Chalk off another Bruin team with a top seed. No. 3 UCLA softball (45-7, 17-4 Pac-10) was rewarded for a difficult nonconference schedule with the No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA Division I Softball Tournament bracket. The Bruins’ championship hopes look much stronger this year than they did during last year’s postseason, when UCLA lost games to Loyola Marymount and Hawai’i and was eliminated in the first round.
This year, the Bruins’ first game is against Cal State Fullerton. The Titans (27-26-1) beat UCLA 1-0 on March 12. Rounding out the Los Angeles bracket are Nevada (46-12) and Purdue (34-21). This is Purdue’s first berth in the NCAA Tournament, and it will be its first game against UCLA this year. The Bruins beat Nevada 10-1 in their season opener on Feb. 8.
The other major West Coast development in the NCAA Tournament seeding was the No. 6 overall seed, which was given to second-ranked Arizona State (56-5, 18-3 Pac-10). Despite the fact that the Sun Devils won their first Pac-10 championship and posted a school record for wins, the selection committee felt that Arizona State played a weak nonconference schedule and hence deserved a lower-seeding. The Sun Devils beat the Bruins twice, 3-0 on April 11 and 5-2 on May 4. Should both teams advance, the Sun Devils could meet the Bruins in the national semifinal.
Other Pac-10 teams invited to the NCAA Tournament were overall No. 7 seed and defending champion Arizona, overall No. 12 seed Stanford, California, Washington and Oregon.
The top seed of the tournament went to the Florida Gators (62-2). The Alabama Crimson Tide (51-6), tied with UCLA at No. 3 in the ESPN/USA Today Poll, got the tournament’s overall No. 3 seed. Michigan received the No. 4 seed, Texas A&M the No. 5 and Houston the No. 8.