SEC Softball Tournament bracket reveal sets stage for Oklahoma's debut as top seed

This bracket seems to mean more than the others the Oklahoma Sooners have been in.

The bracket for the SEC Softball Tournament was released after the college softball regular season concluded last weekend. And it's bigger and more challenging than ever with the addition of two top-10 teams in the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns.

In their first season in the conference, the Sooners won the SEC regular-season championship, which also earned them the top seed in the tournament and a pair of byes to go straight to the quarterfinals of the 15-team bracket.

See the SEC Softball Tournament bracket

The SEC Softball Tournament starts on Tuesday in Athens, Georgia, but the Sooners won't take the field until Thursday after getting to rest the first two rounds. The top four seeds got a pair of byes, while seeds 5-9 got a first-round bye.

The Sooners will await the winner of No. 8 Mississippi State and No. 9 LSU. OU swept Mississippi State in a three-game series earlier this season, but did not play LSU.

A win in the quarterfinals will likely match the Sooners up with No. 4 Tennessee. The Vols handed OU its first SEC series loss of the season at Love's Field and climbed as high as No. 1 in national rankings this year.

Every top-4 seed in the SEC was ranked No. 1 in the country at some point this season.

The bottom half of the bracket includes No. 2 Texas A&M and No. 3 Texas. The Sooners swept Texas at home just a few weeks ago, but never played Texas A&M.

The part of the bracket also includes No. 6 Florida, which just took two of three from OU in the last series of the regular season. Alabama has to play in the first round as the 10 seed, but the Crimson Tide also beat OU in a series this season.

No team in the Sooners' top half of the bracket has beaten them this season.

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