I realized interest is low this year since we are not in it, but I thought I would start a thread on the NCAA Tournament.
We were 2-7-1 against teams in the tournament. Looks like Alabama was the last team in.
9 teams from the ACC, 7 from the SEC. 5 ACC teams seeded; 3 SEC teams seeded.
4 teams from Texas, but that will be 2 after this weekend with tu playing at SMU and Prairie View A&M playing at TCU.

Alabama, which was probably the last team invited, upsets Clemson at Clemson for what they said was their first ever NCAA tournament win.

1 seed Duke scores with 16 seconds left on a free kick just outside the box to beat Old Dominion 1-0, and 4 seed Auburn loses at home to Samford 2-0.

Tough day for the SEC as Mississippi also loses on their home field when St. Louis scored a goal with 1:25 left to win 2-1. 2 seed UCLA lost their first game of the year to UC Irvine 1-0.

Wow. South Carolina beats 2 seed UNC 1-0. I think that is the first time UNC has lost in the first round. The UNC keeper just froze on the winning goal from a shot just inside the 18 yard line.

The winners with the 2-seeds losing are USC and Georgetown which now get to host 2nd and 3rd round games. USC would have gone to Chapel Hill and Georgetown would have gone to Westwood.

Wes Hart is still a <insert pejorative here>.

In his 10 years with SMU, our good friend Chris Petrucelli is 0-1 in the NCAA Tournament. He'll face his old Longhorns on Saturday.

First round is complete. By my count 8 teams lost on their home field: Xavier, UNC, UCLA, Auburn, Brown, Mississippi, Clemson and South Florida. The biggest upset using RPI rank was UC Irvine (110) over UCLA (13) followed by St. Louis (107) over Mississippi (23). UNC (7) was the highest ranked team to lose, losing to South Carolina (40). Seeing Stanford, UNC and UCLA lose in the first round is surprising because they seem to have top 5 recruiting classes every year.

TCU to the Final Four. Gonna go ahead and call my shot now.

Second round started today. 4-seed BYU blasted Alabama 4-1 and 1-seed Virginia beat Milwaukee 2-0. The Georgetown pod tomorrow is being played at 2 sites. UC Irvine and Wisconsin are playing at George Mason University. I think the issue is there are no lights at the Georgetown stadium.

Wow. The PAC-12 is eliminated in the 2nd round. Washington State lost to UT and Southern Cal lost a PK shootout to Penn State. Chris Henderson of All White Kit tweeted that is the first time the PAC-12 has been eliminated this early since1998.

3-seed Georgetown and 3-seed Southern Cal, who benefited from UCLA and North Carolina losing last week, blew their unexpected home field advantage. Georgetown lost to Santa Clara 2-1 in OT, and Southern Cal lost a PK shootout to Penn State after a 2-2 draw. So now Wisconsin will play Santa Clara in Washington DC, and Penn State will play South Carolina in Los Angeles. There were 2 other PK shootouts in the second round with St. Johns beating Samford and Notre Dame beating Purdue. There are 2 teams with RPIs in the 40s in the Sweet 16, South Carolina (40), Wisconsin (41) and St. Johns (46). 4 teams left from the Big 10 and ACC, and 3 from the SEC and WCC. We lost to 5 of the Sweet 16 teams: FSU, Arkansas, UT, TCU and Pepperdine.

4-seed BYU upset 1-seed Virginia 1-0 and will now host either South Carolina or Penn State next week with a chance to go to the College Cup.

Don't see FSU losing to anyone now that all the big teams are out. Santa Clara isn't as strong as last year so I think the Noles are easy favorites now.

TCU would have gone to the Elite 8 if they hadn't had their 5th and 6th kicks blocked in the PK shootout at Rutgers.
2 ACC teams, 2 SEC teams, 2 Big10 teams and 2 WCC teams in the final 8. Lowest RPI team left is South Carolina who was at 40. May be the first time a 4-seed team has hosted in the quarterfinal with BYU hosting South Carolina. Wonder if Santa Clara will just stay on the east coast since they go to Duke next after playing in Washington DC today. Santa Clara played the last 29.5 minutes today with 10 players and scored the winner with 8 minutes left. As I write this Duke has not yet won but they are up 5 to 1.

There will be 2 No. 1 seeds in the College Cup. FSU scored in the 100th minute to beat Michigan 1-0, and Rutgers won a PK shootout against Arkansas after tying at 2-2. Santa Clara scored 2 first half goals and held on to beat 1-seed Duke 2-1. Sarah Piper, younger sister of Grace Piper, played 20 minutes in the game.
Not sure if a non-seeded team has made the College Cup like Santa Clara just did.
South Carolina plays at BYU tomorrow night for the last spot.

If BYU wins at Santa Clara, the College Cup Final will be moved to Monday.

Chris Henderson of All White Kit tweeted last night that BYU is the 34th program to make the College Cup with their 4-1 win over South Carolina. Only 3 of those 34 are from the SEC: Florida in 1998 and 2001, us in 2014 and South Carolina in 2017. 2 teams from the West Coast Conference in the College Cup this weekend.

I think the NCAA plans for this but I think this is the closest it has has come to actually happening.

Watched FSU win 1-0 over Rutgers.
Missed the later game. BYU advanced on PKs (3-2) after a scoreless draw.

Championship Monday incoming.

BYU/SC game had a great atmosphere because SC playing on their home field, but BYU deserved the win in PKs because they outplayed the defending champs most of the night. FSU has to feel good about their chances now. BYU will have the fans though as I bet that whole school travels to the game on Monday night.

In watching the sweet sixteen, elite eight, and final four games it becomes very clear that the skill level of the teams and players is so much higher than the current Aggies team. Across the board we simply did not have the skill level to keep up with these teams. The A&M team does have a handful of players that could compete almost anywhere and, I believe, our incoming recruits for 2022, will further raise our level of competitiveness.

The players on the the top sixteen teams possessed a skill level and comfort level on the ball that we did not come close to this season. They also possessed a depth of talent we did not seem to have where the substitutes did not weaken the play when they came in the field. When we brought players on as substitutes, there was a fairly clear drop off in quality with most of these players. Although they are very fine athletes, pure athleticism isn't enough to be successful at this level. Our players should be working very hard on their skills in the off-season.

If the newcomers can make the transition to the college game, which is not easy, the team should have a much more successful 2022 campaign.

Aggie Futbol said:

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In watching the sweet sixteen, elite eight, and final four games it becomes very clear that the skill level of the teams and players is so much higher than the current Aggies team. Across the board we simply did not have the skill level to keep up with these teams. The A&M team does have a handful of players that could compete almost anywhere and, I believe, our incoming recruits for 2022, will further raise our level of competitiveness.

The players on the the top sixteen teams possessed a skill level and comfort level on the ball that we did not come close to this season. They also possessed a depth of talent we did not seem to have where the substitutes did not weaken the play when they came in the field. When we brought players on as substitutes, there was a fairly clear drop off in quality with most of these players. Although they are very fine athletes, pure athleticism isn't enough to be successful at this level. Our players should be working very hard on their skills in the off-season.

If the newcomers can make the transition to the college game, which is not easy, the team should have a much more successful 2022 campaign.

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A lot of this is because we've had some misses on evals. It happens. Coach G has been relatively good finding under the radar prospects and rarely misses on the ones ranked highly, but this year unfortunately we had some that didn't meet expectations. Maybe that will change with development, but we're in a rebuild now and have to rely on the '22 class and hopefully some high level transfers (for ex: Taylor Ziemer).

Florida St. and BYU are tied at 0-0 after 2 OT.

Shame deciding the national champion on PKs...again.

CDub06 said:

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Shame deciding the national champion on PKs...again.

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What alternative do you suggest?

A replay? That would be an expensive proposition, requiring multiple extra hotel days, another day of renting the stadium, inconvenience for fans, more interference with finals, etc.

Unlimited overtime? That would just lead to really bad soccer by exhausted players at some point, likely leading to a fluke win.

What's a realistic alternative to PKs after 20 minutes of OT?