2020–21 NCAA Division I women's basketball season
The 2020–21 NCAA Division I women's basketball season began in November 2020 and ended with the championship game of the 2021 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas on April 4, 2021. Practices officially began in October 2020. Conference membership changes. Ten schools joined new conferences for the 2020–21 season, including four transitioning from Division II. Arenas. Arenas of new D-I teams. Three of the four new D-I members for this season use existing on-campus facilities: The other D-I newcomer , Bellarmine, announced a multi-year deal with the Kentucky State Fair Board on November 2, 2020 to play home games at Freedom Hall, located at the Kentucky Exposition Center near Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. Before the opening of the downtown KFC Yum! Center in 2010, Freedom Hall had been the full-time home of Louisville men's basketball for more than 50 years, and had also been at least the part-time home of Louisville women's basketball since that team's establishment in 1975. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, Bellarmine could only seat 300 at its on-campus facility , Knights Hall. With Freedom Hall's basketball capacity of 18,252, the Knights were able to seat 2,700. Temporary arenas. "To be added." Season outlook. Pre-season polls. The top 25 from the AP and USA Today Coaches Polls. Regular season. Early season tournaments. Early season tournaments are TBA, although many have canceled and others are unlikely to occur. Upsets. An upset is a victory by an underdog team. In the context of NCAA Division I Women's Basketball, this generally constitutes an unranked team defeating a team currently ranked in the Top 25. This list will highlight those upsets of  ranked teams by unranked teams as well as upsets of #1 teams. Rankings are from the AP poll. Bold type indicates winning teams in "true road games"—i.e., those played on an opponent's home court (including secondary homes). Conference winners and tournaments. Each of the 31 Division I athletic conferences that played in 2020–21 ended its regular season with a single-elimination tournament. The team with the best regular-season record in each conference was given the number one seed in each tournament, with tiebreakers used as needed in the case of ties for the top seeding. Unless otherwise noted , the winners of these tournaments received automatic invitations to the 2021 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament. Postseason. NCAA Tournament. Tournament upsets. For this list, an "upset" is defined as a win by a team seeded 7 or more spots below its defeated opponent. Award winners. All-America teams. The NCAA has never recognized a consensus All-America team in women's basketball. This differs from the practice in men's basketball, in which the NCAA uses a combination of selections by the Associated Press (AP), the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), the "Sporting News", and the United  States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) to determine a consensus All-America team. The selection of a consensus team is possible because all four organizations select at least a first and second team, with only the USBWA not selecting a third team. Before the 2017–18 season, it was impossible for a consensus women's All-America team to be determined because the AP had been the only body that divided its women's selections into separate teams. The USBWA first named separate teams in 2017–18. The women's counterpart to the NABC, the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA), continues the  USBWA's former practice of selecting a single 10-member (plus ties) team. The NCAA does not recognize "Sporting News" as an All-America selector in women's basketball.