Men’s Soccer NCAA Tourney Preview
Image courtesy of Oregon State Athletics
Making a prediction regarding a sporting event is tough. A team can fall apart for reasons that have little to do with the sport itself, and then you end up on @OldTakesExposed or some other Twitter feed looking like a dummy. I once wrote a blog post about why the Beavs would be better after Quizz declared for the NFL. We went out that fall and lost to Sacramento State in our first game. I was wrong.
That’s why it’s so fun when you’re right! I predicted we’d be better than our early season record implied, and that has borne fruit. There were a few (OK, a lot) more ties than I expected, but just like last year, we finished Pac-12 play with only one road loss on the season. For the second straight year, we had a player named conference player of the year, with Joran Gerbet taking home the honors. He was the conference freshman player of the year last year. Other Beavers honored by the conference were first teamers Clarence Awoudor and Mouhameth Thiam, second teamers Javier Armas and Gael Gibert, and honorable mentions Dante Williams and Nicklas Lund. After starting the season 1-2-1, the Beavs closed 6-1-5. The number of ties was a new school record, but this was also the first season that NCAA regular season games did not include two 10-minute overtime periods, so that could have contributed to the strange number of ties.
The important thing to note is that OSU went 5-0-2 this year against ranked opponents, including last week’s takedown of the top ranked Huskies at Husky Soccer Stadium. OSU is now 3-0 in the Emerald City over the past three seasons, while every other team is 0-26-2 vs. the Huskies in Seattle over that span. The Beavs went from ranked 50th in RPI all the way up to 10th in the final standings, and earned a national seed in the NCAA Tourney.
The 8th seeded Beavs will face off against the winner of Cal State University Riverside and the University of Portland. The Highlanders and Pilots will face off at Merlo Field in Portland on Thursday night. UC-Riverside won the Big West regular season title and the Big West tournament this year. Like the Beavs, the Highlanders finished the season on a high note, going 7-1-2 in their last 10 matches after starting the season 1-6-2. Riverside was not great away from home, going 2-6-2 on the road this year.
The Pilots went 12-2-3 on the year, finishing second in the West Coast Conference to San Diego. The Pilots were a dominating 9-0-1 at home on the year and handled the Beavs with ease in a preseason affair, winning 4-0. During the regular season at Lorenz it was a different story, with OSU prevailing 3-2.
I would expect Portland to be able to hold serve at home, setting up a rubber match with the Beavs on Sunday at Lorenz. While a third game against a strong opponent gives me reason to fret, I expect the Beavs to continue their strong play of late and advance to the Round of 16, where they would get another home game vs. whomever comes out of the Lipscomb pod. Lipscomb may not be a household name, but they’ve put up some pretty strong results against teams in the field, defeating Louisville (in an exhibition) and St. Louis, drawing against Memphis, and dropping a tight 3-2 game against No. 1 overall seed Kentucky in Lexington. Lipscomb finished the year 7th in the RPI, and would pose a significant obstacle in the Beavers quest to return to the Elite Eight this season.
So, while I said predictions are a tough business, we’ll choose to borrow a phrase from an old football coach and “live in the hard” here. The Beavs will dispatch Portland and Lipscomb over the next two weekends to set up a battle with the top seeded Wildcats in Kentucky. Today I learned that only two SEC schools have men’s soccer, Kentucky and South Carolina. They both compete in the Sun Belt Conference. I won’t speak for the Belligerent Beavs at large….actually yes I will. This is super weird, and based on that I will say that the Beavs prevail and advance to North Carolina for their first College Cup. JP, please play five seconds of “Raise Up” by Petey Pablo!
