2015 NCAA Division III Soccer Championships

The NCAA conducts Division III men's and women's soccer national championships in the form of single-elimination tournaments. 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 determined by a post-season tournament. The remainder of each tournament's 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. The tournament brackets are set-up in accordance with guidelines aimed at limiting travel and flights while still creating inter-regional match-ups.

All information about the tournament and the determination of participants is found in the 2015 Division III Soccer Pre-Championships Manual. Much of what follows highlights, summarizes, or quotes the manual.

Administration

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.

Championship Format

The format of the men's and women's championships are single-elimination tournaments. The maximum size of the 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 2015-16 NCAA Division III Manual (pg. 222). The basis for the size of the tournament fields is the number of championship eligible teams, and the men's and women's committees have gained approval for 61- and 64-team tournaments in 2015, as per the Pre-Championships Manual (pg. 16 and 19). This is the same number of men's and women's teams as the past two years. Our math for this year, as shown in the following table, yields 61- and 64-team men's and women's tournaments, matching what has been approved.

For the women, with a 64-team field, there are six rounds with no first round byes. The men's tournament also has six rounds, however, includes three first round byes.Except in the case of the men's byes, four-team pods will play first and second round matches at a selected host during the first weekend of the tournament (Fri.-Sat. or Sat.-Sun.). In the case of the men's byes, pairs of teams will play on Thursday with the winners travelling to play the teams receiving byes on Sunday. Four-team sectionals will play third and fourth round matches at a selected host on the second weekend of the tournament (Fri.-Sat. or Sat.-Sun.). The tournaments will be suspended over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend with the both Final Fours occuring the following weekend at a pre-determined joint men's and women's site which for this season, as last year, is the Swope Soccer Village, the training center for MLS’s Sporting Kansas City, located in historic Swope Park in Kansas City. A third-place game will not be played.

Allocation of 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).

Forty-two (42) men's conferences and forty-four (44) women's conferences (see list below) have been granted automatic qualification (AQ) for the 2015 championship tournaments. AQ is the common short-hand for automatic qualifiers or Pool A berths. The conferences themselves determine how they award their automatic berth. Often the AQ spot 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 AQ berth.

The other berths from Pool B and C are at-large berths. 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 truncated (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 Division III portion of the Pre-Championships Manual (pg. 19), the tournament berth allocations for 2015 break down as follows for the men's and women's championships (starting in 2012 the manual stopped showing the calculation of the number of Pool B berths, but our calculations as shown in the following table confirm the given distribution).

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 70 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.

Automatic Qualifying (AQ) Conferences

As per Section 2.3 of the Division III portion of the Pre-Championships Manual (pgs. 19-20), the following conferences have been granted automatic qualification (AQ) for the 2014 championship from Pool A.

At-Large Selection Criteria

The at-large tournament selection criteria are found in Section 2.4 of the Pre-Championships Manual (pg. 21). The criteria is divided between primary and secondary criteria, the latter only being considered if the former does not enable a distinction to be made between schools. The criteria underwent a significant change prior to the 2013 season when the in-region/out-of-region distinction was abandoned. Previously only games versus "in-region" opponents were consider as part of the primary criteria with secondary criteria considering out-of-region and non-Division III competition. Now, primary criteria considers all Division III opponents while results versus non-Division III opponents (NAIA, NCCAA, Division II, Division I) are considered secondary criteria.

Building the Tournament Brackets

Only after the tournament field is completely determined (automatic qualifiers identified and at-large Pools B and C teams selected) is the tournament bracket developed. As per Section 2.5 of the Division III portion of the Pre-Championships Manual (pgs. 21-22), the following guidelines should be followed in the pairing and grouping of teams.

The aim of these guidelines is to keep flights to a minimum, however, there is an attempt to create inter-regional match-ups in the early rounds while following these guidelines.

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 not released, so 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 the unpublished rankings used on selection day.

Strength-of-Schedule

The Strength of Schedule (SOS) used by the Division III soccer committees is based on Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OWP) and Opponents' Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OOWP) with home and away multipliers being applied for men’s soccer (since 2011) but not for women's soccer (unitl next year, 2-16). For men's schedules, a multiplier of 0.85 is applied for home games and 1.25 for away games. Neutral site games are assumed to be unfactored. An explanation with an example of these calculations is found in Appendix D (pg. 45) of the Pre-Championships Manual.

Note: There is a 40% difference between the home and away multipliers, meaning an away game is worth nearly 50% more than a home game (1.25/0.85 = 1.47). Therefore, travelling to a team with a .550 winning percentage could be worth more to a team's SOS than playing a home game against a team with a .800 winning percentage, depending on the OOWPs.

Definition of In-Region Competition

Starting with the 2013 season, the in-region/out-of-region distinction no longer matters for ranking and at-large selection criteria. However, the NCAA has not removed all encouragement to minimize travel and missed class time as teams are still required to play a minimum of 70 percent of their games against in-region Division III opponents to simply be eligible for at-large tournament selection. So the distinction could still be important for teams that like to fill their non-conference schedule with a good number of opponents from outside their region. But given how broadly in-region competition is defined on page 20 of the Pre-Championship Manual to include much more than just other teams from your defined region (e.g. New England, East, Mid-Atlantic, etc.), this requirement isn't difficult to meet.