AQ's, Pool B and Pool C? What does it all mean?

By Christan Shirk

On the threshhold of the men's and women's NCAA tournaments, terms like AQ's, Pool B, and Pool C are being used by those in-the-know and perhaps leaving new fans and the uninitiated a little lost and confused. For those in the former group, what follows may largely be unnecessary. For the latter group, this article will explain this terminology and walk you through the process by which NCAA tournament participants are determined.

All information about the determination of tournament participants is found in the 2012 Division III Soccer Pre-Championships Manual.  Much of what follows highlights, summarizes, or quotes the manual.  The tournament format, schedule, and bracketing of teams will not be covered here, but is covered in our introduction to the 2012 NCAA DIII Soccer Championships here.   

Most conferences receive a single automatic berth to the men's and women's tournaments which they may award in the manner they see fit, usually to their conference champions. The remainder of each tournament field is made up of at-large selections made by the Division III men's and women's soccer committees following a prescribed set of criteria. Read on to discover the size of the tournament fields, how many and which conferences receive automatic berths, and how many at-large berths are available and on what basis they are awarded.

Administration / Selection Committees

The NCAA championship tournaments are administrated by the eight-member NCAA Division III Men's and Women's Soccer Committees which are each composed of the chairs of their respective regional advisory committees. These committees make the at-large selections to complete the tournament field, assisted in the evaluation of teams by the Regional Advisory Committees. These are the same national and regional committees which release the pre-tournament weekly NCAA Regional Rankings.  The members of these committees can be found on pages 9-13 of the Pre-Championships Manual.

Tournament Field Size

The maximum size of the single-elimination men's and women's tournament fields is established by the Division III Championships Committee which currently prescribes an approximate access ratio of 1:6.5 not to exceed 64 participants, as per Article 31.3.1.1 of the 2012-13 NCAA Division III Manual (pg. 218).  The basis for the size of the current year's tournament fields is the number of championship eligible teams from the previous year, however, unlike in previous years the calculation of the tournament field size is not given in the manual.  Our math, as shown in the following table, suggests 61- and 64-team men's and women's tournaments same as last year, but the men's and women's committees have gained approval for 62- and 64-team tournaments in 2012, as per the Pre-Championships Manual (pg. 17 and pg. 20), which represents an increase of one men's team from last year.

Types of Tournament Berths

Teams eligible for the championship tournament are divided into three pools: Pool A, Pool B, and Pool C, as per Section 2.3 of the D-III Soccer portion of the Pre-Championships Manual (pg. 19-20).

Pool A berths are automatic, based on pre-defined criteria set by each qualifying conference for how they will award their automatic berth. Often the berth is awarded to the conference champion, whether determined by regular season finish or by a post-season tournament. However, some conferences determine their champion by regular season finish and hold a post-season tournament to award the automatic berth. AQ is the common short-hand for automatic qualifiers or Pool A berths. (Note: our 2012 Conference Championship Central page indicates whether each tournament determines the conference champion, AQ berth, or both, and includes a table of AQ winners.)

Conferences which do not qualify for an AQ and whose teams are included in Pool B are the newly formed Southern Athletic Association (SAA) men and women, and the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) men (the women do receive an AQ).  The City University of New York Athletic Conference (CUNYAC) women receive an AQ for the first time in 2012.

Berths given to teams from Pools B and C are at-large berths. The recipients are selected by the NCAA men's and women's committees following a set of selection criteria and principles discussed in more detail below.   

Allocation of Berths

Forty-one (41) men's conferences and forty-three (43) women's conferences have been granted automatic qualification (AQ) for the 2012 championship tournaments.  Those conferences are listed on pages 20-22 of the Pre-Championships Manual and in the section below.

The number of at-large Pool B berths is determined by applying an access ratio up to but not to exceed that of Pool A teams. The Pool A access ratio is the total number of eligible teams in AQ conferences divided by the number of  AQ conferences. When this ratio is applied to Pool B, the result is traditionally rounded down to the nearest whole number to ensure that Pool B access ratio does not exceed that of Pool A.  

The number of at-large Pool C berths is simply the number of remaining tournament spots after the Pool A and B berths have been filled. 

According to Section 2.3 of the Pre-Championships Manual (pg. 20),  the tournament berth allocations for 2012 break down as follows for the men's and women's championships (unlike in previous years, the manual does not show the calculation of the number of Pool B berths, but our calculations as shown in the table confirm the given distribution). 

Automatic Qualifying (AQ) Conferences

As per Section 2.3 of the Pre-Championships Manual (pgs. 20-22), the following conferences have been granted automatic qualification (AQ) for the 2012 championship from Pool A.

Our 2012 Conference Championship Central page is tracking the conference tournament results and the awarding of AQ berths here.

At-Large Selection Process

After all the automatic (Pool A) berths have been awarded by the conferences, the men's and women's committees will make their Pool B berth selections followed by their Pool C berth selections. Teams are selected for Pool B and C at-large berths on a national basis, using regional selection criteria (see section below). Beyond the selection criteria, note the following principles concerning at-large selections.  

• To be considered during the at-large selection process (Pool B or C), a team must play at least 50 percent of its competition against Division III in-region opponents.
• There will be no predetermined regional allocations for Pools B and C.
• There will be no maximum or minimum number of berths from one region.
• Institutions participating in conferences that meet the automatic-qualification requirements and are eligible to be selected to a championship via Pool A and/or Pool C, may not elect instead to be selected via Pool B as an independent institution.

At-Large Selection Criteria

The at-large tournament selection criteria are found in Section 2.4 of the Pre-Championships Manual (pgs. 23-24).  The criteria is divided between primary criteria which only consider regional competition and secondary criteria that introduce out-of-region and non-Division III competition, the later only being considered if the former does not enable a distinction to be made between schools.

Regional Rankings Foreshadow At-Large Berths

Regional rankings are done by the same national and regional committees which administrate the championship tournament and make the at-large selections. The rankings are done by applying the same criteria which is used for making the at-large selections, and are released following the fourth last, third last, and second last weeks prior to the tournament selections being made. Therefore, by design, these rankings are a direct foreshadowing of the at-large selections providing a certain level of transparency to the at-large selection process and avoiding major surprises when the at-large selections are announced.

As part of the at-large tournament selection process, the committees do final rankings that include the results from the final week prior to the tournament, usually the completion of conference tournaments. These rankings are usually not released, and certainly not prior to the announcement of the Pool B and Pool C at-large berths and the tournament brackets. If they are not released or until such time as they are, one can only guess at how the final week's results may have prompted changes in the ranking of teams from the third of the scheduled rankings to selection day.

Strength-of-Schedule

The Strength-of-Schedule used by the Division III soccer committees is based on Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OWP) and Opponents' Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OOWP).  An explanation with an example of these calculations is found in Appendix D (pg. 47) of the Pre-Championships Manual.

For men's soccer only, home and away multipliers are factored into the OWP and OOWP calculations shown above. A multiplier of 1.25 is applied for away games and a multiplier of 0.85 for home games.

Definition of In-Region Competition

The rankings will list each ranked school's in-region and overall record. Many are initially confused by some of the regional records they see because they somewhat sensibly assume that only opponents from the same region would count towards one's in-region record. However, page 22 of the Pre-Championships Manual defines in-region competition much more broadly than that.

Comments or feedback for the author?  Email Christan Shirk.