2025 NCAA women’s softball tournament: Bracket, favorites and everything you need to know

Conference tournaments for women’s college softball are wrapping up this weekend and then the road to Oklahoma City, the longtime home of the Women’s College World Series, begins.

Patty Grasso’s Oklahoma is the four-time reigning national champs, but there’s no guarantee that the Sooners will celebrate a fifth consecutive title this season. Entering conference championship weekend, Softball America has three teams — Arkansas, Texas A&M and Florida State – ranked ahead of Oklahoma, while D1Softball.com has the Aggies and the Razorbacks at first and second in its poll, and USA Softball has Texas A&M ranked No. 1.

Indeed, there’s a good chance that some team from the mighty SEC will be raising the trophy in Oklahoma City in June.

The rest of the field includes awesome players, intriguing storylines and a few teams with real chances to contend for a spot in the World Series. Let’s break down everything there is to know about the tournament this season.

The complete field features 64 teams. The first round, or regionals, feature four-team pods that will be played at the campus sites of the highest 16 seeds. Regionals are contested in a double-elimination format, with games being played May 16-18.

Winners of regionals will then advance to Super Regionals, which will be held at the host sites of the highest eight seeds remaining. The Super Regionals will be decided by teams playing a head-to-head best-of-three series between May 22-25. The winning eight teams then advance to the World Series, which will be played May 29 through June 6.

The early rounds of the World Series will be played in a double elimination format as well, with the final two teams standing facing off in a best-of-three series to determine a national champion.

There isn’t a clear and consensus favorite this season, it seems. Texas A&M is the leader in the national polls and are 44-9, but the Aggies haven’t played against Oklahoma. The Aggies are however 4-1 combined against Florida State and Arkansas.

Indiana is 33-18, but has arguably the best offense in the country as it leads the nation in batting average (.368) and on-base percentage (.457). Ohio State is another Big Ten team with a potent offense, leading the country in home runs with 137.

Tennessee has one of the top defenses in the country as it is second in ERA (1.78), fifth in shutouts (17), and eighth in strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.58).

Other contenders include Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Texas Tech, Oregon, Clemson, UCLA, South Carolina and Virginia Tech.

Texas Tech pitcher Nijaree Canady — voted the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year last season — leads the nation in ERA with a 0.86 mark in 171 innings-pitched. She’s also fourth nationally in strikeouts with 250, fourth in strikeout-to-walk ratio with a mark of 7.81 and fifth in wins with 24.

Belmont’s Maya Johnson is the national leader in strikeouts by a wide margin with 327. She also leads the sport in walks allowed per seven innings with a mark of 0.65.

Oregon’s Lyndsey Grein has the best win-loss record in the circle this year at 26-2. Tennessee’s Karlyn Pickens is another one of the nation’s top pitchers with a 0.92 ERA, which is second nationally.

On the offensive end, Virginia Tech’s Cori McMillan and Arkansas’ Bri Ellis are the leaders in dingers, with 29 and 26 home runs on the year, respectively, which are first and second in the nation.

Kai Luschar of Oregon leads the nation in stolen bases with 54. North Carolina’s Kat Rodriguez is the RBI queen this season, driving in 83 runs.

Texas catcher Reese Atwood, Florida outfielder Taylor Shumaker, Oklahoma pitcher Sam Landry and Oklahoma outfielder Kasidi Pickering are among the finalists for the National Player of the Year award, while pitcher Jordy Bahl of Nebraska was voted Player of the Year in the Big Ten.

You can view the full 64-team field here.

The top eight seeds are:

Should these teams win their regionals, they will also host Super Regionals the following weekend.

The first games of the tournament begin Friday, May 16, at 12 p.m. ET, with No. 14 Duke facing Howard on the ACC Network, and USF taking on Auburn in Tallahassee, Fla. on ESPNU.

The full TV schedule and scores can be viewed here.