USC Women's Soccer Draws 8th Overall Seed in NCAA Tournament
LOS ANGELES – The USC women's soccer team is headed to the NCAA Tournament for the seventh year in a row with the release of the full 48-team field today, drawing the eighth overall seed and a first round bye.
The Trojans (7-3-3) will face the winner of Ole Miss (10-5) and Bowling Green (6-1) in the second round of the tournament on April 30 at 3 p.m. USC's second-round game will be held in Wilmington, N.C. on the campus of UNC Wilmington. The subsequent rounds will all be in Cary, N.C. at WakeMed Soccer Park.
The entire 2021 tournament will be held in North Carolina in and around the Cary area. Games will be held on campus at Campbell, East Carolina and the UNC Wilmington, in addition to Bryan Park (Greensboro), J. Burt Gillette Athletic Complex (Wilson), Sportsplex (Mathews) and WakeMed Soccer Park (Cary).
Each of the first four rounds will be available to watch on NCAA.com, while semifinals will be broadcast live on ESPN2 and the final will be broadcast live on ESPNU.
Reaction from Head Coach @Kmcdane to the Trojans' postseason draw.
(BTW, USC is unbeaten since March 15. A streak of 7 matches to close the regular season.) ✌️ pic.twitter.com/STvkgCowES
— USC Women's Soccer (@USC_WSoccer) April 19, 2021
ROAD TO THE POSTSEASON
In a season already upended by the Covid-19 pandemic, USC was in an unusual position early in the year after dropping three of its first six games in the shortened 2020-21 campaign. Following their road loss to Colorado on March 15, however, the Trojans finished the year unbeaten, going 4-0-3 down the stretch. Two of USC's three draws came against No. 3 UCLA and the other was on the road at defending national champions Stanford.
The Trojans finished second in the always-loaded Pac-12 conference, going 6-3-2 in league play. USC was 3-0-2 against ranked opponents this year and spent the entire season ranked in the Top 25. The Trojans' lone non-conference win came against BYU, who grabbed the 12th overall seed in the bracket.
"We have to start thinking of North Carolina as our home."
Hear from @MckeownTara on what makes this year's tournament different. #FightOn pic.twitter.com/4q4lL7HgVw
— USC Women's Soccer (@USC_WSoccer) April 19, 2021
LOADED PAC-12
The Pac-12 was as tough as ever this spring, as evidenced by the league putting five teams into the NCAA Tournament to match the SEC and ACC for the most in the field. USC, UCLA, Arizona State and Washington all made the postseason. Two of the 16 national seeds were from the conference as well (USC, UCLA).
TOURNAMENT HISTORY
USC is making its 19th NCAA Postseason appearance this year and seventh straight since Keidane McAlpine took over the program in 2014. USC has won two National Championships in its history, becoming the first Pac-12 program to win a title in 2007 and then the first program from the conference to win a second title in 2016 (McAlpine's third year at the helm).
The Trojans have only missed the postseason nine times in the program's 28 year history and have advanced past at least the first round in 13 of its last 18 tournaments. Since 2015, USC has won at least one game in each tournament, most recently making it to the fourth round (quarterfinals) of the 2019 tournament.