| Season | 2023–24 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teams | 68 | ||||
| Finals site | Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse Cleveland, Ohio | ||||
| |||||
The 2024 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament will involve 68 teams playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college basketball national champion for the 2023–24 NCAA Division I women's basketball season. The 42nd edition of the tournament will begin in March 2024, and will conclude with the championship game on April 7, 2024 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio.
This will be the third tournament to feature 68 teams, having been expanded in 2022 from the 64-team field used from 1994 through 2021, thereby matching the men's 68-team field in use since 2011.
Tournament procedure
A total of 68 teams will be participating in the 2024 tournament, consisting of the 32 conference champions, and 36 "at-large" bids that were determined by the NCAA Selection Committee. The women's tournament was expanded from 64 to 68 teams, adopting the format used by the men's tournament since 2011; the last four at-large teams and teams seeded 65 through 68 overall competed in First Four games, whose winners advanced to the 64-team first round.[1]
The top four teams outside of the ranking (commonly known as the "first four out" in pre-tourney analyses) will act as standbys in the event a school is forced to withdraw before the start of the tournament due to COVID-19 protocols. Once the tournament starts, any team that is forced to withdraw would not be replaced; the bracket was not reseeded, and the affected team's opponent would automatically advance to the next round.
Any single-bid automatic champion have to designate a preapproved replacement from within their own conference should they withdraw. Otherwise, the replacement teams are as follows, in order:
| NET | School | Conference | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| 48 | |||
| 50 | |||
| 36 | |||
| 41 |
2024 NCAA Tournament schedule and venues
The first two rounds, also referred to as the subregionals, were played at the sites of the top 16 seeds, as was done from 2016 to 2019. A dramatic change from past tournaments is that the regional rounds (Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight) will be held at two sites, instead of the four used in past tournaments.
First Four
- Four of the campuses seeded in the Top 16.
Subregionals (First and Second Rounds)
Regional Semifinals and Finals (Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight)
- Portland Regional, Moda Center, Portland, Oregon (cohosts: University of Oregon/Oregon State University and Pac-12 Conference)
- Albany Regional, Times Union Center, Albany, New York (host: University of Albany)
National Semifinals and Championship (Final Four and Championship)
- April 5 and April 7
- RocketHouse Mortgage FieldHouse, Cleveland, Ohio (cohosts: Cleveland State University and the Horizon League/Mid-American Conference)
This is the second time the women's Final Four will be played in Cleveland (previously, in 2007).[3]
In the wake of criticism raised in 2021 over inequities between the men's and women's NCAA basketball tournaments, the NCAA announced that the 2022 women's tournament will be promoted with the "March Madness" branding for the first time.[4]
See also
References
- ↑ "Expansion of 2022 DI women's basketball tournament to 68 teams approved". ncaa.com. 2018-11-17. Retrieved 2021-11-17.
- ↑ Alexa Philippou (2022-03-13). "Louisville joins South Carolina, Stanford and NC State in securing No. 1 seeds in NCAA women's basketball tournament". ESPN.com. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
- ↑ "Women's Final Four: Future dates & sites". www.ncaa.com. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
- ↑ "NCAA women's basketball tournament will also use "March Madness" branding in 2022". Awful Announcing. 2021-09-29. Retrieved 2021-09-30.