The NCAA Division II women's basketball tournament (officially styled as "Championship" instead of "Tournament") is an annual tournament to determine the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

(NCAA) Division II women's college basketball national champion. Basketball was one of 12 women's sports added to the NCAA championship program for the 1981–82 school year, as the NCAA and

Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was founded in 1971 to govern collegiate women's athletics in the United States and to administer national championships (see AIAW Champions). It evolved out of the Commission on Interc ...

(AIAW) sought for sole governance of women's collegiate athletics. The AIAW continued to conduct its established championships; however, after a year of dual women's championships at the national level, the AIAW disbanded. The 2020 Elite Eight was due to be held at the

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Birmingham, AL Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

before the NCAA called off the tournament due to the

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outbreak. The next year saw the field reduced to 48, but will return to 64 in 2022 & hereafter. Glenville State are the defending national champions.

Qualification

A total of 64 bids are normally available for each tournament: 23 automatic bids (awarded to the champion of each Division II all-sports conference) and 41 at-large bids. Due to

issues, the 2020 tournament was canceled, and the 2021 tournament was reduced to 48 teams when nine all-sports conferences chose not to compete in women's basketball in 2020–21. The bids are allocated evenly among the eight NCAA-designated regions (Atlantic, Central, East, Midwest, South, South Central, Southeast, and West), each of which contains either two or three of the 23 Division II conferences that sponsor women's basketball. Each region normally consists of two or three automatic qualifiers (the teams who won their respective conference tournaments) and five or six at-large bids (awarded regardless of conference affiliation).

Conference tournaments

Results

Statistics

Championships by school

Notes

References

External links

Attendance historyArchived

Division II Women's Basketball Championships Records Books (Through 2019)Archived
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ncaa Women's Division Ii Basketball Championship

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...