The final weekend of the men’s college regular season resulted in 22 conference champions clinching automatic berths into the NCAA Division I Men’s Tournament, which begins on Friday.
The NCAA Division I men’s committee must decide by this afternoon the other 26 teams that will complete the 48-team field. The teams will be announced on ESPNEWS’s NCAA Selection Show between 4-5 p.m. ET (1-2 p.m. PT).
There was bad news for teams on the bubble as at least two at-large slots were lost over the weekend when teams with no shot of gaining at-large bids beat out teams that must settle for at-large bids: Horizon champion Loyola (Ill.), which beat UIC in a shootout in the semifinals, and Patriot champion Bucknell, which also downed Lehigh on PKs in the semifinals. Rhode Island, which won its second straight Atlantic-10 title with a 2-0 win over Saint Louis, might not have otherwise made the NCAA Tournament. SLU will surely get an at-large berth.
The team that took the worst hit over the weekend was probably Denver, which went into its final two games with the MPSF lead but lost, 2-0, at UNLV — the first win in 17 games for new coach Mario Sanchez! — then at New Mexico, 3-0, to give the Lobos their third straight conference title.
Duke won its second straight ACC title with a 1-0 victory over Wake Forest, last week’s No. 1, on Mike Grella‘s golden goal to claim the No. 1 spot in the final Soccer America Top 25. SMU, which finished second, won the Conference USA title with a 3-0 win over Kentucky.
The hottest team entering the tournament could be St. John’s, which won four games, all by shutout, to win the Big East title. In the championship game, Adam Himeno‘s golden goal gave the Red Storm a 1-0 win over West Virginia, which would have claimed the top spot in the Soccer America rankings with a victory.
Five conference champions were crowned via golden goals. Besides Duke and St. John’s, America East champion Binghamton (goal by Barry Neville in the 100th minute), Missouri Valley champion Creighton (goal by Chris Schuler in the 96th minute) and Atlantic Sun champion Gardner-Webb (goal by Carlton Hughes in the 97th minute) won in overtime.
Hofstra claimed its third straight conference championship when it beat George Mason in a shootout to win the tough CAA.
MEN’S CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS
ACC: Duke
America East: Binghamton
Atlantic Soccer: Adelphi
Atlantic Sun: Gardner-Webb
Atlantic 10: Rhode Island
Big East: St. John’s
Big South: Winthrop
Big Ten: Indiana
Big West: UC Santa Barbara
CAA: Hofstra
Conference USA: SMU
Horizon: Loyola (Ill.)
Ivy: Harvard
MAAC: Fairfield
Mid-American: Northern Illinois
Mid-Continent: Western Illinois
Missouri Valley: Creighton
MPSF: New Mexico
Northeast: Monmouth
Pac-10: California (no automatic bid)
Patriot: Bucknell
Southern: UNC Greensboro
WCC: Santa Clara