NCAA women's tourney to seed by true ranking

Expansion to 76 teams isn’t the only change coming to the NCAA women's basketball tournament.

Beginning with March Madness in the upcoming 2026-27 season, the top 16 teams, the ones that get to host games during the tournament’s opening weekend, will be seeded according to their true ranking, regardless of conference affiliation. The change was first reported by the Associated Press and has since been confirmed by USA TODAY Sports.

In past tournaments, the selection committee would determine the top 16 seeds and seed them to avoid in-conference matchups early in the tournament. Additionally, the top four teams in each conference would be placed in different regions in an effort to prevent them from matching up until the Final Four.

For example, LSU and Vanderbilt, the third and fourth ranked SEC teams in the top 16 this past season, were dropped down in the seedings to avoid early matchups with No. 1 seeds South Carolina and Texas.

The NCAA has tried to abide by this rule, but as the Power 4 conferences have inflated in size, ordering teams in this way has become more difficult. One instance where the NCAA strayed from this was in the 2025 tournament, when top 16 seeds and rivals North Carolina and Duke met in the Sweet 16, marking their third meeting of that season. In the past, before the ACC, SEC, Big 12 and Big Ten grew following the implosion of the old Pac-12 and other conference realignment moves, the selection committee would have tried to place the Tar Heels and Blue Devils in different regions.

“It makes sense,” Mississippi State head coach Sam Purcell told USA TODAY Sports. “Reward the work that you did throughout the season and be rewarded for it in the best time of the year.”

While this change will likely only impact the Power 4 conferences, as those are typically the leagues that have multiple teams seeded inside the top 16 and almost always send north of four teams to March Madness, coaches from other leagues are in favor of the move.

Still, at least one coach, Seton Hall’s Tony Bozella, would like to see a few more tweaks to the tournament.

“This is a good move by the NCAA selection committee, but it should be the first of a few moves that will impact tournament selection and seeding in a positive way,” Bozzella told USA TODAY Sports. “Other changes should include widening the NET Quad system and getting transparent criteria and rankings for officiating.”

In May, the NCAA announced that it would be expanding the men’s and women’s tournament field to 76 teams from its previous size of 68. The shift will increase the number of at-large bids by eight and bump up the number of opening round play-in games from four to eight.

The 2027 NCAA Tournament will be the third time the women are eligible to earn units during March Madness. This past season, one unit, awarded to a conference for every game one of its teams plays in, was worth about $201,000. The pool of money conferences earn is then paid out to its member institutions over the next three years. In the 2026 tournament, the Big Ten earned 32 units to equal a payout of about $6.4 million.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NCAA women’s basketball tournament top 16 teams will be seeded by true ranking