The more punches you throw, the more likely a knockout is to come.
The DU Pioneers men’s soccer program made it to the NCAA round of 16 for just the third time in its more than 50-year history. The Pios (13-3-4) won their last trip against Washington back in 2016, the year coach Jamie Franks took the team to its only Final Four.
This season, the Pioneers, led by midfielder Sam Bassett and other senior leaders Ben Smith, Jason Belloli and Ronan Wynne, have their highest seed (No. 3) ever. But this weekend, they’ll have to go through perhaps college soccer’s best program in No. 14 Indiana (11-4-5) and its nation-high eight national championships since 1973.
Kickoff is set for 2 p.m. Saturday at University of Denver Soccer Stadium. The winner will play the winner of No. 11 Virginia and UMass.
In the past four years, the Hoosiers appeared in two national championship games, losing in overtime in 2020 and in penalty kicks in 2022. In the same period, DU has patiently put together one of its strongest teams ever, built to knock opponents out quickly, as evidenced by a 3-0 win in the Pioneers’ opening tournament win over Gardner-Webb. All three goals came in the first 25 minutes of the game.
“Where I was most proud (against Gardner-Webb) was that last week (in the Summit League final against UMKC), the final gets taken from you with a red card and I thought we played OK, but I think we just lacked intensity and lacked that bite. We didn’t take enough risks in that game,” Franks said after beating Gardner-Webb.
“Since that game, there’s just been so much ownership from the team. We know what we wanted to do and more importantly, we knew what was missing that we needed to add.”
In its opening tournament match the same day, Indiana needed overtime to scrape past Akron, 2-1.
“We have a lot of respect for what (Indiana) does, but we’re just excited about hosting another game,” Franks said.
Indiana overcame a sluggish 2-3-4 start to the season and now boasts a 4-1-2 record against ranked teams. Like Denver, Indiana won a conference regular season title but had a disappointing result in the Big Ten tournament and fell short of winning a tournament title.
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Sam Bassett knew DU soccer had more in the tank. Now, he’s the best player on the country’s No. 1 team.
DU has less experience this season against ranked opposition but made those moments count for the most part. Their 1-1-1 record in that category included a win against No. 5 Stanford, a draw to No. 6 UCLA and a loss to No. 1 Pittsburgh.
The teams stack up well against each other and have similar numbers in terms of producing goals and keeping the ball out of the net. Indiana has an edge it will likely try to exploit in taking more than two more shots per game, but DU has been better at putting its shots on net — 46% to Indiana’s 38%.
The Hoosiers and Pioneers have only ever faced each other twice, with Indiana winning both meetings, most recently in 2019.
But history doesn’t shoot rockets and reverberate nets quite like DU can — and has — this season and so far in the tournament. What this match comes down to may just be who comes out throwing the harder haymaker.
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