Does anyone know how many conferences get an auotmatic bid to the men's NCAA soccer tournament, and, which conferences they are? Thanks in advance.
There are 20 automatic bids (unless something has changed from last year. They are: America East ACC Atlantic 10 Atlantic Sun Big East Big South Big Ten Conference Colonial Athletic Association Conference USA Horizon League Ivy League Metro Atlantic Athletic Mid-American Mid-Continent Missouri Valley Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Northeast Patriot League Southern West Coast Conference
Thanks k1v1n. By my count, there are 23 conferences playing soccer this fall - the 20 you listed and the Atlantic Soccer Conference, Big West Conference and Pac 10. Is there any way to find out if those 3 conferences get an automatic bid this year and if they do, whether they would be taking the auto bid from another conference or if that means there would be fewer at-large bids.
Thanks for the link beineke. Lots of interesting stuff in that document besides the automatic bids. It looks like the Pac 10 and the Atlantic Soccer Conference are in, and the Big West is still out for a total of 22 teams. Does anyone know where to find who will represent each conference? Regular season or conference tournament champion?
The Big 10 conference tourney is the play-in for the NCAAs. Most often it comes down to Penn State or Indiana in the final. Runner up virtually automatically gets invited, unless by some fluke, say, a Northwestern made it that far.
If a conference has a tournament, the winner of the tournament is considered that conference's champion and gets the automatic bid. If the conference doesn't have a tournament then the regular season champion gets the automatic bid. Most conferences have a tournament. Ones that I know don't are the Pac 10, the Ivy League and the West Coast Conference. There may be a couple others but I can't think of them right now.