NCAA Tournament: Bracket Procedure

Updated May 2024

This page will describe the steps the NCAA goes through over the course of the season leading up to selecting at-large teams, seeding, and forming the bracket for the NCAA Tournament.

WOMEN'S SOCCER COMMITTEE

The NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Committee is responsible for selecting teams to fill "at large" positions in the Division I Tournament bracket and for seeding teams within the bracket. The Committee also is responsible for assigning bracket positions to the 64 Tournament participants.  The Committee has 10 members.  Starting August 1, 2024, the Committee membership will be:

One member from each of the following conferences:  ACC, Big 10, Big 12, and SEC

Three members from the 7 highest ranked conferences using the success factor, not including the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, and SEC

Three members from the remaining conferences

At least half the Committee members must be athletics administrators.  Members serve four-year terms, with September 1 as the beginning date of each year of service.  A member may be re-appointed to the Committee if there has been at least a three-year gap since expiration of the member's previous term of service.  No person may serve more than two terms on the Committee.

Although the membership will change on August 1, 2024 to meet the above requirement, Women's Soccer Committee members as of January 2024 are:

Duane Bailey, Louisiana Lafayette,  term expires 8/1/25

Maggie Bailey, UALR, term expires 8/1/24

James Downer, St Francis, term expires 8/1/27

Nathan Fry, Harvard, term expires 8/1/25

Ryan Higginbotham, TCU, term expires 8/1/27

Keri Mendoza, Chair, Cal Poly, term expirs 8/1/25

Kris Pierce, South Florida, term expires 8/1/25

Stephanie Ransom, Georgia, term expires 8/1/27

Tim Santoro, NC State, term expires 8/1/26

Jackie Wallgren, Akron, term expires 8/1/26

In addition, in the past there have been Regional Advisory Committees that advise Committee members representing their regions and appointed by those Committee members.  With the August 1, 2024 changes in the Committee membership rules, it is not clear exactly how the advisory committees will be set up.  Nevertheless, it is highly likely some version of the advisory committee structure will continue in effect.

GAME SCORE REPORTING SYSTEM

The NCAA statistics group manages the NCAA's game results collection system and generates RPI ratings and other related information from the data the system collects.  The NCAA requires schools' sports information directors to submit their schedules to the NCAA statistics group by a deadline that is about 10 days before the season begins.  Once play begins, each Monday of the season by noon Eastern time, each school is supposed to provide weekly statistics reports, including game results, to the NCAA statistics group.  The statistics group then uses the data to update the RPI.

After the fifth weekend of the season, the NCAA starts issuing RPI reports.

Schools must report their game results (including conference tournament game results) even quicker during the last week of the regular season since the NCAA statistics group must generate a final end-of-season RPI report and related information by late Sunday afternoon of the last day of the regular season, for use by the Women's Soccer Committee in forming the NCAA Tournament bracket in time to announce the bracket on Monday afternoon.  The absolute deadline for reporting game results at the very end of the season is supposed to be 6:00 pm Eastern time on the last Sunday of the regular season.

COMMITTEE MEETINGS

Once the season is well underway, the Women's Soccer Committee and advisory committees have bi-weekly conference-call meetings.  The role of an advisory committees in the past has been to "recommend to the national committee teams for consideration from its region in the selection process."  The NCAA in the past has referred to the advisory committee meetings as "regional ranking calls," which suggests that the advisory committees rank the teams in their regions based on available information.  In addition, the Women's Soccer Committee Chair for the 2009 season issued a memorandum in which he indicated that the advisory committees ranked the top 10 teams in their regions.  It's possible the advisory committees now rank more than the top 10 teams in their regions.  For each bi-weekly period, the advisory committees meet on Wednesday and the Women's Soccer Committee meets the next day, Thursday.  These meetings, too, are referred to as "ranking calls."  The minutes of the Women's Soccer Committee's January 2017 Annual Meeting include the following entry: "The committee agreed to continue ranking the top 45 teams on the last two ranking calls before selection weekend."  In addition, the minutes of the January 2018 and 2019 Annual Meetings refer to the "Regional/national rankings (Top 45)."  Thus it appears that at least for the last two Committee ranking calls, the Committee ranks the top 45 teams.  This suggests that the Committee expects to fill the 33 at large selection spots with teams that it ranks in the Top 45.  [Note:  this is the Committee's Top 45, not the RPI's.]  An authoritative source has told me that the advisory committees' recommendations are highly valued, but that the Women's Soccer Committee treats them as only advisory.

The likely schedule for the 2024 Women's Soccer Committee and Regional Advisory Committee meetings is as follows:

Wednesday, September 18:  Regional Advisory Committees

Thursday, September 19:  Women's Soccer Committee

Wednesday, October 2:  Regional Advisory Committees

Thursday, October 3:  Women's Soccer Committee

Wednesday, October 16:  Regional Advisory Committees

Thursday, October 17:  Women's Soccer Committee

Wednesday, October 30:  Regional Advisory Committees

Thursday, October 31:  Women's Soccer Committee

The 2024 schedule for the final bracket formation decisions and the Tournament itself likely will be as follows:

Saturday/Monday, November 9-11:  Women's Soccer Committee meeting.  This is not a conference call meeting, but rather is an in-person meeting in Indianapolis, site of the NCAA's national office.  Committee members arrive on Friday or Saturday and meet on Saturday through Monday until the bracket formation process is completed and the bracket announced. 

Monday, November 11, 4:30 pm ET, streamed on NCAA.com:  Public announcement of Tournament Bracket

Friday, November 15 to Sunday, November 17:  First round games

Friday, November 22: Second round games

Sunday, November 24: Third round games

Friday, November 29 to Saturday, November 30: Quarter-finals

Friday, December 6: College Cup Semi-Finals, Wake Med Soccer Park, Cary, North Carolina

Monday, December 9: College Cup Finals, Wake Med Soccer Park, Cary, North Carolina

The schedule does not provide for advisory committee meetings at which members can consider the results of games played during the last week of the season.  The Chairs of the advisory committees, however, have the option of calling meetings to receive additional advice if they wish to do so.

RPI PUBLICATION DATES

The NCAA publishes its interim RPI rankings weekly (but not the detailed rating numbers from which it derives the rankings), at the NCAA.com website, starting on the Monday following the fifth weekend of the season.  Thus the first 2024 RPI publication date is Monday, September 16 and the last is Monday, November 4.  These publication dates allow the Regional Advisory Committees and the Women's Soccer Committee to have the most current RPI rankings available for their meetings.

In addition, the NCAA simultaneously publishes detailed RPI reports such as its "Nitty Gritty" reports.  These include ratings as well as rankings.  They are accessible through the NCAA's RPI Archive.

Once the last of the regular season games, including conference tournament games, are completed, the NCAA produces "Selection" reports.  These are the reports that the Women's Soccer Committee uses in making its at large selection and seeding decisions.  These reports may be available at the Archive on Bracket Monday or they may not come out until later.   In addition, after the NCAA Tournament, the NCAA will issue "Final" reports that include results from the NCAA Tournament games.  In addition, as soon as the regular season (including conference tournaments) is over, final rankings and ratings that should be identical to the "Selection" rankings and ratings also will be available at this website and at the College Women's Soccer Schedule webpages.

SELECTIONS PRINCIPLES AND PROCEDURES

There are written Selections Principles and Procedures that govern the Committee's seed, at large selection, and other bracket formation process during the final weekend of the season.  The Principles and Procedures include rigorous rules that make sure Committee members don't participate in and are not present for discussions about teams for which they have conflicts of interest and also don't vote for those teams when votes are required.  The Principles and Procedures also outline the step-by-step process the Committee goes through to arrive at its final decisions.  The Principles and Procedures for Division I women's soccer are not available on-line.  In the meantime, however, the Principles and Procedures for women's basketball are available as an appendix to their 2020 Pre-Championship Manual.  Some of their step-by-step process is different than for women's soccer, but the rules for preventing conflicts of interest are the same.  For those interested, I've attached the 2020 women's basketball Principles and Procedures at the bottom of this page.  Simply double click on the icon to open up the document.

In my opinion, after carefully reviewing the Committee's decisions each year since 2007 and comparing them to the applicable criteria, for at large selections in particular, the Committee works very hard to use only the applicable criteria and to apply them fairly.  The Committee once in a while has made a decision with which I disagree, but in almost every case I can find a legitimate criterion-based reason for the decision.  So if the Committee has made a decision with which you don't agree, it's very unlikely it's because of Committee bias or serious error.  Rather, it's most likely because the Committee, after reviewing the data and applying the criteria, simply has reached a different conclusion than you.