I didn't think Akron had a chance of being outside the top 4. Wasn't Akron #2 in RPI going into the MAC tournament? Answering my own question, as of YESTERDAY: Notre Dame Akron Maryland Georgetown UCLA Saint Louis UCONN Marquette North Carolina New Mexico What the actual ********?
Ok Sandon, with Virginia and UCLA leading the pack as to consecutive tournament appearances (33 and 30 respectively I believe), how about updating that list oh great soccer sage/historian that you are? A bit off topic but wth.
Well I mean he did, it was a scheduled game then something happened and we had to find another OOC game. No clue why though.
0-4 vs. teams in the tournament. Creighton (twice), Akron and Indiana and even a bracket busting loss to Duke the last week of the season. Win over Rutgers and JMU but neither team consider. One thing to compete with the best teams in the nation another to win just one of the games. I am sure they are a good team but that is the way it is. One win against a tournament team gets them in.
You're probably right. They played Akron really well and played a really nice style. Style doesn't get you in though.
Not sure if any California teams deserved a bid or not and many of them probably didn't but I still believe there is some type of east -west coast bias in this voting.
I'm calling it now. UW is gonna knock off Akron 1-0 in the third round. Goal off a 50 yard flip throw in. Porter's boys will be shell shocked and won't know what hit them. Then UW's defense will smother them.
Stanford and Santa Clara can certainly afford to lose money considering their $50k a student tuition fees...
Maybe nothing . I'm just speaking in general terms. If there are teams wanting to buy themselves into a losers (NIT type)tournament, I'm sure those rich schools can afford it.
And how much of that do you think goes to the soccer budget? Look, I love college soccer but it loses money. The NCAA Tournament loses money. The regular season loses money. But they do those because the NCAA says they have to and because the revenue sports provided cash to pay the bill for the non-rev sports. But, these schools, even the private ones, have tight budgets and the last thing the ADs want to do is sponsor a meaningless post-season tournament that will lose money for the mediocre teams that weren't good enough for the NCAAs. The NIT, because of TV money, makes revenue for the schools, so it makes sense financially, if not really (any more) from a basketball sense. A soccer NIT would just add to the money the programs already lose their school.