Sports
NCAA Women's Bracketology – 2024 women's college basketball projections – ESPN
Bracketology is back for its 21st season. We will project the field of 68 every week from now until Selection Sunday on March 17. Our bracket updates every Tuesday through December before shifting to semiweekly projections (Tuesday and Friday) once conference play begins in January. Albany, New York, and Portland, Oregon, will host the regionals, as the two-site format remains for a second consecutive year. It all culminates in Cleveland at the Final Four.
South Carolina
Illinois
Georgia
The list of firsts and worsts has piled up for UConn since Sunday’s loss at Texas. Add Bracketology to the mix. This week’s projection marks the first time the Huskies have been placed outside the top 16. They are a No. 5 seed. Imagine that: UConn would have no home games in the NCAA tournament. UConn has three losses at the earliest date on the calendar since 1986-87. That season, Geno Auriemma’s second in Storrs, the Huskies finished 14-13 and missed the NCAA tournament. That seems impossible to imagine come March, but UConn has North Carolina and Louisville in two of its next three games. Should the Huskies slip below .500, they could fall out of the projected field in two weeks.
Moved Up
Moved Down
New Team to Bracket
Automatic Qualifier
Photo illo by ESPN Illustration, additional photos courtesy of Getty Images, Associated Press, Imagn, Icon Sportswire, EPA/Shutterstock
RULES
ESPN’s Bracketology efforts are focused on projecting the NCAA tournament field just as we expect the NCAA Division I basketball committee to select the field in March. ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme uses the same data points favored by the committee, including strength of schedule and other season-long indicators, including the NET and team-sheet data similar to what is available to the NCAA, in his projections of the field. Visit the NCAA’s website for a fuller understanding of NCAA selection criteria.
64-Team Bracket
The 64-team bracket is the standard version of the NCAA tournament field that has been in place since 1994. If the 2021 field is comprised of 64 teams, there will be some key differences to past years, however.
The primary adjustment from a normal year is, of course, the playing of the entire NCAA tournament at a single site. This eliminates the need for geographical considerations in seeding. Additionally, there will be at least one fewer automatic qualifier this season, as the Ivy League’s decision to forgo the 2020-21 season reduces the number of AQ entries to 31 for this season.
48-Team Bracket
In this projection, a condensed selection process would reduce the field by eight at-large teams and eight automatic qualifiers (the latter of which still receive a revenue unit). The top four seeds in each region would receive a bye into the second round, with four first-round games per region – 5 vs. 12, 6 vs. 11, 7 vs. 10 and 8 vs. 9.
16-Team Bracket
In this projection, the committee selects and seeds the 16 best available teams. There are no automatic qualifiers, although all non-competing conference champions receive the designated revenue unit.
To maintain some sense of national balance, conference participation is capped at four teams. And no region shall have more than one team from the same conference.
