{"id":7340,"date":"2026-07-13T23:07:03","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T23:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=7340"},"modified":"2026-07-13T23:07:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T23:07:03","slug":"a-major-bracket-shake-up-ncaa-womens-tournament-to-seed-the-top-16-by-true-ranking-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=7340","title":{"rendered":"A major bracket shake-up: NCAA women’s tournament to seed the top 16 by true ranking next year"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
FILE – South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley motions towards the court against UCLA during the second half of the women\u2019s National Championship Final Four NCAA college basketball tournament game, April 5, 2026, in Phoenix. (AP Photo\/Ross D. Franklin, File)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Beginning with next year\u2019s NCAA women\u2019s basketball tournament, the top 16 teams will be placed in the bracket in their true ranking regardless of conference affiliation.<\/p>

Read more What to know about Lindsey Graham\u2019s passing<\/a><\/p>\n

In the past, the top four teams in a conference would be placed in different regions to protect them from playing each other until the Final Four. For example, the tournament this past season had four SEC teams in the top eight overall seeds. Texas was third, South Carolina fourth, LSU fifth and Vanderbilt seventh. LSU was dropped down to seventh and Vanderbilt eighth in the bracketing to avoid having them be in the same regions.<\/p>\n

Now if that happened going forward, the teams would remain where their seeds should have them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe put a lot of time into establishing those top 16 teams in the order they go in,\u201d NCAA women\u2019s basketball committee chair Amanda Braun said in a phone interview. \u201cYou\u2019re splitting hairs to decide who has the edge and some of that is undone by those principles. To all of us, the work we did and the work those teams did justifies keeping them where they are in that group of 16.\u201d<\/p>\n

The men\u2019s selection committee will still separate out the top four seeds in each conference and put them in different regions.<\/p>

Read more Senate Majority Leader John Thune mourns Lindsey Graham<\/a><\/p>\n

The change would potentially only really affect the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12 as those were the only conferences that had four or more teams in the NCAA field.<\/p>\n

The women\u2019s tournament has started giving financial incentives \u2014 units \u2014 to teams for each round they advance in the tournament the past two seasons. Braun said that it wasn\u2019t brought up at all during the entire week of meetings that the committee had.<\/p>\n

The change comes on the heels of the NCAA expanding its tournament field to 76 teams starting in 2027.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> . AP women\u2019s college basketball: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/womens-college-basketball<\/a><\/p>

Read more McConnell took a photo with that day\u2019s newspaper. The internet suspects AI.<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beginning with next year\u2019s NCAA women\u2019s basketball tournament, the top 16 teams will be placed in the bracket in their true ranking regardless of conference affiliation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nA major bracket shake-up: NCAA women's tournament to seed the top 16 by true ranking next year - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=7340\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A major bracket shake-up: NCAA women's tournament to seed the top 16 by true ranking next year - 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