Kansas earns No. 8 seed, returns to NCAA softball tournament

Kansas softball is back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015, and the return gives Lawrence one of its clearest signs yet that Jennifer McFalls has pushed the program back into national relevance. The Jayhawks were handed a No. 8 national seed and the No. 2 spot in the Norman Regional, ending an 11-season absence from the bracket.

Kansas will open against Michigan on Friday, May 15, at 5 p.m. CT at Love’s Field in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma is the regional host, and Binghamton is also in the four-team pod. The winner advances through a double-elimination bracket that will be played on one of college softball’s biggest stages, with all regional games available on ESPN networks, ESPN+ and the ESPN App.

The seed was built on a late surge that lifted Kansas out of bubble territory and into protected status. The Jayhawks beat Wichita State 10-0 on April 28, followed that with a 10-1 win at Oklahoma State on May 2 and then outlasted UCF 6-5 on May 7 in the Big 12 Tournament before falling 14-0 to Texas Tech on May 8. Before the conference tournament, Kansas said it had 18 top-100 RPI wins, 10 top-50 RPI wins and four top-25 RPI wins, a resume strong enough for the NCAA Division I Softball Championship Subcommittee to reward with a seed.

The berth is the program’s 13th NCAA Tournament appearance and, for a Douglas County fan base that tracks KU athletics closely, a meaningful reset for one of the university’s highest-profile women’s programs. Kansas finished with its most wins under McFalls and its most overall since 2015, a stretch that turned a long rebuild into a tangible postseason breakthrough.

That matters in Lawrence even with the regional being played in Norman. A seeded team means Kansas is not just back in the field, but back among programs with real postseason expectations, facing a former conference rival in Oklahoma’s bracket. For a university that drives so much of the city’s sports identity, the return to the NCAA stage is the kind of milestone that travels well beyond one box score.