USD opens NCAA Tournament in men’s soccer, the one college sport where the little guys have a chance

Goalkeeper Lucca Adams transferred from UCLA to the University of San Diego last spring. In the upside-down world of men’s college soccer, that was a step up.

UCLA had to win its last five games to get into the 48-team NCAA Tournament, then lost in a penalty shootout Thursday at home against Grand Canyon, sending the Antelopes from the Western Athletic Conference to USD’s Torero Stadium on Sunday at 5 p.m. for the second-round match instead of the Big Ten tournament champions.

The Toreros? They went 13-2-3, won a record fourth straight West Coast Conference title, are ranked No. 3 in the Top Drawer Soccer poll, got the No. 9 overall seed and received a first-round bye.

“Listen, I think the perception of our sport is slightly different,” UC Irvine coach Yossi Raz said earlier this season after USD beat his ranked Anteaters team 2-0. “USD has proven to be a powerhouse. It’s a team that’s been to the playoffs three years in a row. They have great heritage here and are well invested in the program.

“Marshall is a powerhouse in our sport. Denver is, like, as powerhouse as it gets. Akron is as powerhouse as it gets. Vermont is as powerhouse as it gets. The definition of powerhouse in men’s soccer is slightly different.”

It is the one Division I sport where the power conferences and their TV riches haven’t relegated the have-nots to chum in shark-infested waters. The guppies swim alongside the whales in men’s college soccer. The guppies regularly win, too.

The Vermont Catamounts are the reigning NCAA champions. They were joined in the College Cup, soccer’s Final Four, by the Marshall Thundering Herd and Denver Pioneers. Marshall won it in 2020. The Akron Zips and UC Santa Barbara Gauchos have national titles in the last 20 years as well. Charlotte, Creighton, Providence and Maryland-Baltimore County have all reached the College Cup in recent years.

Or look at the latest Top Drawer Soccer poll. The top six teams — Vermont, Furman, USD, Princeton, High Point and Bryant — all come from unfancied conferences and most don’t play in the highest level of Division I football, if they have teams at all. Only nine of the top 25 belong to power football conferences.

The current Associated Press men’s basketball poll has one mid-major team, Gonzaga. The latest College Football Playoff rankings have one as well, Tulane at No. 24. That’s it.

Maryland, North Carolina, Stanford, Indiana, Virginia, Duke and Notre Dame are among the 32 teams still alive in the men’s soccer tournament that culminates in Cary, N.C., in the second week of December.

But so is Hofstra, which knocked out Syracuse in the first round. And Western Michigan, which beat Clemson. And Grand Canyon, which beat UCLA. And Saint Louis, which beat Kentucky.

So are Kansas City, Cornell, Denver, Central Florida, UNC Greensboro, Portland, High Point, Denver, Akron and Seton Hall. In USD’s quadrant of the bracket, all eight remaining teams are from traditional mid-major conferences.

“You see Vermont winning it, and Marshall before, and Denver getting to the Final Four,” said USD coach Brian Quinn, whose team lost to the Catamounts in the Sweet 16 last year after knocking out Duke. “There are opportunities if you get the right set of circumstances.”

There are, let’s be honest, because the Southeastern Conference isn’t interested in men’s soccer. Only two of its 16 members — Kentucky and South Carolina — field teams and are guests in other conferences.

Only one school in the Big 12 plays (West Virginia). Seven of the 18 in the Big Ten don’t have teams. Seven of the old Pac-12 teams didn’t, either.

That’s a function of Title IX, trying to achieve gender equity across the athletic department with so many resources allocated to football. There are just over 200 Division I schools that play men’s soccer, compared to 350 in women’s soccer.

“You don’t have a dramatic difference in investment in some conferences as others,” USD athletic director Kimya Massey said. “The investment in men’s soccer is just different than it is with the revenue sports. You’ve created a lot more equity across all the conferences and the 200-plus schools that have teams.”

Another factor: The talent pool is far deeper.

You’re just not recruiting American kids with perceptions of programs skewed by their conference affiliation or football prowess. The recruit from Ghana doesn’t know the difference between Marshall and Maryland, between the Kansas City Roos and Ohio State Buckeyes, between High Point University in North Carolina and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill — only that he’s been offered a full academic scholarship and a chance to play the sport he loves.

Many of the mid-major powers have built rosters through foreign pipelines. Vermont had six Germans on its national championship team. Three years ago, 25 of 28 players on Marshall’s roster were foreign. Grand Canyon has three from Senegal, two from Mexico, two from Canada and one each from France and Sweden.

“Every program in the country is pretty diligent at recruiting,” said Quinn, whose USD roster has players from England, Israel, Denmark, Ukraine, Brazil, Germany and Ghana mixed with 19 from Southern California. “You’ve got a lot of options. We’re fortunate because we’ve done well locally, but there are opportunities to bring internationals and bring in transfers through the portal.

“There are opportunities to get good really quick.”

Recruiting takes money, especially when it requires transatlantic flights. But athletic departments are willing to spend it in exchange for a shot at national recognition that is increasingly unattainable in the revenue-sharing world of football and men’s basketball.

For many schools, futbol is their football.

At USD, it is regularly the best attended sport on campus.

“Having been in the Northwest and been around Portland’s program, that was their marquee sport,” said Massey, who came to USD from Oregon State. “I would even say they prioritized it over men’s basketball at times. You do see an opportunity for a little bit of revenue, but also you have some publicity and PR that comes with a very successful soccer program, specifically in regions that might not be as strong in football.

“If you look at the Northeast, it’s just not as strong in football. Now if you go in the SEC, you don’t see soccer being as prevalent.”

And it’s soccer. The nature of the sport, with its low scores and unlucky bounces and a single center official making game-changing decisions, gives the little guy a chance.

“In our game,” UC Irvine’s Raz said, “because the collective is very important, because of the strategies, because we play with our feet it’s not as easy to control the ball sometimes, there are a lot of factors that make the game a little more even for programs to compete.

“That’s the beauty of our game. That’s why millions and millions of people love the game, because they know at any given moment their small team can win. … It’s the people’s game.”