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It's conference tournament week for NCAA DI softball

May 10, 2023
It’s tournament week for a whopping 30 Division I (DI) conferences, and you know what that means: The eight-team Women’s College World Series is only 22 days (and 56 dashed dreams) away.
CollegeSoftball
It's conference tournament week for NCAA DI softballIt's conference tournament week for NCAA DI softball
SOURCE: D1SOFTBALL/TWITTER

The GIST: It’s tournament week for a whopping 30 Division I (DI) conferences, and you know what that means: The eight-team Women’s College World Series is only 22 days (and 56 dashed dreams) away. Welcome to the postseason party!

How it works: There are 32 available automatic bids to the 64-squad national tourney, one for each DI conference. The Big West and WCC will award bids to their regular-season champs this weekend, but the other 30 conferences are duking it out tourney-style for natty tickets.

  • Teams who fail to snag a conference ’ship will be stressin’ until 7 p.m. ET Sunday, when the committee reveals their 32 at-large selections. The easiest route — especially for non–Power Five squads — is to finish the job here and now.

The top tourneys: The SEC, whose first round takes the field tonight, boasts a conference-leading eight Top 25 teams. No. 4 Tennessee crushed their way to the SEC regular-season title, but to take the tourney, they’ll have to contend with No. 12 Arkansas — the only team to take a series from them all year.

  • The historically cutthroat Pac-12’s first-ever tourney also hits tonight’s dirt. Although regular-season champ (and softball dynasty) No. 2 UCLA is the favorite, with three Top-10 squads in the mix, expect chaos.

Players to watch: For the diamond’s best, look no further than the 14 gals drafted by Athletes Unlimited (AU) on Monday, including red-hot pitchers Montana Fouts of No. 14 Alabama and No. 3 Florida State’s Kathryn Sandercock, the Nos. 4 and 5 picks, respectively.

  • But to catch AU’s top draftee, look past the Power Five: Wichita State Shocker Sydney McKinney, ahem, shocked the world when her name was called first. See her in action at the AAC tournament this Friday.
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