FAYETTEVILLE — The NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee, which is chaired by Arkansas deputy athletic director Derita Renee-Ratcliffe Dawkins, approved disclosing a full championship field seed list and moving to quadrant-based team sheets beginning in the 2024-25 season.
The decision, which was made this week at the committee’s summer meeting in Austin, Texas, was announced by the NCAA on Friday in a news release.
With the change, all 68 teams that make the NCAA Tournament will be listed in seed order. The list will be publicly disclosed on Selection Sunday.
“The committee felt that it was the right time for women’s basketball and our championship to reveal the entire championship field seed list,” Dawkins said in the release. “Providing the full seed list on Selection Sunday will provide additional transparency to the bracketing processes. The move to quadrant-based team sheets will be beneficial to the committee in sorting team data relative to the selection and bracketing processes.”
The women’s basketball committee, like men’s basketball, will adopt quadrant team sheets. Prior to change, the committee used NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ratings but did not have home-away-neutral weighted quadrant ranges.
According to the release, “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 ranges the committee will adopt were determined based on historical data analysis dating to 2010.