The 2024 NCAA Bowling Championship was the 20th edition of the NCAA Bowling Championship, the annual tournament to determine the national champion of women's NCAA collegiate ten-pin bowling. The finals were hosted by the University of Detroit and played at the Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park, Michigan from April 12 to 13, 2024. The championship game was streamed live on ESPNU. Jacksonville State defeated Arkansas State in the championship game to win its first title in the program’s inaugural season.
Format The 2024 championship featured an 18-team format, with 4 regionals. Two regionals had four teams, while two had five, with play-in matches between Fayetteville State and William Smith in Rochester, New York, and Alabama State and Belmont Abbey in Arlington, Texas. Each region had one winner who would go on to play in a four-team tournament for the national championship. The 2024 pre-determined regional locations were as follows:
Arlington, Texas Lansing, Michigan Rochester, New York Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Each regional was played as a double-elimination tournament, except for the two play-in matches. All regional matches, except for what the NCAA calls "if necessary regional finals", were best-of-three matches bowled in the following order: five-person team, Baker total pinfall, Baker best-of-seven match play. Any "if necessary regional final" was Baker best-of-seven. Regional winners advanced to the championship event, which was also double-elimination. All matches were bowled under the standard format for regionals (best-of-three matches using specified formats in a specific order) except the championship final, which was Baker best-of-seven.
Qualification Since there is only one national collegiate championship for women's bowling, all NCAA bowling programs (whether from Division I, Division II, or Division III) were eligible. A total of 18 teams competed in the double-elimination tournament, with ten conference champions receiving automatic bids and eight teams receiving at-large bids. The teams were revealed in a selection show on March 27, 2024.
Bids There were 18 teams selected to the tournament - ten were selected automatically as conference champions, while another eight were selected at-large. The top four teams in the tournament were seeded and assigned to separate regions; they were the only teams seeded for this tournament.
Conference USA (CUSA) had the most bids of any conference with five, while the Northeast Conference (NEC) and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) had two. The Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC), College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW), Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA), East Coast Conference (ECC), Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC), Conference Carolinas/Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC), and Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) sent only their conference tournament champions. Additionally, two independent teams received an at-large bid to the tournament.
Seed Team Conference Bid type Appearance Last1 Jacksonville State CUSA Automatic1stNever2 Arkansas State CUSA At-large16th20233 Youngstown State CUSA At-large4th20234 North Carolina A&T MEAC At-large6th2023 Alabama State SWAC Automatic3rd2022 Belmont Abbey GMAC Automatic1stNever Duquesne NEC At-large3rd2023 Fayetteville State CIAA Automatic3rd2023 Hobart and William Smith AMCC Automatic1stNever Louisiana Tech CUSA At-large4th2023 Marian CCIW Automatic1stNever Maryland-Eastern Shore MEAC Automatic14th2019 Maryville GLVC Automatic2nd2023 Mercyhurst ECC Automatic2nd2023 Merrimack NEC Automatic1stNever Nebraska Independent At-large20th2023 Sam Houston CUSA At-large12th2023 Vanderbilt Independent At-large18th2023
Tournament bracket All regions were double-elimination, except for the finals, which was double-elimination before a single Baker best-of-7 championship match.
Pittsburgh Regional
Rochester Regional Play-in
Bracket
Lansing Regional
Arlington Regional
Play-in
Bracket
Finals
Allen Park, Michigan
References