2022 NCAA Division III Soccer Championships: D3soccer.com (2023)

The NCAA conducts Division IIImen'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 the2022 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 ten-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 thePre-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 anapproximateaccess ratio of 1:6.5 not to exceed 64 participants, as per Article 31.3.1.1 of the2022-23 NCAA Division III Manual(pg. 214). Thebasis for the size of the tournament fields is thenumber of championship eligible teams the previous year, andthe men's and women's committees have gained approval for the maximum 64-team tournament for both men and women in 2021 according to thePre-Championships Manual(pgs. 17, 20). For the men, this is the third year (excluding the cancelled 2020 season) at the maximum 64-team field, while the women have been at the maximum since 2011. Our math for this year, as shown in the following table, suggests that the men's bracket could have been reduced to 63 teams for the second year in a row due to the number of schools closing their doors, being absorbed by larger institutions, or leaving Division III.

With 64-team fields, each tournament has six rounds with no first round 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.). 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 both Final Fours occuring the following weekend at a pre-determined joint men's and women'ssite which is Kerr Stadium on the campus of Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia.A third-place game will not be played.

Note: Starting this season, the men's and women's Final Four games will be staggered across four days, giving advancing teams a day off between the semifinals and the final.Which days the men and women play will alternate from year to year. This year the men play Thursday and Staurday and the women play Friday and Sunday.

Allocation of Berths

Teams eligible for the championship tournament are divided into three pools: Pool A, Pool B, and Pool C,as perSection 2.3 of the D-III Soccer portion of thePre-Championships Manual(pg. 21).

Forty-three (43) men's conferences and forty-four (44) women's conferences (see list below) have been granted automatic qualification (AQ) for the 2022 championship tournaments. AQ is the common short-hand for automatic qualifiers orPool A berths. All conferences except the newly formed Collegiate Conference of the South (CCS) will receive automatic berths. Last year was the only time since the automatic qualifier system was implemented in 1998 that all men's and women's conferences received an AQ.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.(Note: our2022 Conference Championship Centralpage indicates whether each tournament determines the conference champion, AQ berth, or both, and includes a table of AQ winners.)

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. With 9 men's and 11 women's teams in Pool B, there is one Pool B tournament berth for each tournament.

According to Section 2.3 of the Division III portion of thePre-Championships Manual(pg. 21), the tournament berth allocations for 2022 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, usingregional 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.(This criteria is easily met due to all the ways an opponent can be considered "in-region": within the same defined region, within a 500-mile driving radius, within the same membership geographical region, or within the same conference in an official conference match.)
• 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 thePre-Championships Manual(pg. 22), the following conferences have been granted automatic qualification (AQ) for the 2021 championship from Pool A.

At-Large Selection Criteria

The at-large tournament selection criteria are found in Section 2.4 of thePre-Championships Manual(pg. 24). 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. Regular season and conference postseason matches are considered.

"Ranked teams" are those opponents ranked in either the final NCAA regional rankings or the third weekly NCAA rankings. You can learn more about the NCAA regional rankingshereor here.

The Strength of Schedule (SOS) used by the Division III soccer committees is based on Opponents' Cumulative Winning Percentage (OWP) and Opponents' Opponents' Cumulative Winning Percentage (OOWP) as shown below. An explanation with an example of these calculations is found in AppendixD (pg. 51) of the Pre-Championship Manual.

At-Large Selection Timeline and Process

The process of making the at-large berth selections for the NCAA tournament starts with weekly NCAA regional rankings which you can learn more about hereor here. These rankings are done following the fourth last, third last, second last and last week prior to the tournament selections being made. The first three of these weekly rankings are, by design, a direct foreshadowing of the at-large selections because they are (1) done by the same committee that makes the at-large tournament selections and (2) done by applying the at-large selection criteria. This provides a certain level of transparency to the at-large selection process and avoids major surprises when the at-large selections are announced.

Following the release of the third weekly regional rankings the process is as follows.

• Conference championships are completed by 6:00 p.m. ET, Sunday, November 6.
• The NCAA compiles the data corresponding to the at-large selection criteria (win-loss-tie percentage against Division III opponents, results versus ranked Division III teams, Division III Strength-of-schedule) and provides it to Regional Advisory Committees.
• The Regional Advisory Committees do their fourth regional rankings in the same manner as the previous three weeks. The results versus ranked Division III teams (RvR) criteria is based on who was ranked in the third regional rankings that were released on Wednesday, November 2.
• The national committee makes adjustments to the regional rankings as they see fit but does not publish them until after they have announced the tournament field (including the at-large berth selections).
• An updated RvR is developed based on opponents who were ranked in either the third or the just completed fourth regional rankings. This is the RvR that the national committee will use when comparing teams across regions on a national basis.
• The highest ranked Pool B candidate from each region, if any, is placed "on the board", the teams discussed, and one team is selected.
• Pool C teams (teams who were not awarded their conference's automatic berth and unselected Pool B teams) in the final regional rankings are identified.
• The highest ranked Pool C candidate from each region is placed "on the board", the ten teams discussed, and one team is selected. The next highest ranked Pool C candidate from the selected team's region is added to the board and the process repeats until all Pool C at-large berths have been awarded.

The at-large selections are added to the teams who were awarded their conference's automatic berth, completing the tournament field at which point the committee begins the process of grouping the teams and developing the tournament bracket with geographical proximity playing a major role. The tournament fields and brackets are announced mid-day Monday, November 7.

Published Final Regional Rankings

The fourth and final rankings, which take into account the completion of conference races and tournaments and serve as a basis for the at-large tournament selections, are published following the announcement of the tournament fields. They will often answer many questions about why certain teams were at-large selections and others not.

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 thePre-Championships Manual(pg. 24), the following guidelines should be followed in the pairing and grouping of teams.

Starting last year for the 2021 tournament,geographic proximity issues are no longer indicated as a permitted reason to have teams from the same conference face each other in the first round.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.

Comments or questions?E-mail us.