Selection Criteria
NCAA EVALUATION TOOL (NET): The women's basketball NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) is one of many criteria used by the Division I Women's Basketball Committee in the selection of the at-large teams and seeding of the 68 teams which make up the bracket for the Division I Women's Basketball Championship. Click here for the latest NET rankings, NET infographic and FAQ.
Criteria used by the Division I Women's Basketball Committee to evaluate a team includes (alphabetically):
- Availability of talent (injured or unavailable players)
- Bad losses
- Common opponents
- Competitive in losses
- Conference record
- Early competition versus late competition
- Head-to-head
- NET ranking
- Non-conference record
- Observable component
- Overall record
- Regional rankings
- Significant wins
- Strength of schedule
During selection weekend, the committee members independently evaluate a vast pool of information. It is these subjective opinions, developed after watching hundreds of games, investing many hours of personal team (or game) observations, review and comparison of objective data, plus discussions with coaches and campus/conference representatives, that dictate how each committee member ultimately votes on the selection of the at-large teams, seeding and bracketing of the teams that make up the 68 team championship bracket each year.
Team Sheets
The team sheets contain in-depth team information about strength of schedule, performance against all RPI teams and home/road records.
Seeding
The committee creates a seed list of 1 through 68 — which is used to assess competitive balance of the top teams across the four regions of this national championship. Additionally, the seed list reflects the sequential order with which teams will be placed in the bracket.
Automatic Qualifiers: All competing Division I conferences will receive an automatic qualifier in the NCAA tournament field. These qualifiers are determined by each respective conference and are typically the champion of the respective tournaments conducted by each conference at the end of the regular season.
At-Large: At-large teams are selected by the committee, with selection of the best teams to fill the available at-large berths. There is no limit on the number of at-large teams the committee may select from one conference.
