Santa Clara women's soccer receives short end of the stick

By blake twisselman

And I thought that the East Coast bias was only a college football thing.

The third-ranked Santa Clara women's soccer team received the ninth seed in this year's tournament, even though they defeated the reigning national champs, capped off another West Coast Conference title with an undefeated conference record, and played one of the most challenging schedules in the country. Their poor seeding is a clear reflection of the East Coast and big conference biases that hold back schools like Santa Clara.

"I think we fight the East Coast bias and the small conference label," said Head Coach Jerry Smith. "Even though we played Portland for the national championship last year and the WCC has won the last two titles, we still have to fight for respectability."

If being seeded ninth wasn't bad enough, the committee placed the Broncos in the most challenging quarter-bracket in the tournament along with eighth-seeded Portland and top-seeded North Carolina. Santa Clara, Portland and North Carolina have accounted for the last four national championship winners, and all three of these schools were present in last year's Final Four. It's a crying shame that only one will have the opportunity to return this year.

"Unfortunately, I think there's a lot of people who sit on these committees who don't know that much about women's soccer," added Smith. "If I'm on the NCAA committee, I would be concerned about putting together a tournament that showcases the best teams in the Final Four. I think I would have definitely seeded it differently than the NCAA did. One quadrant is much tougher than the other three, and I think most people would agree with that."

To further emphasize my East Coast bias theory, the top three seeds in the tournament are North Carolina, Notre Dame and Florida, which represent the three power conferences on the East Coast (ACC, Big East, SEC). There is no doubt that North Carolina (20-0-0) deserves the No. 1 seed. Notre Dame, however, has more losses than fourth-seeded UCLA and is ranked lower than UCLA in the polls. Florida is the biggest shocker to me. The eighth-ranked Gators are lower in the national polls than UCLA, Santa Clara and Portland, have more losses than UCLA and just as many losses as Santa Clara or Portland. It's unbelievable that the committee gave Florida the No. 3 seed over any of these three West Coast schools.

Another problem with seeding the women's soccer tournament is that the committee schedules the first two rounds based on geographical proximity instead of the basketball format where all of the teams are seeded based on ability. The NCAA pays for all of the travel costs for the women's soccer tournament, and unfortunately they sacrifice the equality of the tournament in order to save money. Santa Clara, for example, is located in a geographic region where many of the elite women's soccer programs are located.

"In women's soccer, the strength is in the west," said Smith. "Since geography is something that the committee considers for the first two rounds, it is something that we will just have to overcome. I know we would have even more success if the first two rounds were not seeded based on geography."

Santa Clara's first-round match up against the Stanford Cardinal is much more challenging than any high-seeded team deserves to play. If the Broncos beat Stanford, then they will have a second-round game against either 17th-ranked Cal Poly or 22nd-ranked Arizona St. If the NCAA truly wants the best teams to be represented in the Final Four, then they must drastically alter the current seeding format.

I understand that every collegiate seeding system has its flaws. I was appalled when the BCS computer chose Nebraska to play against Miami in the Rose Bowl a few years ago despite the fact that Colorado crushed Nebraska by 26 points just three weeks prior. I was shocked when the 2002 men's college basketball tournament committee "rewarded" the sixth-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs with the sixth seed in the West Regional and a first-round matchup against Wyoming. But the NCAA's system for seeding teams in the women's soccer tournament is the worst of them all. It does not allow the best teams to be represented in the Final Four, and the committee conjured up the most unfairly biased seedings I can ever remember for a collegiate tournament.

Contact Blake Twisselman at (408) 554-4852 or jtwisselman@scu.edu.