Wichita State softball bracketology: Is KU game a must-win for bubble Shockers?
Wichita State softball has played its way into the NCAA Tournament conversation. Now comes the tricky part.
The Shockers have made their late-season surge look convincing enough to climb from the outside of the at-large picture into one of the most interesting bubble cases in the country. They have won 12 straight games. They are tied for first place in the American Conference entering the final week of the regular season. They have jumped 14 spots in the RPI in two weeks, up to No. 44 nationally, to put themselves on the right side of the bubble on some projections.
That begs the question ahead of Tuesday’s road trip to Kansas: is this a must-win?
The short answer: not quite.
The more complicated answer: Tuesday matters, but this weekend — hosting Memphis at Wilkins Stadium — matters more.
“KU is a big RPI game, but we’ve got to take care of business this weekend,” WSU coach Kristi Bredbenner said. “We are primed for a great opportunity to win the league, but we’re going up against a very scrappy team that is unfortunately in last place. They don’t play like a last-place team, so we’ve got to take this week one game at a time.”
That is the reality of WSU’s bubble position entering the final week of the regular season. A road win over Kansas, which is No. 49 in the RPI, would help the Shockers’ resume. But a road loss to another top-50 bubble team would not crush them.
The true danger is waiting at home this weekend against Memphis.
The Tigers are No. 199 in the RPI, which makes them the kind of opponent that can do real damage to an at-large profile. WSU has built one of its strongest arguments around a clean team sheet with a 23-1 record against teams outside the top 100. Keeping it clean is one of the ways the Shockers can separate themselves from middle-of-the-pack power-conference teams with more top-100 wins but more overall damage.
“The biggest thing for them honestly is to win out this weekend,” said Brady Vernon, the managing editor at Softball America. “Losing at Kansas is not going to eliminate them, but a loss to Memphis would be the worst thing that could happen. So for them, it’s actually more important not to lose to Memphis than it is to beat Kansas for them.”
That might sound counterintuitive to fans who see Tuesday as a head-to-head bubble matchup. WSU is No. 44 in the RPI. Kansas is No. 49. Both teams are fighting for at-large positioning.
But the committee does not view every win and loss the same.
A win at Kansas would be valuable, but not necessarily resume-changing. The Jayhawks still have a road series at Oklahoma State this weekend, meaning a WSU win could push Kansas outside the top 50 by Selection Sunday. That would make the win less valuable in the final sorting process.
A loss to Kansas, on the other hand, would not be disqualifying. It would come on the road against a top-50 opponent.
A loss to Memphis would be much harder to explain.
That is why WSU’s path is fairly clear. Beat Kansas, if possible. Sweep Memphis, almost required. Then take care of the American Conference tournament opener next week in Greenville, N.C., where the Shockers have already locked up a top-two seed and a direct spot in the semifinals.
Vernon said if WSU sweeps Memphis, then wins its semifinal game to reach the American tournament championship game, he believes the Shockers would be on the right side of the bubble on Selection Sunday.
That would mark a significant turnaround for a team that looked nowhere near this conversation two months ago.
WSU opened the season trying to mesh 14 newcomers and endured the expected uneven stretches that come with a rebuilt roster. The Shockers were largely outside the at-large picture for the first half of the season.
Now the season looks different.
“When you’re a young team and you’ve got 14 new kids, there’s a lot of learning and a lot of figuring out that has to play out,” Bredbenner said. “It’s starting to click. If you look at how we’ve played, I think we’ve done everything that we can in the second half to really give ourselves a chance (at an at-large bid).”
The biggest boost came from a game that took more than five weeks to become official.
WSU’s 8-3 road win at Oklahoma State on March 10 was suspended in the final inning and could not be completed because of scheduling conflicts. When it was finally ruled final last week, the Shockers added their most important win of the season: a road victory over a potential top-16 national seed.
That is WSU’s only Quad 1 win, but it is a major one.
In softball, the quad system is different from basketball. Quad 1 wins are against top-25 teams. Quad 2 wins are against teams ranked 26-50. Quad 3 wins are against teams ranked 51-100. That means Quad 3 wins still carry value, while Quad 1 wins are especially difficult to find for non-power conference teams.
WSU has one Quad 1 win, two Quad 2 wins and six Quad 3 wins. That gives the Shockers nine top-100 wins, led by road victories over Oklahoma State, Texas State and South Florida.
That is not as many top-100 wins as some power-conference bubble teams can claim. Wisconsin, Northwestern, Missouri, Michigan, Baylor and Kansas are all hovering in a similar RPI range and several of those teams have had more chances to stack quality wins because of their league schedules.
But WSU has something many of those teams do not: momentum, a cleaner profile and a chance to win a conference championship.
“This year’s bubble is pretty weak in terms of the metrics and the quality wins from the power-four teams,” Vernon said. “Historically, RPI does have a large factor with bubble teams. Generally, power-four teams under 40 get in regardless of what their metrics look like. And for mid-majors, it’s a little bit tougher.”
That is the part that makes WSU’s situation tense.
The Shockers narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament in 2024 as one of the first four teams out following a 28-22 season. They do not want to leave anything to interpretation again.
They also know how the committee has handled these decisions before. Last year, Northwestern grabbed the final at-large spot with a No. 49 RPI, while Nevada was left out at No. 41 despite winning the Mountain West regular-season title.
That is why WSU would benefit from other non-power teams near it in the RPI winning their conference tournaments next week. The fewer bid thieves, the better. The Shockers will be rooting for teams such as Marshall or Texas State in the Sun Belt, Belmont in the Missouri Valley, Grand Canyon in the Mountain West, Southeastern Louisiana in the Southland, Omaha in the Summit and Jacksonville State in Conference USA to remove chaos from the equation.
WSU could also get help closer to home. Vernon said the Shockers should be rooting for North Texas against South Florida this weekend. A Mean Green win would not only help WSU’s conference title chances, but it would also boost North Texas’ RPI (currently No. 103) inside the top 100, which would mean WSU’s sweep of North Texas would suddenly add three more top-100 wins to its resume.
WSU has already put itself in position to claim at least a share of its third American regular-season championship, joining the 2021 and 2023 teams. It has also reestablished itself as a recognizable NCAA Tournament brand under Bredbenner with five regional appearances since 2016.
That may matter in a crowded bubble discussion.
“I do think that it is going to matter,” Vernon said of WSU’s strong finish. “The comparison that is going to happen is against a lot of other power-four teams that have lost a lot of series. Wichita State, on the other hand, is playing really well and has a chance to win a title. There is a Wichita State brand that I think the committee is familiar with, which maybe helps compared to a mid-major coming up for the first time. I believe all of that can potentially benefit them in what I believe is a very weak bubble this year.”
So no, Tuesday at Kansas is not technically a must-win.
But it is another chance.
And for a team that spent two months trying to find itself, every chance now matters.
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