'It's Not Gonna Be Easy': Alabama Softball Prepares for SEC Tournament

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— No team has won more SEC tournament titles than Alabama (Florida is tied with six total), but the Crimson Tide has not made it to the quarterfinal round the last two seasons. This year, as the No. 2 seed, Alabama earned an automatic spot into the quarterfinals with a double bye.

Perhaps more importantly, the double bye gives Alabama a little extra time to rest heading into a very important postseason.

"We don’t want anybody dragging in the postseason," Alabama head coach Patrick Murphy said before Tuesday's practice. "There’s four stages of team building and the fourth is performing. We want to be performing right now… Anytime we can give them a little more rest, I think it’s good for them.”

Alabama (47-6, 19-5 SEC) is coming off its best regular season since 2019 and has one of the top resumés in the country for the NCAA tournament regardless of what happens in Kentucky this weekend. The Crimson Tide was No. 2 in Monday's edition of the RPI and has over 20 wins against teams in the RPI top 50.

That doesn't mean Alabama doesn't want to win this weekend.

"Mindset is to keep working hard but also get a lot of rest," Alabama senior outfielder Kristen White said. "We talk about grit so much and how you persevere and how you battle through the struggles and the failures. I think we’ve done a really good job in the regular season fighting back from any struggles we’ve had. I’m really excited to see where this team goes. I think we are where we want to be.”

Having the double bye is definitely a bigger advantage than disadvantage, but it does force the team to spend time scouting multiple potential opponents. As of Tuesday morning's practice, Alabama's still had three possible opening-round opponents. With Mississippi State's win over Kentucky later in the day on Tuesday, the Crimson Tide will face either 10-seed Mississippi State or 7-seed Arkansas in the quarterfinals on Thursday. The Razorbacks are No. 1 in the RPI, No. 5 in the national poll, yet No. 7 in the SEC tournament, just showing how deep the conference is.

"Some of the teams we could potentially face, we’ve played them already, and some we have not," White said. "Just sticking to our regular routine and coming out here and working hard and just being prepared for anybody. I think we can compete with anybody in the country, anybody in this conference. It’s not gonna be easy. It’s never easy because we have the best conference in the county. I just think our mindset is really what’s going to drive us through the rest of this SEC tournament this week.”

Every year, Murphy talks about wanting to take his seniors on a magic carpet ride to the Women's College World Series, which he has done 15 times at Alabama. This year's team features seven seniors, four of whom have been at Alabama since their freshman seasons.

Alabama was a top-five team in college softball for the majority of the regular season and wants to carry that momentum into the postseason. It all starts Thursday in Lexington.

"I think this is the best time of the year, and I think everybody— especially the four four-year seniors for us, they realize it," Murphy said. "They’ve been through it. They’ve seen it. I think we’re pretty much assured of having a home regional. I would go that far. So we get to play at home one more time for those seven seniors on the team, and I just think that thrill of the postseason, it just overcomes you, and it’s exciting. It’s something that this is where we want to be every single year. It’s just a tradition here, and expectation I guess, that we’re going to be in a regional, and then we’re going to a super regional, and then we’re going to go to Oklahoma. It’s just like engrained in everybody."

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