How the women's belt works
A lineal championship works like a boxing title: to become the champion, you have to beat the champion. The Women's College Basketball Belt is one title, passed from team to team, game by game, since 1986.
The rules
- Where it starts. The belt starts with the reigning national champion going into the 1986–87 season: Texas, which finished 34–0 by beating USC 97–81 in the 1986 NCAA final.
- Beat the holder, take the belt. Every game counts: regular season, conference tournaments, the NCAA tournament, the WNIT and the WBIT. Home, away or neutral.
- Division I only. Both teams have to be in Division I that season. A holder that loses to a non-Division I team keeps the belt, and those games aren't title defenses.
- No ties. Basketball plays overtime until someone wins, so every belt game has a winner.
- If a holder leaves Division I, the belt goes back to the most recent earlier holder that is still playing, the same rule the men's belt and the College Football Belt use. It hasn't happened yet.
The three rulesets, side by side
The College Football Belt, the College Basketball Belt and the pro-league belts on Belt Holders run on the same idea and differ only where the sports do: ties, draws and shootouts, who counts as a league member, and what happens when a holder stops playing.
| College Football Belt | College Basketball Belt · this site | Belt Holders (pro leagues) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it starts | College football's first game: Rutgers over Princeton, 6–4, on November 6, 1869. | The reigning national champion when the game-by-game record begins: Kentucky for 1949–50; Texas for the women's belt in 1986–87. | Each league's first game on record, from the NHL's first night in 1917 to the Premier League's 1888 start. |
| Which games count | Every game, bowls and the playoff included. From 1978 on, only games between two Division I teams. | Every Division I game: regular season, conference tournaments, the NCAA tournament and the other postseason events. A loss to a non-Division I team doesn't move it. | Regular season and playoffs. Preseason, exhibitions and cup competitions don't count. |
| Ties and draws | A tie kept the belt with the holder (there hasn't been one since overtime arrived in 1996). | No ties: basketball plays overtime until someone wins. | A tie or a draw is a successful defense. Overtime and shootout wins are wins; a penalty shootout decides a knockout game. |
| When the holder doesn't play | The belt waits: a bye, an opted-out bowl or a canceled season leaves it where it is, offseason included. | The belt waits through the offseason with the holder. | The belt is frozen until the holder plays again, even when it missed the playoffs. |
| When the holder stops playing | If a holder drops football or leaves Division I, the belt goes back to the most recent earlier holder still playing. | If a holder leaves Division I, the belt goes back to the most recent earlier holder still playing. | A folded franchise, or a club relegated out of the league, vacates the belt to the most recent earlier holder still in the league. |
| Moves and renames | Programs don't move; a rename is the same program. | Same: a rename is the same program. | The belt follows the franchise through relocations and renames (the Rams from Cleveland to St. Louis to Los Angeles). |
Sources
From 2002–03 on, results come from ESPN via the wehoop project (sportsdataverse, CC BY 4.0), updated automatically every few hours during the season.
The line from 1986–87 through the 2002 final (UConn 82, Oklahoma 70) was traced game by game from schools' published media guides, record books and box scores (Louisiana Tech, Tennessee, Virginia, USC, North Carolina, Stanford and many more), The Stanford Daily archives and other student newspapers, and Wikipedia season pages. For those years the data lists every game the belt holder played rather than full schedules, so season-long features like Elo ratings and conference belts start in 2002–03. Four wins by a holder whose scores haven't turned up (Arizona State over Oregon and Oregon State in February 1992; Creighton over Bradley and Northern Iowa in January 1994) are left out, which doesn't change who held the belt.
Spot a missing or wrong game? Email hello@collegebasketballbelt.com.