Part of the reason for Harvard's good fortune is the relative weakness of the Northeast Region. [NCAA women's soccer does not have the budget of NCAA men's basketball, which can fly teams across country to neutral sites.] But Harvard received favoritism within its own region, which can be seen by comparing the Crimson's situation with Princeton's.
The Tigers have to travel all the way to Wisconsin, and then play Connecticut, the Northeast's top-ranked team, a path much more difficult than the Crimson's.
Clearly, the NCAA smiled upon Harvard. The Crimson wasn't even close to being left out of this tournament. Why?
Three words: ratings-percentage index (RPI). The RPI is calculated based on a weighted average of a team's record, the records of a team's opponents, and the records of a team's opponents' opponents.
The recent trend in NCAA selections is that the RPI is everything.
All other comparisons--record against common opponents and head-to-head results--only matter when distinguishing between teams with relatively close results on the index.
You can't blame them for using such a simplistic method of comparison. It's not easy to accurately select and rank 48 teams.
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