game 4 vs. Loser Game 3, 4pm/5pm (loser eliminated)

Sunday:

• Game 6: Winner Game 3 vs. Winner Game 5, 1pm/2pm
• Game 7 (if necessary): Rematch Game 6, 3:30/4:30

Somehow, the Crimson Tide keeps sneaking in there. Despite finishing tenth in the 15 team conference and taking yet another early bow in the SECT, Team29 will be a host. Without doing a deep Google dive, it is probably safe to say this is Bama’s lowest national seeding. In 2018, they were 12 after finishing 12–12 in conference play. Last year, they were the 14 seed.

Interestingly, Virginia Tech is ranked higher in the four polls, RPI (14), and KPI (12). The Tide is #17 in RPI and #21 in KPI. The Tide and Hokies faced off in the February’s Bama Bash in Tuscaloosa with Alabama losing the first game 2-1 and run-ruling VaTech 9-1 in the second. VT defeated UNC in the first round of the ACCT but lost to eventual champ Clemson 10-9.

Alabama Softball Splits with Virginia Tech, Sweeps Cupcakes

Belmont is in their first NCAA Tournament thanks to winning the Missouri Valley Conference. They are #65 RPI and #72 KPI with their top win being over Eastern Kentucky. JSU’s best win was over Florida A&M, but they won the SWAC. Not sure how Bama got the worst team in the country in their bracket.

Should Alabama win the Tuscaloosa Regional, they would travel to Norman, OK to face the Sooners in the Super-Regional. What do you bet if Okie had been the top-seed, the Crimson Tide would have been 16? The NCAA is not even trying to mask their seedings scheme anymore.

ACCOLADES

Fab Freshman Audrey Vandagriff was named First Team All-SEC. The REAL Team Captain Kali Heivilin made Second Team.

Alabama fielded their first softball team in 1997. The very next season, Kelly Kretschman was named NFCA Second Team All-American as a freshman. Since that time, a Crimson Tide player has been honored every season up to Kayla Beaver last spring. Unless Vandagriff gets mentioned, that streak will snap.

WILD & WACKY BIG TEN TOURNAMENT

The Big Ten-PAC-12 merger was about football. One of the side-effects was three softball powers (UCLA, Oregon, Washington) moving to the up-and-coming softball conference. This past weekend, a wild B1G Softball Tournament took place in West Lafayette, IN.

First off was the 7th seeded Huskies getting upset by #10 Indiana. Meanwhile, #8 Michigan barely slipped by Wisconsin by a run while #12 Purdue took down #5 Northwestern. The Wolverines then shut out top-seeded Oregon and the Boilermakers took down 4-seed Ohio State. Those two played each other with Michigan coming out on top. In the final, UM continued their hot run with a shutout of 2-seed UCLA to win the conference tournament and earn an automatic qualifier into the the NCAA Tournament.

Michigan will be in Austin, TX.

ALUM

The Mercer Bears are the 2025 Southern Conference Champions. Former Crimson Tide pitcher Courtney Gettins (2018-19) is their pitching coach. They head to Gainesvile.

#RollTide #Team29