Akron and West Virginia Selected for NCAA Tournament
NCAA Men's Soccer Championship Bracket
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - No. 12 West Virginia & No. 16 Akron have earned bids to the 2018 NCAA Men's Soccer Championship. The Mountaineers will host LIU Brooklyn, while the Zips will welcome Rider to campus. Both matches will take place Thursday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. ET. A total of forty-eight teams were selected to this year's NCAA Tournament, with 24 conference champions receiving automatic bids and 24 at-large berths. The top 16 teams, which are seeded, received a first round bye.
The Mountaineers (13-6-0) are in the NCAA Tournament for the 13th time in program history and the first time since 2011. WVU earned an at-large berth after winning its first Mid-American Conference regular-season title with a perfect 5-0-0 record. West Virginia enters the NCAA Tournament having won 11 of its last 14 matches and is one of two teams in the country to finish the season unbeaten and untied in conference play. West Virginia is making its fifth NCAA Tournament appearance in LeBlanc's tenure. The 2018 MAC Coach of the Year, LeBlanc guided the Mountaineers to the NCAA Second Round in 2006, 2010 and 2011 and a third-round appearance in 2007.
West Virginia enters the NCAA Tournament with 13 wins, the most since a 14-win campaign in 2007 and two shy of the program record of 15, set in 2006. West Virginia is ranked No. 18 in this week's TopDrawerSoccer.com rankings, while WVU came in at No. 12 in last week's United Soccer Coaches poll and No. 15 in the Soccer America rankings, which both are released on Tuesdays.
Akron (10-6-2) earned its seventh consecutive league tournament title with a 3-0 triumph over Western Michigan on Sunday and will be making its 12th straight and 33rd overall NCAA Tournament appearance. When postseason play begins, the Zips will join an elite group of just four Division I programs that have qualified for the NCAA Championships in each of the past 12 seasons. Only Indiana, Maryland, and Virginia can share that claim.
The Zips, who have won four-consecutive matches, will be making their 33rd all-time appearance in the NCAA postseason. Akron has advanced to the round of 16 in seven of the last 10 seasons and captured the school's first national championship in any sport in 2010.
The final four teams in the bracket will advance to the College Cup in Santa Barbara, California. The semifinals are on Dec. 7, while the national championship match is on Dec. 9. All three College Cup contests will be nationally-televised on ESPNU.
