Hey D3 tennis fans! I’ve got something short and sweet today, it’s more of a PSA than anything else. As we are gearing up for the end of season madness, including the NCAA team and individual tournaments, I’ve gotten some feedback from readers that it might be helpful for us to put out an article that simply explains how the rankings are made and how individual selection is done for the NCAA tournament. If you want to learn about how NCAA team tournament selection is done, look at this lovely article from D3AS from a few years ago. The only difference is the women’s tournament has 8 Pool C spots rather than 5. Thanks Title IX.
I can’t even take credit for most of this stuff. I’m just repeating what WestWomens and CentralWomens told me because that’s what friends are for. However, if any of the below information is wrong, it’s completely their fault.
How are regional rankings done?
Unlike D1 where there is a point system used to computer generate rankings, D3 rankings are done by votes from members of a committee. For regional rankings, a committee of 5-6 in-region coaches decides team, singles, and doubles rankings based on head-to-head, strength of schedule, results vs common opponents, late season play, and won-lost results. The ITA has not published a recent rankings manual, but you can view the one published in 2017 here, listing out which coaches sit on the regional committees. I’m assuming they largely haven’t changed. There are 6 release dates for regional rankings per year.
How are national rankings done?
The national rankings are done by the heads of each of the regional committees and the national ranking committee Chair, which is Andrew Girard of CMU on the women’s side. They use the same criteria as above to vote on rankings.
Which players are selected for the NCAA individual tournament?
For the singles tournament, there are 7 guaranteed spots per region and 4 at-large spots. The at-large spots are a recent change to account for different levels of strength across regions. For doubles, there are 3 guaranteed spots per region and 4 at-large spots. Winning fall regionals does NOT guarantee you a spot in the NCAA tournament. The rankings used to determine these spots are NOT the ITA rankings, rather they are NCAA rankings, found at https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/tennis-women/d3/regional-rankings. The committee who does these rankings (as well as the NCAA tournament team selection) is composed of coaches and NCAA admin people. This is a different committee than the ITA committee, though there can be overlap in coaches, which is why the individual rankings can be very different from the ITA individual rankings.
That’s it. I hope rankings are a little more clear now. If I was wrong about anything please let me know in the comments. This is a good learning opportunity for me too.
ONE MORE THING – this year we are putting together a pretty sweet senior tribute. I’ve personally reached out (or attempted to reach out) to every D3 women’s coach across the country to get their seniors to fill out this short questionnaire about post-grad plans. We’ve gotten a decent response so far but there are plenty of coaches that have not responded and thus haven’t passed it on. If you know a D3 women’s senior, please ask them to fill it out! Here is the link: https://forms.gle/whRmoptyTWKkgz5r7
-ASW