NCAA 2014 Tournament - UCLA vs Virginia in the final on Sun

[p_malinich]

Live selection show of 48 teams will be broadcast live online today at 12:00.

I believe that the show should be visible on this page closer to the time.

[p_malinich]

By virtue of winning their conference championships, I believe that these 23 schools will get automatic bids.  The other 25 are awarded by the Selection Committee using Power Ratings (and other criteria).

CONFERENCE	CHAMPION
America East	UMBC
American Athletic	Tulsa
Atlantic 10	Fordham
Atlantic Coast	Clemson
Atlantic Sun	FGCU
Big East	Providence
Big South	Coastal Carolina
Big Ten	Maryland
Big West	Cal State Fullerton
Colonial Athletic Assoc	James Madison
Conference USA	Old Dominion
Horizon League	Oakland
Ivy League	Dartmouth
Metro Atlantic Athletic	Monmouth
Mid-American	Akron
Missouri Valley	Southern Illinois
Northeast	St. Francis (NY)
Pacific-12	(no tournament - not sure how selected)
Patriot League	Bucknell
Southern	Furman
Summit League	Denver
Sun Belt	Hartwick
West Coast	San Diego
Western Athletic	UNLV

[p_malinich]

Just saw a better selection show link on Twitter...

www.ncaa.com/live/player?vid=2014/1832&date=2014/11/17

[p_malinich]

Despite losing in the ACC semi's in a shootout, Notre Dame carries the #1 seed into the NCAA tourney.

#2 seed went to PAC-12 league winner, UCLA.

#3 seed went to Big 10 contender Michigan State, who lost in a shootout to Maryland in the Big 10 semi-finals.

Fellow Big 10'ers Maryland was awarded the #4 seed.

You can see the full bracket here.

[p_malinich]

As far as conference strength, here's how many spots were awarded to each conference,  Every conference winner (and there are 24 conferences) is automatically guaranteed a spot in the tourney.

Atlantic Coast (ACC) - 7
Big 10 - 6
Pac 12 - 5
Big East and Conf USA - 4 each
Atlantic 10, Big West, and Colonial AA - 2 each
Other 16 conferences - 1 spot each

[p_malinich]

Andrew Tarbell and Clemson host Coastal Carolina tonight at 5pm (Central) in the final game of Round 2.  You can watch it for free on ESPN3.

Coastal Carolina at Clemson

[p_malinich]

Nov 24, 2014 17:03:10 GMT -6 p_malinich said:

Andrew Tarbell and Clemson host Coastal Carolina tonight at 5pm (Central) in the final game of Round 2.  You can watch it for free on ESPN3.

Coastal Carolina at Clemson

A wild 3 minutes right before the half resulted in giving Clemson a 1-0 lead.

[p_malinich]

Nov 24, 2014 18:19:09 GMT -6 p_malinich said:

Nov 24, 2014 17:03:10 GMT -6 p_malinich said:

Andrew Tarbell and Clemson host Coastal Carolina tonight at 5pm (Central) in the final game of Round 2.  You can watch it for free on ESPN3.

Coastal Carolina at Clemson

A wild 3 minutes right before the half resulted in giving Clemson a 1-0 lead.

Clemson went ahead 2-0 before giving up a goal.  Final - Clemson wins 2-1 and advances to next round.

[p_malinich]

And then there were 16...  

After 2 rounds of play, the ACC is still the dominant conference with 6 teams (Clemson, Louisville, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Syracuse, and Virginia) still in the tournament. Wake Forest was the lone ACC eliminated. They lost to UMBC in the first round in a shootout after a scoreless game.  Last year 3 of the 4 semi-finalists were ACC teams.

The Big East is now the 2nd most represented conference with all 4 of their teams (Creighton, Georgetown, Providence, and Xavier) advancing into the 3rd round.

The Pac-12 still has 3 of their 5 teams (California, UCLA, and Washington) in the hunt.

The Big 10 took the biggest hit as 5 of their 6 teams lost in the first 2 rounds. Their sole remaining representative is #3 Michigan State who will next face #14 Washington.

The Big West still has 1 of their 2 teams left in UC Irvine who defeated UNLV in the first round and then upset #6 Stanford in the second round.

The lone contender from America East is still in the hunt. UMBC knocked off Wake Forest in a shootout in the first round and then beat last year's finalist Maryland in a narrow 1-0 victory.

The full bracket can be seen here.

[p_malinich]

And on to the Elite 8...  

Yesterday's results:
* #16 Virginia upset #1 Notre Dame 1-0
* #3 Michigan State held on to win in a shootout over #14 Washington
* #8 Georgetown beat #9 Syracuse in overtime 2-1 (after trailing much of the game)
* #11 Providence beat unranked UC Irvine 1-0
* #12 Creighton outlasted unranked Xavier 2-1
* Unranked UNC beat ACC rival Clemson 2-1
* Unranked UMBC continues their winning ways adding a 1-0 upset of Louisville to their resume
* #2 UCLA beat #15 California 3-2

After 3 rounds of play,
* The Big East is now the top conference with 3 of their teams advancing into the quarters.
* The ACC only has 2 teams remaining (4 fell short in last round).  #16 and unseeded.
* The Big 10's lone remaining representative Michigan State is still alive
* The Pac-12 has 1 surviving representative from the last round
* The lone contender from America East is still in the hunt accumulating quite a list of wins.

The full bracket can be seen here.

[p_malinich]

This weekend's games (all times Central):

Friday @ 7:00pm: ur UMBC @ #12 Creighton
Saturday @ 11:00am: #11 Providence @ #3 Michigan State
Saturday @ 12:00n: #16 Virginia @ #8 Georgetown
Saturday @ 7:00pm: ur North Carolina @ #2 UCLA

For what it's worth, I would've started a pick 'em competition, but in Patrick Mullins absence, there isn't as much interest as last year.

[p_malinich]

UNC came within 1 missed shot in a shootout from putting 2 unranked teams into the semi-finals. They went down a man to a red card 20 minutes into the game, but managed to find the back of the net to lead 1-0 at half. UCLA came back to score in the 69', 70', and 75' to take a 3-1 lead. UNC immediately came back with a PAIR of goals in the 78'. 3-3 carried into OT and then to a shootout. It was the 8th round when UCLA scored the victory 3-3 (7-6).

Unranked UMBC added another top team (#12 Creighton) to its list of underdog wins on the road in this year's tourney. They won 4-3 in a shootout following a 0-0 game.

While the ACC placed 3 semi-finalists in last year's tourney, this year Virginia is the only one still standing. They came in ranked at #16 and knocked off #8 Georgetown 5-4 in a shootout following a 1-1 game.

#11 Providence staged an upset of #3 Michigan State and did so in the weekend's only game that didn't require extra time. Providence won 3-2 to advance to the semi-finals.

So the ACC, Big East, America East, and PAC-12 each have 1 entry in the semi-finals on Friday in Cary, NC. Championship will take place on Sunday.

[loJic]

Thanks for keeping us in the loop

[p_malinich]

#16 Virginia (ACC) advances 1-0 over unranked UMBC (America East) in the first of tonight's semi-finals.

#11 Providence and #2 UCLA meet at 7:30 in Cary, NC at 6:30 Central on ESPN3.com in the other semi-final.

[p_malinich]

#2 UCLA appeared to be in charge of the game with #11 Providence for most of the first half & scored a goal in the 43' to carry a 1-0 lead into halftime.

Providence found some spunk in the 2nd half and scored in the 65' and 74'to take a 2-1 lead. Both goals scored by Sophomore Mac Steeves. But what had the potential of an upset got re-directed in the 81' when Providence found the equalizer.

Game went into 20 minutes of Golden Goal Extra Time. In the 105' UCLA takes a shot that looks like it will go wide, but defender (also the captain) attempts to clear in re-directed the ball into his own net. UCLA gets the win & will face Virginia on Sunday in the NCAA final.

[warrior16]

Virginia wins the title on PKs. 0-0 in regulation. It's not too often I don't enjoy watching soccer , but for this one I want the two hours of my life back. That game was even more boring than the putrid Iran-Nigeria match during the World Cup and ironically the two matches were neatly identical. One team (Virginia) had no interest in holding the ball, keeping almost their entire team behind the ball at all times. The other team (UCLA) had at least 70% possession but struggled completing even simple passes and could not find the back of the net. The Cavs were obviously settling for PKs from the beginning so credit to them for achieving their goal and making the most of it, but it did not make for good television, that's for sure. Hopefully next year's champions will actually try to win in regulation ... Congrats to the Cavs regardless.

[p_malinich]

Dec 15, 2014 1:21:02 GMT -6 warrior16 said:

Virginia wins the title on PKs. 0-0 in regulation. It's not too often I don't enjoy watching soccer , but for this one I want the two hours of my life back. That game was even more boring than the putrid Iran-Nigeria match during the World Cup and ironically the two matches were neatly identical. One team (Virginia) had no interest in holding the ball, keeping almost their entire team behind the ball at all times. The other team (UCLA) had at least 70% possession but struggled completing even simple passes and could not find the back of the net. The Cavs were obviously settling for PKs from the beginning so credit to them for achieving their goal and making the most of it, but it did not make for good television, that's for sure. Hopefully next year's champions will actually try to win in regulation ... Congrats to the Cavs regardless.

Thanks for the update on this one.  I did not get the opportunity to see it.  Having watched most of both semi's, I would've given the edge to UCLA (and maybe Virginia did as well).

Last year it was an ACC-dominated Final 4 (3 of them), but this year it was only Virginia.  That said, Virginia's win makes it 7 Championships out of the last 10 years for ACC teams.  That's not quite as impressive as Messiah's run (10 D3 National Championships in 15 years on Men's side and 5 in 10 years on Women's side), but it's still pretty solid.