WCBB NCAA Tournament Makes Rule Change as MCBB March Madness Keeps Format

The NCAA women's basketball tournament is making a change to how it seeds the top-16 teams.

Starting next season, the first 16 teams will be seeded based entirely on their ranking without conference affiliation taken into account, per the Associated Press. In the past, some seedings were adjusted to keep the top four teams from a conference in different regions.

"We put a lot of time into establishing those top 16 teams in the order they go in," NCAA women's basketball committee chair Amanda Braun told the AP. "You're splitting hairs to decide who has the edge and some of that is undone by those principles. To all of us, the work we did and the work those teams did justifies keeping them where they are in that group of 16."

The men's tournament will be keeping the old system and will continue to re-seed based on conference affiliation. The men's and women's tournament will controversially be expanded to 76 teams starting in the 2026-27 season.