Coming Wednesday: the rankings that matter

By Christan Shirk and Jim Hutchinson

On Wednesday, October 20, the NCAA Division III men's and women's soccer committees will release the first of their four weekly regional rankings—the first three leading up to and the last one being the basis for the at-large tournament selections. These rankings are based on the same primary and secondary criteria that will be used for awarding at-large tournament berths. But before getting into that, a more general introduction to the rankings is in order for those new to D-III soccer or those still not clear on the distinction and significance of the different rankings that exist.

By this point in the season, even new fans should be aware of the United Soccer Coaches (USC) regional and national rankings and the D3soccer.com national Top 25, but some might be confused when hearing about the NCAA regional rankings and have questions such as: Are these yet another set of rankings? Why haven't I seen these rankings yet this season? Are they important? Do they matter? Adding to the potential confusion, the NCAA includes the USC national rankings on their website even though they are not rankings done by or for the NCAA. You may think or have heard others say that the USC and D3soccer.com rankings don't mean anything; it's the NCAA rankings that matter. And that is correct in that the USC and D3soccer.com rankings do not play any part in the process of selecting teams for the NCAA championship tournaments; the NCAA's own rankings do as will be explained below.

However, we think it’s unfair to say that the USC and D3soccer.com rankings don't mean anything. They are useful for acknowledging the most successful teams and for fans to discover what schools outside their conference and their region are having great seasons. If done well, they can also give fans a feel for the relative strength of the teams they have seen when put in the national context. That is, they can be educational and informative. But equally, they have entertainment value and can spark conversation and debate among fans. D-I basketball fans can banter and argue over the rankings while knowing they do not decide tournament berths, and there's no reason D-III soccer fans shouldn’t as well. Those who are dismissive of these rankings and chose to ignore them miss the point and miss the fun.

That said, it is the NCAA regional rankings that are a critical piece of the pre-tournament puzzle, so let’s first have a look at how they work and why they matter. Then, at the end of this column, we will share some comments and observations rooted in our experience of closely following and analyzing the regional rankings and at-large tournament selections for over a decade.

NCAA REGIONAL RANKINGS

The NCAA regional rankings are done by the same regional and national committees which will make the at-large selections for the men's and women's NCAA tournaments and the rankings are done by applying the same criteria which are used for making the at-large selections. The rankings 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. It is for this reason that these rankings are so important and meaningful.

All information about the regional rankings is found in the Division III Soccer Pre-Championship Manual. Much of what follows highlights, summarizes, or quotes the manual.

Ranking Committees

The NCAA regional rankings are done by the ten-member NCAA Division III Men's and Women's Soccer Committees which are each composed of the chairs of their respective regional advisory committees. The Regional Advisory Committees assist the national committee in evaluating teams.  These are the same national and regional committees which will make the Pool B and Pool C at-large selections for the men's and women's NCAA tournaments. The members of these committees can be found on pages 9-13 of the Pre-Championship Manual.

Release Dates

As per the Pre-Championship Manual (pgs. 13 and 19), the rankings will be released on the following dates which correspond to the last three Wednesdays prior to the tournament selections being made and the Monday that the at-large selections and tournament fields are announced:

Like the USC and D3Soccer.com rankings, they are based on results through the Sunday prior to their release.

Where to find the Rankings

The rankings are posted by the NCAA on their Division III men's and women's soccer webpages under "Rankings" where you must select the "Regional Rankings" option from the pull-down menu.  They are also conveniently available here on our site from the “Rankings” pull-down menu above or by clicking on the following links:

Men's Regional Rankings

Women's Regional Rankings

Size of the Rankings

The number of teams ranked differs from region to region and from men to women based on the number of eligible teams in each region. The top 20 percent of eligible teams (or a minimum of four) are ranked by the committees. As per the Pre-Championship Manual (pgs. 19-20), the number of teams to be ranked in 2021 is as follows:

Along with the new regional realignment in place for the 2021 season that increased the number of regions from eight to ten, the percent of eligible teams to be ranked increased from 16% (men) and 15% (women) to 20% (men and women). This results in 13 more men's teams (from 66 to 79) and 20 more women's teams (from 65 to 85) being ranked in 2021 versus 2019. And this will impact the rankings and at-large selections because one of the primary criteria for ranking and team selection (see below) is results versus ranked teams. The regional alignments, school sponsorship, and eligibility by region can be found in Appendices B and C (“Men's Sponsorship” and "Women's Sponsorship, respectively) of the Pre-Championship Manual (pgs. 30-49).

New for 2021 - Alphabetical Rankings?!?

The first weekly regional rankings will be published in alphabetical order instead of rank order this year. At their mid-September meeting, the Division III Championships Committee directed all team sport committees to do this in 2021/22 based on a recommendation from the Division III Men's Basketball Committee. The first set of rankings cannot incorporate the primary criterion of results versus ranked teams, and consequently are not considered to be accurate. Ordering by numerical ranking will start in the second rankings when all criteria can be considered. This is a one-year pilot that will be reviewed next summer to determine whether to make it a permanent feature.

Ranking Criteria

The rankings are done by applying the same criteria which is used for making the at-large tournament selections. The at-large selection criteria are found in Section 2.4 of the Pre-Championship Manual (pg. 23). The criteria are divided between primary and secondary criteria, the latter only being considered if the former does not enable a distinction to be made between schools.

Regular season and conference postseason matches are considered.  See the sections that follow for an explanation/clarification of the results versus ranked teams and strength of schedule.

Results versus Ranked Teams

For the purposes of at-large selections, "ranked teams" are those teams ranked in either the final rankings or the third weekly rankings. However, for the purposes of the weekly regional rankings, "ranked teams" only includes the teams ranked the previous week, not the previous two weeks. Obviously, for the first weekly regional rankings of the season, there is no previous ranking and thus there are no results versus ranked teams. Consequently, the regional data sheets (see section further down) for the first weekly rankings do not include teams' records verus ranked opponents, but starting with the second weekly rankings this criteria is in play and is among the criteria listed in the regional data sheets.

"Results versus ranked teams" criteria spelled out

Strength of Schedule

The Strength of Schedule (SOS) used by the Division III soccer committees is based on Opponents' Cumulative Winning Percentage (OWP) and Opponents' Opponents' Cumulative Winning Percentage (OOWP). For the third straight season, no home and away multipliers will be applied as was once done. An explanation with an example of these calculations is found in Appendix D (pg. 50) of the Pre-Championship Manual.

Regional Data Sheets

Along with the rankings, data sheets for each region are made available.  These data sheets, which include all teams in each region, provide some (but not all) of the data that was considered by the ranking committee.  The following data is listed: record and winning percentage against Division III opponents, results versus ranked Division III opponents, Division III SOS (primary criteria), and overall record and winning percentage.  These sheets allow for a look at the numbers the committees had in front of them and therefore insight into why some teams are ranked and others not. The NCAA provides links to this data below the rankings. Direct links to the latest released data sheets are given below:

The data sheets can also be accessed by clicking the links on our regional rankings pages.

Published Final Rankings

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 final rankings are published following the announcement of the tournament fields and may answer many questions about why certain teams were at-large selections and others not.

FORESHADOWING THE AT-LARGE SELECTIONS:

SOME COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS

• As just mentioned above, we get to see the fourth and final rankings that are the basis for the committee's at-large selections. These final rankings take into account the final week of games (usually conference tournaments). However, they will only be released after the tournament field—and thus at-large berths—are announced. Therefore, we will still only have the first three regional rankings in order to anticipate which teams will be selected.

• Because these rankings are done by the same committees that make the at-large selections, using the same criteria as for at-large selections, they (as intended) have in the past very accurately foreshadowed the eventual at-large selections. While there has been the occasional “head-scratcher” with both men’s and women’s selections, a review of the final rankings usually helped clarify the committee’s decisions.

• Historically, a team that is not ranked in the third weekly rankings has extremely small odds of being awarded a Pool C berth. In the past decade, only one men's and one women's team that was left out of the third weekly rankings (those released the Wednesday before selections) received an invite to the NCAA tournament. With the rankings expanding from 15% to 20% of eligible teams this year, the chances presumably will be slimmer yet. And applying the new regional structure to last year's rankings suggests that this will be true for most regions, while the odds perhaps remain the same in the strongest two or three regions.

• Prior to this year’s new regional structure and increase in percent of eligible teams being ranked, there generally were a little more than twice as many Pool C candidates in the rankings as available berths. Now there could be as much as three times as many Pool C candidates as spots available. It won't be enough to simply be ranked to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. The number of teams selected from each region varies (see following item), but even the strongest and deepest regions have almost never had all ranked teams awarded a tournament berth and that isn’t expected to change with the expanded rankings and restructured regions. 

• The selection committee means it when their manual says that there isn't a predetermined number of at-large berths for each region nor any maximum or minimum number of berths from each region. So, following from the previous bullet item, there isn't even any guarantee that holding onto a high position (top third of the regional ranking) from the third weekly rankings to the final ranking will result in selection to the tournament. Though seldom, entire regions have been completed passed over for at-large berths, and that possibility might increase now that teams are divided into ten regions instead of just eight.

• History shows that the ranking of teams typically changes little in that last week (between the third weekly rankings and the at-large selections being made). That is, teams do not usually move up or down more than a spot, maybe two. And that makes sense because the final week only represents about 10% of the total schedule. Yes, each year there are some exceptions to this when little separated teams going into the final week and/or there were stark contrasts in the results of two or more teams during that last week.

• Comparison of the regional data sheets with the rankings (and the eventual at-large selections) has shown over the past decade and more that the committee highly values strength of schedule. The other criteria that can be deduced to be very important is results against ranked teams, and especially wins over ranked opponents. Losses to ranked teams don't seem to be penalized as much as wins are rewarded. In other words, the committee wants teams to play challenging schedules and doesn't mind if a team drops some of their toughest games if they demonstrate in other games that they also can win against top opposition. So, if you do not understand why one team isn't ranked and another team is, or why one team is ranked higher than another, it very likely is related to SOS and results against ranked teams.

[Editor’s Note:] The discussion above is primarily drawn from many years of observation and study of the men’s at-large selections. In 2019, after the third weekly rankings were posted, we published an in-depth analysis of the women’s at-large selections from 2011 through 2018 which corroborate these points. We hope to replicate that study for the men’s side and publish in conjunction with the release of the third weekly rankings this season.

Comments or feedback for the authors?  Email Jim Hutchinson and Christan Shirk.