Photo by Howard C. Smith/ISIPhotos.com

 

The 48-team field for the NCAA men's soccer tournament will be announced this afternoon, and there will be several teams sweating out the next few hours as they wait to see if they made the cut.

With a total of 22 automatic bids awarded to conference champions, there are 26 spots at-large bids available. While power conferences like the Big East and ACC could grab more than a third of the at-large bids, there will at least a few good teams from top conferences who wind up getting left out in the cold as the NCAA looks to award some teams from smaller conferences.

Here is a rundown of the 22 teams already in the field, as well as the 26 teams we see earning NCAA bids. 

AUTOMATIC BIDS (22)

North Carolina, New Mexico, Creighton, St. John's, UCLA, Florida Gulf Coast, UC-Irvine, SMU, Xavier, Northern Illinois, Northwestern, Dartmouth, Monmouth, Elon, Western Illinois, Fairfield, Stony Brook, Loyola (Ill.), Colgate, St. Mary's, Liberty, Delaware

SBI'S PROJECTED AT-LARGE BIDS (26)

Maryland, UConn, South Florida, Akron, UC Santa Barbara, Indiana, Louisville, West Virginia, Notre Dame, Boston College, Duke, Virginia, Washington, Coastal Carolina, UNC-Charlotte, James Madison, UAB, South Carolina, Old Dominion, Furman, Bradley, Brown, Cal State-Bakersfield, Providence, UC-Riverside, Rutgers

TEAMS ON THE NCAA BUBBLE

Central Florida, Clemson, Wake Forest, Ohio State, Marquette, Memphis, Georgetown, Wisconsin, Georgia State, Iona, Fairleigh Dickinson

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In this projection, the Big East winds up with eight teams in the NCAA Tournament. That seems like a lot, but the Big East was the strongest conference in the nation by some margin. We could see there only being seven Big East teams, but the non-Big East teams on the bubble don't necessarily have stronger cases than the Big East teams (Rutgers, Providence, West Virginia) who made the cut among our picks.

The ACC winds up with five teams in this projection. That's relatively low for a conference that is usually the strongest in the country. It wasn't a banner year in terms of depth of top squads, and both Wake Forest (8-7-4) and Clemson (8-8-2) have good RPI ratings but less than stellar records. It should be noted though that Clemson finished the season 5-1-2 and all eight of its losses were to teams that make our projected 48.

Something else to consider is national balance. Our projected 48 includes a total of eight teams from the Western side of the United States. I can't see fewer than that going in, and it wouldn't shock me if the NCAA committee decides to increase that number. The only problem is the pickings are rather slim after the eight Western teams we included.

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What do you think of these lists? Which teams not among our projected at-large bids do you feel has the best case for getting an NCAA berth? which teams among our projected at-large teams do you think doesn't deserve a tournament berth?

Share your thoughts below.