NCAA Bowling Championship
 |
|
| Sport | College Bowling |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2004 |
| No. of teams | 8 |
| Most recent champion(s) |
Stephen F. Austin (1) |
| TV partner(s) | ESPNU |
| Official website | NCAA.com |
The NCAA Bowling Championship is a sanctioned women's championship in college athletics. Unlike many NCAA sports, only one championship is held each season with teams from Division I, Division II, and Division III competing together. Eight teams, all at-large selections, are chosen by the NCAA Bowling Committee to compete in the championships. The championship was first held in April 2004.
The most successful team is Nebraska with 5 titles. The reigning champions are Stephen F. Austin, who defeated Nebraska in seven games in the 2016 finals in a rematch of the 2015 finals that was won by Nebraska in six games. This is Stephen F. Austin's first NCAA Bowling Championship and its first team NCAA Championship at the Division I level.
Nebraska and Central Missouri have received at-large bids for all 13 NCAA Bowling Championships held to date.
The collegiate bowling season runs during the winter (beginning in October), and the championship is typically held in April. The current format for the championships begins with qualifying rounds in which each team bowls one five-person regular team game against each of the other seven teams participating in the championship for a total of seven games. Teams will be seeded for bracket play based on their win-loss record after seven games. Teams will then compete in best-of-seven-games Baker matches in a double elimination tournament. In the Baker format, each of the five team members, in order, bowls a complete frame until a complete (10-frame) game is bowled. A Baker match tied 3½ games to 3½ games after seven games will be decided by a tiebreaker using the Modified Baker format, which is the last five frames (frames 6 to 10).
At present, all participants receive at-large bids, but it is proposed that automatic qualifiers be awarded to conference champions, starting in 2018.
Source:
A total of 77 teams are competing in 2016–17, up from 71 in 2015–16:
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