Tennessee soccer has qualified for its 14th NCAA tournament as the No. 6 seed following the NCAA Selection Show.
The Selection Show that aired Monday afternoon on the NCAA website announced the 64 teams that would compete in this year’s national tournament with 31 of those being conference tournament champions. One of those teams was South Carolina, who defeated SEC regular season champion Alabama in Sunday’s championship game and secured an automatic bid into the draw.
As the dust settled from conference championships, many teams waited to see if they had done enough to get into the tournament, but only 33 spots were left.
The 64-team tournament was split into four brackets with each bracket having teams either ranked one to eight or receiving an at-large bid and being unranked in the tournament. Florida State, Notre Dame, Alabama and UCLA all received a first-place ranking with UCLA being the top-ranked team in the Lady Vols bracket.
The tournament will begin on Nov. 11 and run through till the National Championship game on Dec. 5. Round one through to the quarter-finals will take place at the host site with the higher-ranked seed capturing the home-field advantage. The semi-finals and final will take place on Dec. 2 and 5 at the Wakemed Soccer Park at the University of North Carolina.
The tournament will feature 10 teams from the ACC, nine SEC teams, five each from the Big 10 and Pac 12 and three from the Big 12. The remaining 32 teams come from the Mid-Majors regions. Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi State, LSU, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt are the nine teams representing the SEC in this year’s tournament, which ties the league record set in 2017 and 2018. The Lady Vols only have one fellow SEC team in their bracket with in-state rivals Vanderbilt being named in the same bracket, but the sides will only meet if both teams can make it to the quarter-finals.
Reigning national champions Florida State begin their title defense against Florida Gulf Coast University with last year’s runner up BYU taking on Utah Valley. Tennessee’s bracket includes the 2013 champions, UCLA, and the 2015 champions, Penn State, who both begin their tournament on Friday. Fellow number one seed Notre Dame is chasing its fourth National Championship after beating Florida State and Duke on its way to the National tournament.
The highest-ranked SEC team, Alabama, is searching for its first national title after going perfect throughout SEC play. The Tide is hosting their first-ever home NCAA tournament game against Jackson State.
Tennessee will host Xavier University in the first round of this year’s tournament Friday night at Regal Soccer Stadium with kickoff at 6 p.m. ET.
Here’s a full breakdown of the tournament bracket and every game happening this weekend.
