NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament

The NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament, sometimes referred to as Women's March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 76 women's college basketball teams from the Division I level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), to determine the national championship.

The tournament was preceded by the AIAW women's basketball tournament, which was organized by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) from 1972 to 1982. Basketball was one of 12 women's sports added to the NCAA championship program for the 1981–82 school year, as the NCAA engaged in battle with the AIAW for sole governance of women's collegiate sports. The AIAW continued to conduct its established championship program in the same 12 (and other) sports; however, after a year of dual women's championships, the NCAA prevailed, while the AIAW disbanded.

As of 2022, the tournament follows the same format and selection process as its men's counterpart, with 32 automatic bids awarded to the champions of the Division I conferences, and 36 "at-large bids" extended by the NCAA Selection Committee, which are placed into four regional divisions and seeded from 1 to 16. The four lowest-seeded automatic bids, and the four lowest-seeded at-large bids, compete in the First Four games to advance to the 64-team bracket in the first round. The national semi-finals, branded as the Women's Final Four, are traditionally scheduled on the same weekend as the men's Final Four, but in a different host city. Presently, the Women's Final Four uses a Friday/Sunday scheduling, with its games occurring one day prior to the men's Final Four and championship, respectively.

Attendance and interest in the women's championship have grown over the years, especially from 2003 to 2016, when the final championship game was moved to the Tuesday following the Monday men's championship game. The team had also made the semi-finals for a record 14 consecutive tournaments. The Tennessee Lady Volunteers are the only team to make an appearance in every tournament since its founding in 1982.

The tournament is split into four regional tournaments, and each regional has teams seeded from 1 to 16, with the committee ostensibly making every region as comparable to the others as possible. The top-seeded team in each region plays the #16 team, the #2 team plays the #15, etc. (meaning that all first-round games involve teams whose seeds add up to 17).

Number of teams, and seeding

The first NCAA women's basketball tournament was held in 1982. The AIAW also held a basketball tournament in 1982, but most of the top teams, including defending AIAW champion Louisiana Tech, decided to participate in the NCAA tournament.

The championship consisted of 32 teams from 1982 to 1985 (in 1983, 36), 40 teams from 1986 to 1988, and 48 teams from 1989 to 1993. From 1994 to 2021, 64 teams competed in each tournament. From 2022 to 2026, the tournament will involve 68 teams, matching the size of the D-I men's tournament. From 2027, the tournament will involve 76 teams.

Prior to 1996, seeding was conducted on a regional basis. The top teams (eight in the 32-, 40-, and 48-team formats, and 16 in the 64-team format) were ranked and seeded on a national basis. The remaining teams were then seeded based on their geographic region. Teams were moved outside of its geographic region only if it was necessary to balance the bracket, or if the proximity of an opponent outside of its region would be comparable and a more competitive game would result. In 1993, all teams except for the top four were explicitly unseeded. The regional seeding resumed in 1994. In 1996, seeds were assigned on a national basis using an "S-Curve" format similar to the process used in selecting the field for the men's tournament.

The following table summarizes some of the key attributes of the seeding process:

;Notes

Tournament trends

Top-ranked teams

Since the women's tournament began in 1982, 20 teams have entered the tournament ranked #1 in at least 1 poll and gone on to win the tournament:

1982: Louisiana Tech
1983: USC
1986: Texas
1989: Tennessee
1995: UConn
1998: Tennessee
1999: Purdue
2000: UConn
2002: UConn
2003: UConn
2009: UConn
2010: UConn
2012: Baylor
2014: UConn
2015: UConn
2016: UConn
2019: Baylor
2021: Stanford
2022: South Carolina
2024: South Carolina

Champions excluded the next year

Only once has the reigning champion (the previous year's winner) not made it to the tournament the next year.

1985 champion Old Dominion went 15–13 in 1986.

No. 1 seeds

Since 1982, at least one #1 seed has made the Final Four every year.

Under coach Geno Auriemma, Connecticut has been seeded #1 a record 23 times. Tennessee is second with 21 #1 seeds.

All four #1 seeds have made it to the Final Four 5 times (champion in bold):

1989 Auburn, Louisiana Tech, Maryland, Tennessee
2012 Baylor, UConn, Notre Dame, Stanford
2015 UConn, Maryland, Notre Dame, South Carolina
2018 UConn, Mississippi State, Notre Dame, Louisville
2026 UConn, UCLA, South Carolina, Texas

The championship game has matched two #1 seeds 16 times:

1983 USC beat Louisiana Tech
1986 Texas beat USC
1989 Tennessee beat Auburn
1991 Tennessee beat Virginia
1995 UConn beat Tennessee
2000 UConn beat Tennessee
2002 UConn beat Oklahoma
2003 UConn beat Tennessee
2010 UConn beat Stanford
2012 Baylor beat Notre Dame
2014 UConn beat Notre Dame
2015 UConn beat Notre Dame
2018 Notre Dame beat Mississippi State
2019 Baylor beat Notre Dame
2024 South Carolina beat Iowa
2026 UCLA beat South Carolina

Four teams have beaten three #1 seeds during the course of a tournament, the largest number of such teams that can be faced. This can only happen by a lower seed advancing to the final four over a #1 seed, then winning tournament over two more #1 seeds.

1987 #2 Tennessee (beat Auburn, Long Beach State, Louisiana Tech)
1988 #2 Louisiana Tech (beat Auburn, Tennessee, Texas)
2005 #2 Baylor (beat LSU, Michigan State, North Carolina)
2025 #2 UConn (beat USC, UCLA, South Carolina)

Prior to the expansion of the tournament to 64 teams, all four #1 seeds advanced to the Sweet Sixteen with three exceptions. Notably, the first two times this occurred were at the hands of the same school:

1986 East #1 seed Virginia lost to #8 seed James Madison
1991 East #1 seed Penn State lost to #8 seed James Madison
1992 Midwest #1 seed Iowa lost to #8 seed Southwest Missouri State

High seeds

1999 was the first time in tournament history (since the expansion to 64 teams) that all top seeds (1, 2, 3, and 4 seeds) made it to the Sweet Sixteen.

Low seeds

Teams entering the tournament unbeaten

Of the 21 teams who have entered the tournament unbeaten, 10 went on to win the National Championship. As, by definition, a team would have to win its conference tournament, and thus secure an automatic bid to the tournament, to be undefeated in a season, the only way a team could finish undefeated and not reach the tournament is if the team is banned from postseason play. (Other possibilities are that the team is independent, or is from a conference not yet eligible for an automatic bid.) Postseason bans can come about for one of two reasons:

The team is serving a postseason ban due to NCAA sanctions.
The team is transitioning from a lower NCAA division, during which time it is barred by NCAA rule from participation in NCAA-sponsored postseason play. This is the case for California Baptist, which began a transition from Division II in 2018 and thus could not play in the NCAA tournament until 2023. California Baptist was eligible for the WNIT because that tournament is not operated by the NCAA, unlike the men's version (or the Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament introduced in 2024); the Lancers lost in the quarterfinals to eventual champion Rice.

Home state

Only one team has ever played the Final Four on its home court. Two other teams have played the Final Four in their home cities, and seven others have played the Final Four in their home states.

The only team to play on its home court was Texas in 1987, which lost its semifinal game at the now-defunct Frank Erwin Special Events Center.

Old Dominion enjoyed nearly as large an advantage in 1983 when the Final Four was played at the Norfolk Scope in its home city of Norfolk, Virginia, but also lost its semifinal. The Scope has never been the Monarchs' regular home court. ODU has always used on-campus arenas, first the ODU Fieldhouse and since 2002 Chartway Arena. The following year, USC won the national title at Pauley Pavilion, the home court of its Los Angeles archrival UCLA.

Of the other teams to play in their home states, Stanford (1992) won the national title; Notre Dame (2011) lost in the championship game; and Western Kentucky (1986), Penn State (2000), Missouri State (2001), LSU (2004), and Baylor (2010) lost in the semifinals.

Championship margins

Overtime games in a championship game: outside of men's basketball (which is held by CBS and TNT Sports), and golf (which is held by Golf Channel). ESPN has held exclusive rights to the tournament since 1996; beginning with an 11-year, $200 million contract renewal in 2003, ESPN would televise all 63 games in the tournament on television (increasing from 23), with games in the first and second rounds airing regionally on ESPN and ESPN2. Out-of-market games were carried via pay-per-view. In 2011, ESPN renewed this agreement through the 2023–24 season, in a deal reported to be worth $500 million in total. The deal also included rights to the men's tournament outside of the United States for ESPN International. In 2024, ESPN renewed the contract again through 2032 (aligned with the end of the media rights for the men's tournament), in an agreement valued at $920 million over eight years.

In the first two rounds, one channel (typically ESPN or ESPN2's high-definition feed) typically aired "whiparound" coverage during each window, carrying rolling coverage of all games in progress. ESPN's standard definition channels were used to broadcast games on a regional basis, while games could also be viewed in their entirety on ESPN3 or alternate channels. Beginning in 2023, the national championship game has aired on ABC. Based on average viewership, Emily Caron and Eben Novy-Williams of Sportico estimated that the women's tournament could fetch at least $20 million per year if its media rights were sold separately. America East Conference commissioner Amy Huchthausen argued that the ESPN contract "provides a measure of financial certainty, but it does not provide women's basketball (or any of the other sports, for that matter) an incentive to grow".

Following major media criticism of inequities between the 2021 men's and women's tournaments, the NCAA commissioned a comprehensive gender equity review of its championships by the law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink. Among the report's findings was that U.S. television rights for the women's tournament would be worth at least $81 million annually by the time the current broadcast contract with ESPN expires in 2024 (in comparison to the $34 million value of the NCAA package as a whole).

The UCLA Bruins won the 2026 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament, defeating South Carolina 78–74 in the final on April 5, 2026. Center Lauren Betts was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

In an interview on NBC's Meet the Press on the day of the 2023 national championship, new NCAA president Charlie Baker implicated that the media rights to the women's basketball tournament may be sold separately in the next rights cycle, stating that "we do have an opportunity to put it out separately, and we're going to work really hard to make sure that those student-athletes, those schools, those programs get what I describe as what they should get." Interest in Caitlin Clark's tournament run had led to record viewership of Iowa's Women's Final Four and championship games on ESPN and ABC, respectively. The 2024 National Championship even peaked at 24 million viewers, being the first time in history that the women's final drew more viewership than the men.

Nevertheless, the NCAA renewed its existing agreements with ESPN in January 2024 under an eight-year agreement, with ESPN paying approximately $115 million per season, and the NCAA having valued the media rights to the Division I women's basketball tournament at $65 million. The agreement also includes expanded rights for ESPN to sell sponsorships (although CBS/WBD will still administer the NCAA Corporate Champion and Partner Program sponsorships per its rights to the men's tournament), and guarantees that the national championship will air on ABC annually.

References

External links

Attendance history (Archived)
Division I Women's Basketball Championships Records Books (Through 2020) (Archived)