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I assume the NCAA will announce the date, time and site for the SMU-UNC Greensboro game tomorrow. However, I have discovered that the Division 3 National Men's and Women's soccer championships will be held in Greensboro NC the weekend of Nov 25-26. While the SMU-UNC G Division 1 game could be played on the 27th in NC, I would think the fact the town is hosting a national championship that same weekend would be another factor in favor of the game being held in Dallas. I guess we will find out tomorrow.

From SMUMustangs.com:

After a few days in Dallas, the Mustangs get back on the road and head to Greensboro, N.C. to face the Spartans (16-5-1) who tied 12th-seed Virginia Tech Tuesday night, 0-0, but advanced on a 4-3 shootout advantage. The game is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 27. Time of the contest is yet to be determined.

The only explanation for the game being played in North Carolina is projected attendance and a little East Coast bias. Rankings and results seem to mean little to the NCAA where $$$ is involved.

Must be attendance. Coach Hyndman's reputation with the NCAA and the soccer coaches across the country (he is, after all, president of the NSCAA) outweighs any alleged "East Coast bias."

The game is probably @ unc-greensboro due to the fact they have better attendance (I think) and better facilities. It is a faily good stadium. Small but nice. I am going to try to get to the game to root my Ponies on.

Go Ponies!

If the money is raised for the proposed improvement/expansion at Westcott Field, there will not be a school in the country that will be able to make the claim that it has superior facilities. The artist's rendering of the proposed new-look facility is unbelievable.

Corso wrote:If the money is raised for the proposed improvement/expansion at Westcott Field, there will not be a school in the country that will be able to make the claim that it has superior facilities. The artist's rendering of the proposed new-look facility is unbelievable.

How long has this been on the drawing board and what is the projected cost? Would this connect Westcott with Ford or would it be a stand alone facility.

My understanding is that it's been on some folks' wish lists for a while, but actually a viable possibility for only a few months.

I think it would remain a stand-alone facility, with similar brick exterior and architecture (albeit on a much smaller scale, of course) to that at Ford Stadium.

My guess is that UNCG was seeded higher than us in the tournament given they played a lower seeded team in the second round. I suspect they were seeded sixth in the region, and we were seeded 7th. That's why they got home field for this game. They are from the CAA which has pretty good soccer as well. I do think there is a big bias in the NCAA seedings. 8 teams from the ACC five of them seeded.

Where can a person view the architect's rendering of the proposed facility?

EastStang wrote:My guess is that UNCG was seeded higher than us in the tournament given they played a lower seeded team in the second round. I suspect they were seeded sixth in the region, and we were seeded 7th. That's why they got home field for this game. They are from the CAA which has pretty good soccer as well. I do think there is a big bias in the NCAA seedings. 8 teams from the ACC five of them seeded.

To resolve the issue on site selection, I went to the NCAA Division I Handbook for the Championship Round of Men's Soccer. The handbook goes into detail as to how teams are selected for the tournament including automatic qualifiers and at large qualifiers that are selected based on strength of schedule and record. It covers the seeding of teams for the tournament and specifies that only 16 teams receive seeds. In the 2005 tournament, UCLA was a 5 seed and VA Tech was 12. Neither SMU nor USC Greensboro was seeded. In fact, only SMU was ranked in the final coaches’ poll that is used by the NCAA.

The handbook states that the 16 seeded teams are slotted in the championship brackets and the non seeded teams are paired in the first round based on geographical proximity. I guess we are considered to be close to California if no unseeded teams are in our neighborhood.

Site selection for games is covered in detail in the handbook. Briefly, all schools that want to be considered as a home field are evaluated and rated. It appears that the major consideration is attendance history and potential. After that, the facility itself is graded based on multiple factors including seating, press box, concessions, weather and quality of the field.

I assume that UNC Greensboro has a higher rating than SMU on attendance and its facility and that is why the game will be there even though it is a non nationally ranked team. It is pretty clear what we have to do if we want to host games in the championship round.

We could play our games in Frisco.

I believe the Frisco MLS facility has bid for the soccer final four but has been unsuccessful so far. If only we had a smaller version of that stadium.

SmooPower wrote:We could play our games in Frisco.

You wish!