2014 NCAA Regional Rankings
The NCAA regional rankings are done by the same national and regional 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 is 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-Championships Manual. Much of what follows highlights, summarizes, or quotes the manual.
Ranking Committees
The NCAA regional rankings are done 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. 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-Championships Manual (pgs. 13 and 18), the rankings will be released on the following dates which correspond to the last three Wednesdays prior to the tournament selections being made:
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• Wednesday, October 22 • Wednesday, October 29 • Wednesday, November 5 |
Like the NSCAA 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 by selecting “Regional Rankings” from the “News” pull-down menu above or by clicking on the following links:
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 15 percent of eligible teams (or a minimum of four) are ranked by the committees. As per the Pre-Championships Manual (pg. 18), the number of teams to be ranked in 2014 is as follows:
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Men's Rankings New England Region—11 East Region—7 Mid-Atlantic Region—8 South Atlantic Region—7 Great Lakes Region—8 Central Region—6 North Region—7 West Region—6 |
Women's Rankings New England Region—12 East Region—7 Mid-Atlantic Region—9 South Atlantic Region—9 Great Lakes Region—8 Central Region—6 North Region—8 West Region—6 |
The regional alignments and 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-Championships Manual (pgs. 28-44)
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-Championships Manual (pg. 21). The criteria is divided between primary and secondary criteria, the later only being considered if the former does not enable a distinction to be made between schools. The criteria underwent a significant change prior to last season (2013) 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.
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Primary Criteria (not listed in priority order)
Secondary Criteria (not listed in priority order)
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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) with home and away multipliers being applied for men’s soccer but not for women's soccer. 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.
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Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OWP): The average of opponents'
winning percentages versus D-III competition excluding the
results against the team in question. Opponents' Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OOWP): The average of the OWP's of all opponents. Strength-of-Schedule (SOS): The weighted
OWP-OOWP, never specified but deduced to be |
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 (all primary criteria), and non-Division III winning percentage (secondary criteria). These sheets allow one 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:
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Men's Data Sheets |
Women's Data Sheets |
The data sheets can also be accessed by clicking the links on our regional rankings pages.
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-Championships 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. In fact, it has become even easier starting with the current 2014 season because the in-region radius has been extended from 200 miles to 500 miles.
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An opponent is considered in-region if any one of the following criteria is met:
Region 1 - Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont Region 2 - New York, Pennsylvania Region 3 - Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia Region 4 - Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming
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"Secret" 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 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 after the third of the scheduled rankings.
