What is Wins Above Bubble? Explaining new metric for NCAA women’s basketball tournament selection

When the NCAA Division I selection committee for the women’s basketball tournament meets this coming season, there will be a new metric that the members of the committee will consider during the determination of the teams in the support of 68 teams.

His name is Wins Above Bubble – or simply Wab – and it is a popular metric used in the male game for a few years and was officially used by the male selection committee last season.

In a Newsletter Her Hoop Stats of 2021, the writer Calvin Wetzel presented what the objectives of the metric are: “He answers the question:” How many victories in addition to the team has that the number of victories of a team of bubbles should have against the same calendar? ” ».

On its website, the NCAA explained the metric in this way: “The victories against the bubble calculate the percentage of victory expected for a team of medium bubbles in each match of the calendar of a team, then subtract this total number of the team. The average bubble team would expect your schedule. »»

In short, the metric will reward the teams for playing against – and beat – good teams.

And it is a metric that Jackie Carson, the main associate commissioner of AC for women’s basketball, supports.

Carson said she had sat with some members of the selection committee earlier this year after Virginia Tech was one of the first four of the 2025 NCAA tournament.

“What do we need to say to our schools? How do we plan better? You know? So, I dived deeply in there,” Carson at SB Nation told SB this week.

The Hokies, under the first year head coach, Megan Duffy, went 19-13 and 9-9 in ACC the game last season. They ranked 47th in net, but won seven victories against teams that ranked in the Top 100 from the net, which was more than Washington and Columbia and the same number as Princeton and Nebraska, who all received offers in progress for the tournament.

“I love (wab), because I think it was a bit of our argument,” said Carson. “We have to beat schools that we are supposed to beat and we have to win matches that we are supposed to win, right? But I also think that there is something to say, if we lose someone in the AC, you are still playing a stronger calendar force compared to someone else in another league that beats the team (classified) 275 (in the net). So, I love you a new measure, plays?

Virginia Tech won three victories against teams that made the NCAA tournament during the ACC game: Georgia Tech, Louisville and Cal.

“We had fantastic victories, then we had a couple who moved away from us, and they are all learning experiences,” said Duffy earlier this month during a zoom with journalists. “The expectations are high … with the group we have, we will put our bar high. I don’t really know or don’t worry what it means in relation to the tournament or where we are in the league. We want to be at the top. “

With Virginia Tech left on the bubble, eight ACC teams did the NCAA tournament last season. The Hokies strengthened their list during the offseason, adding three transfers from other Power 4 programs to Sophie Swanson (Purdue), Melannie Daley (Northwestern) and Kilah Freelon (Texas Tech). Duffy also brings back its two best scorers from last season to Carleigh Wenzel and Carys Baker.

New talents combined with this new metric could help the Hokies come back to the big dance next season.