The NCAA Tournament selection committee seeded Virginia Tech softball in the No. 17 to No. 20 range, meaning it fell just outside the margin to host a regional and will travel to Baton Rouge, La., for matchups against No. 16 LSU, Akron and South Alabama. The bracket was revealed on Sunday night.
The Hokies’ first game will take place on Friday at 4 p.m. ET against South Alabama on ESPN+.
“Everybody is in regionals for a reason,” Virginia Tech head coach Pete D’Amour said. “You go to LSU and it’s going to be a tough environment. … Everybody is good. We’ve just got to prepare like we did last week.”
NCAA Division I Softball Committee chair Natalie Honnen said Virginia Tech’s bid to host a regional was denied. The university’s graduation conflicts with a potential regional in Blacksburg, and Honnen said it was unable to secure hotels within the mandated 30-mile or 45-minute radius of Tech Softball Park. However, she said the committee did not consider the lack of available hotels.
“What I’m saying is that Virginia Tech was not a top-16 seed,” Honnen said. “So, from a host perspective, if there was a situation that Tech was in the top 16, they were not going to be able to host because the locations of the hotels were outside of our parameters — but that did not come into our thought process when we were seeding the top 16.”
Honnen repeatedly said the NCAA denying Virginia Tech’s bid was not why the Hokies did not receive a top-16 seed.
“Virginia Tech athletics confirms it submitted Regional and Super Regional bids and would like to provide additional clarification regarding hosting requirements for the NCAA Softball Championship,” a Virginia Tech spokesperson said in a statement to Tech Sideline. “Due to university commencement activities and the NCAA’s required hotel accommodation standards for participating teams and officials, Virginia Tech was unable to satisfy the necessary criteria to host a regional in Blacksburg if selected as a top-16 seed. The department worked extensively with the NCAA and explored all available alternatives, but no viable solution met championship hosting requirements.
“As a result, Virginia Tech’s bid to host a regional was denied by the NCAA. Virginia Tech’s Super Regional bid has been received and meets all NCAA hosting requirements should the Hokies earn the opportunity to host.”
Schools that wanted to host submitted bids to the NCAA by April 17, which includes a facility profile and a plan for lodging. Host schools are required to negotiate a courtesy hold for three other teams. They must secure 30 rooms per team — plus rooms for officials — to go with meeting spaces for teams and officials, preferably at three different hotels.
“Virginia Tech is in a position with graduation that those hotel rooms are tied up years in advance,” Honnen said. “... All three hotels they provided were more than a 50-minute drive from Virginia Tech’s campus. The rule is no more than 30 miles and 45 minutes.”
The Hokies (46-10) will head into the NCAA Tournament as the ACC runners-up — having earned their first conference championship game appearance since 2012. They finished No. 18 in the RPI, a computer metric that factors record and strength of schedule.
Tech had an 8-4 record against teams in the top 25, 10-3 against teams that finished 26th to 50th, 7-2 against the squads between 51 and 100, and 21-1 against teams worse than that. It ranked 57th in strength of schedule and 152nd in non-conference strength of schedule.
Honnen named LSU and Texas A&M as the other two bubble teams that the committee selected to host over Virginia Tech. LSU — the Hokies’ potential opponent on Saturday — was 13th in the RPI with the ninth-best strength of schedule and an 11-16 record against Quad 1 teams. Texas A&M was 17th in the RPI with the seventh-best strength of schedule and a 14-14 record in the top quadrant.
“When you’re comparing them to the last 15, 16 [seeds], they had more Quad 3 and 4 losses than Texas A&M and LSU,” Honnen said. “Their non-conference schedule as well, they were [152] from a non-conference perspective. They were discussed, but they were not the 15 or 16 seed — and it had nothing to do with their bid.”
Tech always schedules early-season matchups against opponents in the SEC, perennially the strongest softball conference. It went 6-0 against South Carolina, Georgia and Auburn — though those three teams finished 25th, 11th and 33rd in the RPI, respectively, worse than in previous years.
“Going into this season, we thought that we had a really good schedule lined up for us,” Virginia Tech head coach Pete D’Amour said. “We just got unlucky with some teams that we played didn’t have the years that we thought they would have.”
Virginia Tech will participate in a regional on the road for the fourth consecutive year.
“I don’t think our kids care [about hosting],” D’Amour said. “... I think we played 35 to 40 games on the road this year and played 13 at home. To be good here, you have to be good on the road. That’s just the way it is.”