2011 NCAA Division III Soccer Championships

The NCAA conducts Division III men's and women's soccer national championships in the form of a 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.  The remainder of each tournament fields 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 Division III Soccer Pre-Championship Manual, which can be linked to from the NCAA Division III Men's and Women's Soccer Administration pages.  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 10-14 of the Pre-Championship Manual.

Championship Format

The format of the men's and women's championships are single-elimination tournaments.  The maximum size of the tournament field 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 2011-12 NCAA Division III Manual (pg. 214).  Based on the number of championship eligible teams last year (2010), the men's and women's committees have gained approval for 61- and 64-team tournaments in 2011, as per the Pre-Championship Manual (pg. 17).

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 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 in 2011 is Blossom Soccer Complex in San Antonio, Texas.  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 follows.

Forty-one (41) men's conferences and forty-two (42) women's conferences (see list below) have been granted automatic qualification (AQ) for the 2011 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 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-Championship Manual (pg. 21), the tournament berth allocations for 2011 break down as follows for the men's and women's championships.

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.

Automatic Qualifying (AQ) Conferences

As per Section 2.3 of the Pre-Championship Manual (pgs. 21-22), the following conferences have been granted automatic qualification (AQ) for the 2011 championship from Pool A.

At-Large Selection Criteria

The at-large tournament selection criteria are found in Section 2.4 of the Pre-Championship Manual (pgs. 24-25).  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.

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 Pre-Championship Manual (pg. 26), 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, recent history demonstrates a strong attempt to create as many inter-regional match-ups as possible within 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 prior to the announcement of the Pool B and Pool C at-large berths and the tournament brackets.  Two years ago these previously secret final rankings were made available after the fact, but last year they were once again were not. 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 C (pg. 43) of the Pre-Championship Manual.

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 23 of the Pre-Championship Manual defines in-region competition much more broadly than that.