WOMENS BASKETBALL

Quad-based team sheets, seed list OK'd

NCAA

At its summer meeting this week in Austin, Texas, the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Committee approved a move to quadrant-based team sheets in 2024-25 and to provide the full championship field seed list on Selection Sunday. The committee also announced that Indianapolis will play host to a joint championships event in 2028 and named a future committee chair.

On Selection Sunday going forward, the committee will provide publicly, for the first time, the entire 68-team seed list, in seed order, when the bracket is announced.

The committee also voted to move to the use of quadrants on team sheets starting in 2024-25. Women's basketball home-away-neutral quadrant ranges are based on an analysis of historical data dating to 2010. The quadrant ranges are unique to women's basketball data.

The 2024-25 NET rank quadrant ranges for women's basketball were based on the expected winning percentage versus a given opponent rank (in NET) with respect to game location, across all games. The ranges will be classified as quadrant one (home 1-25, neutral 1-35 and away 1-45); quadrant two (home 26-55, neutral 36-65 and away 46-80); quadrant three (home 56-90, neutral 66-105 and away 81-130) and quadrant four (home 91-plus, neutral 106-plus and away 131-plus).

The committee also voted to remove "conference record" and "nonconference record" from the championship selection criteria, noting that the existing criteria of "overall record" is inclusive of that information.

"The committee felt that it was the right time for women's basketball and our championship to reveal the entire championship field seed list. Providing the full seed list on Selection Sunday will provide additional transparency to the bracketing processes," said Derita Dawkins, chair of the committee and Arkansas assistant vice chancellor and deputy director of athletics. "The move to quadrant-based team sheets will be beneficial to the committee in sorting team data relative to the selection and bracketing processes."

With record crowds attending the preliminary rounds of the championship in 2024, the committee reconfirmed its support of the current First Four, first- and second-round and regionals championship format, with further comprehensive preliminary format review to take place going forward. In 2025, First Four and first- and second-round games will again be hosted by the top 16 seeds, on March 19-24, while regional play will take place at two regional host sites, with eight teams competing at each site, in Birmingham, Alabama, and Spokane, Washington, March 28-31.

"The women's basketball championship has enjoyed tremendous success over the last couple of years, with record-breaking attendance and television ratings during March Madness," Dawkins said. "The current preliminary-round format is providing an elevated student-athlete and fan championship experience. We feel good about the growth of the championship and where we are positioned. The format review will include membership and stakeholder feedback, with the goal of making sure we consider all additional format options for a future analysis."

The committee also approved Indianapolis in 2028 as the host site for the next joint women's basketball championships event, with national champions crowned in all three divisions over the same weekend, March 31-April 2. Indianapolis was previously awarded the Women's Final Four, with the Horizon League and IU Indy serving as hosts. This will be the third time that the site of the Women's Final Four will host the joint championships, having done so in Indianapolis in 2016 and Dallas in 2023. Final approval is expected by the Division II and III governance structures.

"There has been overwhelming membership and fan support for bringing back the joint championships, and we are proud to announce the next one taking place in 2028," said Lynn Holzman, NCAA vice president of women's basketball. "Indianapolis has proven to be a great site for hosting the joint championships format in the past. We know that it will again be a tremendous celebration of women's basketball across all three divisions."

The meeting also provided an opportunity for updates from ESPN and TNT Sports representatives, with detailed coverage plans for the 2024-25 season and championship provided. Additional discussion was held regarding tournament operations, ticket pricing, future site selections and officiating matters. Committee members also heard from the Tampa Bay Local Organizing Committee, which provided an update on its planning efforts for the 2025 Women's Final Four, to be held April 4 and 6 at Amalie Arena.

The committee affirmed that the 2025 championship will feature an automatic qualifier from each of the 31 conferences to go along with 37 at-large teams as determined by the committee, with additional time spent discussing principles and procedures for selecting, seeding and bracketing teams.

The 12-member committee will be chaired in 2024-25 by Dawkins. The committee also elected Amanda Braun, Milwaukee director of athletics, to serve as committee vice chair during the coming year, moving to the chair position in 2025-26.

A member of the committee since 2021, Braun has more than 20 years of experience in intercollegiate athletics, including 12 years as director of athletics at Milwaukee. A member of numerous NCAA committees during her career, Braun was named the NCAA Division I Nike Executive of the Year by Women Leaders in College Sports in 2023.

"It continues to be an honor to serve on the committee, and I am glad to accept the responsibility of serving as vice chair and then chair," Braun said. "The growth of the game has been tremendous over the last several years, and I look forward to what the future will bring."

In addition to Dawkins and Braun, the committee in 2024-25 will include Vicky Chun, director of athletics at Yale; Liz Darger, senior associate athletic director at Brigham Young; Deneé Barracato, deputy director of athletics at Northwestern; Jill Bodensteiner, vice president and director of athletics at Saint Joseph's; Jenny Bramer, executive associate athletics director at San Diego State; Amy Folan, associate vice president and director of athletics at Central Michigan; Alex Gary, director of athletics at Western Carolina; Lizzie Gomez, deputy commissioner at the Southland Conference; Josh Heird, director of athletics at Louisville; and Lynn Tighe, senior associate athletics director at Villanova.

May 13, 2024