The Deadline to play is

1:00 PM (ET) Thursday, November 16th.

Welcome back to Everybody Soccer's fourth annual NCAA Soccer Bracket Challenge. Last year Sarah was one of three to pick the correct champion as her bracket ran away with a new all-time record in the bracket challenge. Fortunately for you, there are no roll over points and everyone sets back to zero. Admission is free and the only prize is bragging rights. Student-athletes and the elderly are all welcome to play!

What Is the NCAA Tournament?

Every year NCAA soccer concludes their season with a 48 team tournament. 24 conference representatives are selected by either winning their respective conference or tournament. The remaining 24 spots are filled by teams earning at-large bids, regardless of conference affiliation. The first round features 32 teams facing off while the second round introduces the 16 seeded teams who were given a bye past the first round.

Click here to see the 2017 bracket

What Is the Bracket Challenge?

The bracket challenge is a free-to-enter competition with no prize so anyone can play. Simply make your predictions on each game in the national tournament then submit it before the first game kicks off, on Thursday afternoon. The winner will be determined by who scores the most points. You can score a maximum of 176 points total (32 each round, except the first which is only 16). The rounds are weighted as such:

Round 1 - 1 point (16 games)

Round 2 - 2 point (16 games)

Round 3 - 4 points (8 games)

Quarterfinals - 8 points (4 games)

Semifinals - 16 points

Final - 32 points

How to Play

There are a couple of different ways to submit a bracket.

1. I have created a fancy interactive tool through Microsoft Excel but unfortunately does not work on phones. (You can only use it on a desktop or laptop computer.)

Click here to go to view the bracket template.

Underneath "2017 NCAA Soccer Bracket Challenge Template" in the top left, click File > Download As > Microsoft Excel (.xslx)

The spreadsheet will download to your computer. Fill out column D, the blue and green cells. The rest of the document will automatically update itself. The spreadsheet has formulas to double check accuracy and spelling, so make sure you end up with smiley faces in the purple column.

In the green column at the top, enter your name, state or country you represent, bracket name (can be anything serious or silly), and your twitter handle to appear on the scoreboard.

Email me the file at: everybodysoccer@yahoo.com or tweet me @ letsallsoccer

or tweet me @ If something goes terribly wrong or you mess up the document, just go back to the link to re-download the document and start over.

2. You can either download the bracket and edit it on your phone or computer. You can email me the final product at everybodysoccer@yahoo.com or tweet a picture @letsallsoccer.

Click here to view the printable bracket

3. If you're having trouble downloading the bracket, you can always write down all your picks on a napkin, take a picture of it, and send it my way. It doesn't matter if you write it in crayon or spell it out with macaroni art, as long as I can read each pick, you're in!

Send in brackets to:

everybodysoccer@yahoo.com

or

@letsallsoccer

Deadline Is 1:00 PM (ET)

Thursday, November 16th.





Resources

RPIs and Schedules - Dan Gaucho has a great site for all your RPI and scheduling needs.

Media Coverage - Top Drawer Soccer has multiple articles on the tournament, rankings, and players to watch for.

History - Take a look at each school's history with the tournament. Teams were given points for how many rounds they went (Round Pts) and if they held a seed (Seed Pts). "+/-" is gauging if they overperform or underperform in the tournament given their seed history.

Selection Show - Watch a brief recap on each team's season as they unveil the bracket.

Lastly, here are a few stats on how far average seeds advance in the tournament. Second seeds are the most successful while 14 seeds (who start in the second round) only advance half the time.

Performance by Seed

avg number of rounds completed, 1 to 7

1 - 4.2

2 - 5.7

3 - 4.3

4 - 3.4

5 - 3.7

6 - 3.3

7 - 3.3

8 - 4.1

9 - 3.2

10 - 3.0

11 - 3.1

12 - 3.2

13 - 3.0

14 - 2.5

15 - 2.6

16 - 3.2

unseeded - 1.7