Once again, the system is the same as the Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, with the exception that only 64 teams went and there was no play-in game. Automatic bids were secured by 31 conference champions and 33 at-large bids.

The subregionals, which used the "pod system", keeping most teams either at or close to the home cities, was held from 21 March to 24 at sixteen sites. The following were chosen in July 2006, prior to the re-expansion of the subregional sites from eight to sixteen:

As per the return to the 16-site subregional format, the following sites were added in 2008:

The regionals, held in the city rather than the geographic area as a practice that has been used since 2005, were held there from 28 March to 31 at these sites:

The regional winners advanced to the Final Four, held 5 and 7 April 2009 at the Scottrade Center, in St. Louis, Missouri, hosted by the Missouri Valley Conference.

Sixty-four teams were selected to participate in the 2009 NCAA Tournament. Thirty-one conferences were eligible for an automatic bid to the 2009 NCAA tournament.

Thirty-three additional teams were selected to complete the sixty-four invitations.

Thirty-one conferences earned an automatic bid. In twenty-two cases, the automatic bid was the only representative from the conference. Thirty-three additional at-large teams were selected from nine of the conferences.

The sixty-four teams came from thirty-two states. Texas had the most teams with six bids. Eighteen states did not have any teams receiving bids.

Second seeded Stanford easily beat the 15th seeded Gauchos of UC Santa Barbara behind a double-double by Jayne Appel. Third seeded Ohio State beat Sacred Heart by 14 points, but led by only two well into the second half. Freshman guard Samantha Prahalis scored 23 to help lead the Buckeyes to victory. Tenth seeded San Diego State upset seventh seeded DePaul behind Jene Morris's career tying 35 points. Eleventh seed Mississippi State used 21 of 22 free throw shooting to upset the sixth seeded Texas Longhorns. Middle Tennessee's Alysha Clark, the nations D1 scoring leader, scored 34 points, but it wasn't enough to defeat ninth seeded Michigan State, who broke a late tie and held on to win by one point. One seeded Duke easily disposed of sixteen seeded Austin Peay. Fourth seeded Iowa State tied an NCAA tournament record with 16 three point goals in an easy win over thirteen seed East Tennessee State.

...
Wikipedia