The Colorado women’s soccer team has been on the NCAA Tournament bubble before.
This time the waiting was longer. And the footing on that bubble was somewhat precarious.
That’s what made the NCAA Tournament selection show so rewarding for the Buffaloes on Monday, as they received an at-large bid to the tournament and a first-round date at seventh-seeded Georgia on Friday at 2:30 p.m. MT.
The winner will face either Morehead State or second-seeded Wake Forest in the second round next week.
It is CU’s 14th NCAA Tournament selection overall and the eighth in 13 seasons under head coach Danny Sanchez.
Colorado was eliminated from the Big 12 Conference tournament on Nov. 2 with a quarterfinal loss against TCU. Since then, the Buffs have been practicing while crossing their collective fingers that a body of work that included a lengthy unbeaten streak followed by a goal-starved winless streak would be enough to crack the 64-team field.
CU (11-4-5, 4-2-5 Big 12) went 2-3-1 against the Big 12’s other six tournament teams: TCU, West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Texas Tech and BYU (the Buffs didn’t play BYU). The Buffs begin the week at No. 55 in the RPI, and three of their losses occurred against RPI top 15 teams (No. 2 North Carolina, twice against No. 15 TCU). The other came against RPI No. 30 West Virginia.
“You never know, but we had really good RPI results,” Sanchez said. “We had zero bad losses. We didn’t have a loss outside the top 30, and we had three really good top 40 results. We felt good about it, but you never know until you see your name called.”
CU squandered a potentially historic opportunity in the second game of the season, as North Carolina thwarted a Buffs upset bid with two goals in the final 3 minutes. Yet the Buffs responded with a 10-game unbeaten streak (tying the third-longest in program history) that featured nine consecutive wins (also the third longest in program history).
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CU then sputtered down the stretch, finishing the regular season on an 0-2-4 slide while struggling to score goals. The Buffs shook it off with a 2-1 comeback win against Utah in the first round of the Big 12 tournament that essentially turned into an elimination game for CU in regard to the NCAA Tournament.
“You’re really just happy for the group,” Sanchez said. “As a coach, you hope to have these opportunities down the road more. But you’re really happy for the seniors and you’re really happy for the group. We went through a rough stretch where we were playing well but we weren’t getting wins. It would’ve been easy for them to mail it in, but they kept battling and kept believing. If you do that, good things happen.”
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