Question re: NCAA Women's Soccer

MGW · July 29, 2002

I'm curious as to the way teams advance to the NCAA tourney. I ask because I read where the NCAA championships will this year be played in Austin. If we win the SBC, do we get an automatic invite? Or is there some kind of subregional/regional like in baseball? How close did we come to qualifying last year? How likely is it that we'll advance this year?

Thx in advance.

Reb UT '70 · July 29, 2002

We missed the Tourney by one game. If we'd beaten Denver in the SBC Tourney we would have gone instead of them. Each Conference tourney champion receives a bid and that leaves a fair amount of open invites. I think we were under consideration, but we didn't beat any ranked teams. We just didn't get to play them because of Sept. 11th. The only NCAA tourney team we played we beat, but that wasn't enough.

The SBC has a very good record against other conferences, or at lest the conference leaders do. The teams to watch this year will be Denver, FIU, and I think, Western Ky. USA has had some good teams as well, so we will have a tough schedule. The best indicator of how we will finish will be Denver. The bad news is we have to play there.

We were unlucky in the SBC tourney, but we also had a field size problem that worked against us. I think we will face the same thing again this year, because of our field size we will have a significant home field advantage and have problems on most away games. The exception will be SMU, we should have beaten them last spring, instead of a tie, and I think we will beat them when we play them this fall. They also have a short narrow field and so both teams will go head to head.

We have lost another starter over the summer, Adame has transferred to UT, and we might lose a couple more who were freshmen last year. I think we recruited some good kids, but the top recruit didn't sign. Still I think that last years class was a good one, if we don't lose any more, and I think we can expect to be in the hunt for a second championship ring and an NCAA bid.

BTW, Last year's Championship was held in Dallas at SMU, they didn't use their soccer fields, they used Ford Stadium, and I think they had pretty good crowds, even without the SMU counters.