However, another aspect of parity I wanted to look at was whether lower-seeded mid-majors have closed the gap against the higher-seeded major programs in the nation. My definition of a mid-major team, which I have applied retroactively, is taken from CollegeInsider.com. Even though CollegeInsider.com writes exclusively about men's college basketball, it stands to reason that if a men's program is a mid-major, then its women's counterpart will also be a mid-major.
The way I calculated the margin of victory was the same as when I was looking only at lower seeds vs. top seeds, with the exceptions that if a game does not include a mid-major program I do not count it and if the mid-major holds the higher seed, I also do not count that game because if the team does have a higher seed, they are already expected to win so when they do there is nothing to conclude from their victory except that the seeding committee was correct. Here are those results.
| Average Margin of Victory | 1 vs. 16 | 2 vs. 15 | 3 vs. 14 | 4 vs. 13 |
| 1994-2000 | 39.7 | 26.6 | 25.0 | 15.0 |
| 2001-2006 | 39.3 | 27.4 | 20.3 | 16.8 |
The reason I am limited to these four match-ups is because there were simply not enough games for the other seed pairings to allow me to make any conclusions. Similarly to the other look at parity, there is no evidence of a consistent trend of the lowest-seeded mid-majors doing anything to increase the parity between themselves and the highest-seeded majors. The average difference being 0.6 also speaks to the fact that there has been no closing of the talent gap between the first seven years of the 64-team women's tournament field and the latter six.
Perhaps there will be increasing parity in the women's NCAA tournament in the future, but right now there is none to speak of.
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
The quality of play, though, has gone up faster than the men's circuit. It's just that the top teams and conferences are not giving any slack to the mid-majors.
But is there parity in the kitchen? (Ducks)
2 - wls
I think you're missing the fact that women's basketball is just now reaching parity within the major conferences themselves. For example, Baylor made the tournament for the first time ever in 2001, and won it in 2005. That 2005 final was also one of the very few in the last decade to not feature UConn, Tennessee, or both. This year's champ, Maryland, was also making their first appearance in the championship game, and were considered the third best team in their own conference (behind North Carolina and Duke). So I think there is increasing parity in the sense that it's now increasingly likely that a 2,3,or 4 seed can win the tournament, and that we're seeing different teams within the power conferences get those seeds. I also think it will be a long time (if ever) before anyone goes undefeated or even with a 1 loss season (as UConn did in the mid 90s).
3 - David Barbour
No, I don't think I was missing that point. I understand that there are other women's programs that are achieving national prominence, but I was trying to see if the gap had closed between the higher seeds and the lower seeds in the women's tournament first round and then between the major programs and the mid-majors. I did not do any research on how far certain seeds go in the tournament. Perhaps if I am bored one day, I will.