What is RPI? Explain the NCAA softball ranking system
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Here. Welcome to the Sunday choice for the 2025 NCAA softball game.

As automatic bidding for the conference tournament has been completed, the remainder of the NCAA softball game will be announced at 7 p.m. ET, indicating that the sport’s ticket tournament has officially begun.

For those who missed playing in the greatest performance on the dirt, this is the Women’s University World Series, and one of the most notable questions is, what is the RPI ranking for that team? Not the team's performance in their respective conference tournaments. However, instead, their respective RPI rankings.

As most of the seasons in the national polls, the SEC was pretty healthy in the top ten of the drafted RPI rankings on Sunday, as Greg Sankey's meeting occupied eight of those 10 locations - perhaps a harbinger of who will have a home-field advantage in Oklahoma and WCWS and WCWS.

But, what exactly is the RPI ranking system? How does it affect softball teams?

Here are the options you need to know about the NCAA’s RPI rankings, and the NCAA softball game Sunday will be played:

What is RPI? Explain the NCAA softball ranking system

RPI ranking system in softball - Rating percentage index - is a data-driven classification system used by the NCAA Championship Selection Committee when considering the field.

Similar to baseball, the RPI ranking system is based on the team's schedule. The RPI ranking system is used in most NCAA sports such as volleyball, soccer and baseball, but does not use the net ranking system for men and women’s basketball.

Three key factors are used in the RPI ranking:

Softball RPI Ranking Sunday

Here is the NCAA's RPI rankings, which is a list of the top 16 teams in the country, which theoretically leads to the top 16 regional host locations:

Reflections on the game before May 8th (Thursday)

  1. Texas A&M
  2. Florida
  3. Florida
  4. LSU
  5. UCLA
  6. Arkansas
  7. Oklahora
  8. Texas
  9. South Carolina
  10. Tennessee
  11. Duke
  12. Arizona
  13. Clemson
  14. Virginia Tech
  15. Stanford University
  16. Oben