College soccer will have a champion in less than a month. As the NCAA tournament begins, all it has are questions.
1. How much history is on the line for UCLA?
More than 400 days have come and gone since any team beat UCLA. More than 600 minutes of soccer have ticked off the clock since any team scored against UCLA. But as the top-seeded Bruins seek to become the first program other than North Carolina to win back-to-back championships, how long has it been since we had a favorite such as this?
That UCLA is undefeated is not, by itself, much of a marker. There have been 13 undefeated champions since the NCAA tournament began in 1982 -- most recently Stanford's 25-0-1 title-winning effort in 2011 -- and North Carolina's five perfect (unbeaten and untied) seasons rope off sizable territory even within that VIP club.
But think about UCLA's run in the context of the past two seasons, and the picture sharpens. At 41 games, the Bruins already own the sixth longest unbeaten streak in NCAA history and the longest by a team other than North Carolina. Of those better, only North Carolina's streak of 49 consecutive games without a loss in 2003-04 occurred this century.
Now consider that of the 15 champions between 1998 and 2012, beginning with the season Florida broke North Carolina's almost uninterrupted stranglehold on the title, only three of those teams allowed fewer than 12 goals the season in which they won the championship. That is to say even the best teams almost all allowed at least 12 goals.
UCLA has allowed 12 goals since the beginning of last season.
It doesn't make them unbeatable forever, though it has to this point, but UCLA is a team without a weakness. To beat the Bruins, you have to beat strength. You have to beat nine seniors. That group includes point producers Sam Mewis and Sarah Killion in the midfield, but it's the all-senior quintet of goalkeeper Katelyn Rowland and defenders Ally Courtnall, Abby Dahlkemper, Caprice Dydasco and Megan Oyster that sets the tone. If the attack is from time to time slow in starting (they've scored 32 of 54 goals after halftime), it is afforded that luxury by the impenetrable wall behind it.
They came in together as freshmen, they grew together through a coaching change, and they defend together.
It won't be a coronation. While other seeded teams play first-round opponents with RPIs north of 200, UCLA opens against San Diego, a top-50 team that forced the Bruins to play through the second half when the teams met earlier this season. Virginia looms as a possible quarterfinal opponent. That's a team that is at least as dangerous as the one UCLA edged in penalty kicks in last year's College Cup, after its own 85th-minute equalizer forced overtime.
But to win back-to-back titles means to win both as hunter and hunted. It's something no team outside Chapel Hill has done. That's the history on the line.
'It's obviously different this year because we're the No. 1 overall seed, and I know there is going to be a huge target on our backs,' Dahlkemper said. 'It's just exciting. I think we have all experienced this feeling and how special it is and how worth it in the end it really was. So I think by remembering that and focusing on one game at a time, we can find another way to be motivated and want to win again. And hopefully win again.
2. So why isn't the repeat a foregone conclusion?
Why Florida State can win: Hermann hopeful Dagny Brynjarsdottir might be the field's best aerial player, and she's just as good with the ball at her feet. She's surrounded by opportunistic front-runners and flank players who provide good service. But it's those who toil behind the attack who make Florida State a threat to win its first title. Since fullbacks Megan Campbell and Emma Koivisto returned from international duty and reunited on a full-time basis with center backs Kristin Grubka and Kirsten Crowley and holding midfielders Isabella Schmid and Michaela Hahn, Florida State has been close to impenetrable. And Campbell's long throw might be the college game's most dangerous set piece.
Why North Carolina can win: You're going to start doubting Anson Dorrance now? What was always going to be as close to a rebuilding season as they ever get in Chapel Hill only grew more challenging with injuries that ruled out key players such as Brooke Elby, Hanna Gardner and Alexa Newfield. The result is a team that isn't even averaging two goals per game but also didn't lose an ACC regular-season game. Katie Bowen and Satara Murray anchor what remains a good defense, depth abounds, and young players such as Joanna Boyles, Emily Bruder, Megan Buckingham and Cameron Castleberry are capable of moments of brilliance. This team shouldn't win it all. That doesn't mean it won't.
Why Stanford can win: No team knows UCLA better than its conference rival, even if that knowledge has been largely frustrating of late. Until the Cardinal conceded two goals in the regular-season finale against California, they were neck-and-neck with the Bruins as the nation's stingiest elite defense. In fact, the goals they scored against each other in UCLA's 2-1 win in October represent a quarter of the total goals the teams allowed this season.
Why Texas A&M can win: There is a first time for everything. The most successful program never to reach the College Cup, Texas A&M gets a chance to separate itself from that history without leaving the comforts of Kyle Field, home to one of the best atmospheres in college soccer. If they get to Boca Raton, they might be the only team that has a senior class that can match up with the one belonging to UCLA. Eight seniors regularly start for the Aggies, led by the attacking talents of Allie Bailey, Bianca Brinson, Shea Groom, Annie Kunz and Kelley Monogue.
Why Virginia can win: It will likely get the first chance, thanks to the selection committee's baffling -- some would say inexcusable -- decision to place a team that lost just twice this season and recently welcomed back the nation's best player from extended international duty in the same part of the bracket as UCLA. Common sense should have been enough to keep these two teams apart. With Morgan Brian back in the lineup, Virginia has a spine down the center of the field that rivals UCLA and any other team in the tournament, from goalkeeper Morgan Stearns through center back Emily Sonnett, midfielders Danielle Colaprico and Brian, and forward Makenzy Doniak.
3. Why should you know Rachel Tejada's name?
It's only natural to play the look-ahead game once the bracket is in our hands. The ultimate point of all those lines, after all, is to end up with one team holding the trophy Dec. 7 in Boca Raton, Florida. But for all they screw up (ahem, Virginia-UCLA quarterfinal), one of the best things the NCAA powers-that-be ever did was tweak the schedule to give the first round of the tournament a weekend unto itself at 32 sites across the country. It's a weekend to breathe.
Not every game is a classic, not every site draws a crowd, but instead of a frenzied rush to push 48 teams out the door, the first round becomes a chance to shine the spotlight on players and teams whose seasons deserve it.
That was the case the first year of the new format, when Wisconsin-Milwaukee hosted Illinois State in a first-round game on a cold night that felt as much like early winter as late fall at tiny Moynihan Field. That night gave fans in Wisconsin, not to mention college soccer generally, a chance to celebrate Sarah Hagen, the All-American who finished her college career the following week with the ninth most career goals in NCAA history. The other team on the field that night was Illinois State, making just its second NCAA tournament appearance and first for any of its players. The Redbirds kept it closer than the 3-0 final score suggested, but the night belonged to Hagen, not Illinois State freshman Rachel Tejada, who was coming off a debut season in which she set school and conference records for goals.
'I kind of felt like it was the senior goal scorer's night to shine,' Illinois State coach Drew Roff recalled. 'Deep down, I remember thinking someday that was going to be Tejada. Sure enough, she's had a lot of those moments since.'
Tejada won't get an opportunity to play at home this weekend, but she will be part of the NCAA tournament for the fourth consecutive season when Illinois State travels to play South Florida, a streak that matches her run of Missouri Valley Player of the Year awards. She scored four goals in two conference tournament games this past weekend and remains the Division I active career leader with 72 goals, nine more than any other player. She is just four goals shy of the top 25 in career goals. That the person she would need to dislodge to join that list is former Seton Hall and current England star Kelly Smith tells you something about the quality it contains.
'When you watch her play, the first thing you notice is just the competitive edge that she brings,' Roff said. 'I really was expecting her to be at her best this [past] weekend because I know the legacy that she wants to leave behind. She's very aware of what's she meant to our program and what she's meant to our athletic department as a whole.'
Like Hagen, Tejada slipped through the recruiting cracks. She was often a defender for her club team, but Hoff saw her score two goals in a matter of minutes as a forward and counted his blessings when the Big Ten and others never came calling. For four seasons, Tejada took everything thrown at her -- from the man marking that was to be expected to the hair pulling and jersey pulling that speak less of opponents -- and just kept scoring goals.
A season ago, Illinois State drew 1-1 at Louisville in the first round and advanced to the second round on penalty kicks. All that's left on Tejada's watch is to claim is the program's first official NCAA tournament win.
'She's a catalyst for what we do. She's our leader,' Roff said. 'She's a superstar. That's what she is.'
She's what the weekend ahead is all about.
4. What are the best first-round games?
Clemson at No. 3 South Carolina: This is a brutal first-round game for a host that is, by seed, one of the top 12 teams in the tournament. Perhaps that is fitting because it was a brutal game when the in-state rivals met in September. Clemson won that game 1-0, a big reason the team is in this tournament to begin with, but the real story of the game came from 32 fouls and seven yellow cards, with the infractions split almost evenly between the two sides. It really wasn't a dirty game, but it was very physical from teams that rely on defense. And that was the regular season.
Dayton at Virginia Tech: It's the game for goals. Virginia Tech ranks fifth in the nation in scoring, while Dayton checks in at No. 42. Fhe Flyers can keep up even on the road against quality competition. Their 4-3 loss at Texas A&M the opening week of the season still ranks as arguably the year's wildest game, with the final three goals scored in a span of 81 seconds in the closing minutes. The Hokies are a sleeper, unseeded because of close ACC losses and a weak schedule out of conference, and this test could restart their engines -- if they pass it.
USC at No. 4 Pepperdine: Geography is not kind to teams from the West Coast. With the NCAA looking for as few flights as possible for teams in the first round, the lack of a low-RPI automatic qualifier west of the Rockies creates a world in which No. 1 UCLA is paired in the first round with San Diego, while Harvard, which was ranked below San Diego in last week's RPI, gets Central Connecticut State. It also means Pepperdine is rewarded for its national seed with a rematch against USC, which beat Arizona, Notre Dame, Washington and Washington State this season. The Waves have one of the tournament's special talents in Lynn Williams and beat USC once, but this won't be easy.
DePaul at No. 4 Wisconsin: The polls say it's No. 13 DePaul at No. 11 Wisconsin. But look at it this way, if you're the Badgers: If you had to draw one of the tournament's two undefeated teams in the first round, you would rather it be DePaul than UCLA. That's the only silver lining for the Big Ten tournament champions, who welcome the undefeated Big East regular-season and tournament champion to Madison. Between DePaul's Alexa Ben and Wisconsin's Rose Lavelle and Kinley McNicoll, there will be a lot of midfield talent with a lot of eligibility remaining on the field.
5. Which snubbed team has the most right to complain?
This is often an afterthought category because it's difficult to get into too much of a frenzy about which team deserved to be No. 64. But when you look at a bracket that doesn't include Boston College, Michigan or Santa Clara, powers of varying historical significance for whom the bubbles burst, it's a question that will be discussed.
The most surprising omission of the three might be Santa Clara, an admittedly shaky 46th in RPI a week ago. The Broncos lost a pair of one-goal decisions against Cal, including an overtime loss at home, and by the same margin at Pepperdine, but they beat Dayton and San Diego and didn't lose to a team that failed to make the tournament. Maybe the luster of a former champion with 10 College Cup appearances skews perception, but that feels like enough to earn a place at the expense of Georgetown or San Diego, which helped its cause by beating Pepperdine.
But the reality is Santa Clara, Boston College and Michigan all had opportunities to make cases in the regular season but couldn't find the necessary wins. The team that really ought to feel aggrieved -- and this is now an annual lament -- is Stephen F. Austin. The Ladyjacks did win the games they were supposed to win in the regular season. They went 11-0-0 in the Southland. That means the current seniors lost just one regular-season conference game in the entirety of their careers. But because Stephen F. Austin lost a conference championship game it didn't even host as a reward for its regular-season dominance, its season is over prematurely for the third time in four years.
It's time to end the sham of tying NCAA tournament automatic bids to conference tournaments. If conferences want to stage tournaments to give more athletes postseason soccer (because those tournaments sure aren't moneymaking operations), bully for them. Like the FA Cup in English soccer, the conference tournament can become a prize of its own. But it shouldn't come at the expense of the integrity of the regular season those leagues just contested.
We can argue about which teams were left out, but Stephen F. Austin earned its way in.
Shame on the Southland Conference and the NCAA for pretending otherwise.
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