2026 Conference Tournament and NCAA Selection Thread

[stlawus]

I find it funny how in every other sport at every other level teams with bad records are universally panned for getting tournament bids.  .500 or below teams get in the NCAA D1 basketball tournament to the outcry of everyone (even fans in the same conferences) except their fans and those on the committee, yet when it comes to the NESCAC it's suddenly "this is about the best teams not the teams most deserving".

[Ejay]

Not sure if it's still the case today, but when I was in High School you needed to have a .500 record to qualify for the state tournament (I recognize all states run their tournaments differently). Under .500 at the cutoff date and you were ineligible. I like that and feel the NCAA could benefit from including a minimum win criteria, i.e. 10 wins.

[Gregory Sager]

But seeing what I call the "annual west coast outrage" this past week has been a bit too much. There's always complaints about the NESCAC, east coast teams, etc. The NCAA Tournament is for the best teams in the country - at least, the at-large spots are for exactly that. If we make it about who's most deserving, I'd imagine there's 400+ opinions on what that means. And as others have poked at, we'd need a 400 team tournament to decide a national champion.

The NESCAC has, by far, the best teams in the country. This may upset you if your son doesn't play in the NESCAC, but this is just the truth. Learn from Babson: they prove they can compete with the best by scheduling NESCACs every year (where they usually tie games at best). But, to what extent is there a point to this? See you guys in November 2027 for our annual west coast outrage.

What outrage? There are a grand total of three of us here talking about this topic, and our beef has gone no further than me saying that I'm not going to shed any tears about the Jumbos having to fly to the midwest if and when Tufts wins its quad. Also, stlawus, who posted after you, has pointed out that numerous NCAA sports have mandated that only teams with winning records can receive at-large bids to postseason tournaments, but that point is only tangential to the larger topic of NESCAC hegemony in D3 men's soccer.

And the three of us who are bandying this about consist of myself (a Chicagoan who supports a Chicago-based team), mngopher (whose name is a dead giveaway that he's a MIAC fan from the Land of 10,000 Lakes), and stlawus (whose name indicates that he's right in your backyard across Lake Champlain). You might want to check a map, because it's kinda hard to generate an "annual west coast outrage" from Chicago, Minnesota, and upstate New York. Oh, wait a minute ... Ron Boerger has checked in as well. But he's a Texan, and, while Texas is many things both good and bad, like Chicago, Minnesota, and upstate NY it is in no way, shape, or form a part of the West Coast.

This isn't about an "annual west coast outrage." This is some guy so eager to climb back on his hobby horse that he both pulled the trigger too early and misread his audience.

[SKUD]

Preach Brother Safer! Amen!