Men's soccer prepares for ACC tournament
The ACC tournament bracket is set and it is chock-full of tough competition. As the final games of ACC play came to an end, the postseason has become the focus of every team. The ACC tournament, taking place in Charleston, South Carolina, starts on Nov. 2 with the opening round of games taking place at 7 p.m. Four teams that will play on opening day are nationally ranked and eight are ranked overall. The four teams receiving byes are in the top ten of the NCAA poll.
Ninth-seeded Virginia Tech is one of the top 25 teams to play in the first day of games. The Hokies, who are ranked 23rd nationally, will play eighth-seeded Boston College. The two schools did not play in the regular season, and both have not been winning as of late. Virginia Tech and Boston College have both only knotted one win each in the last five games. The Eagles had three losses in this period, and the Hokies had two ties, two losses and one win on senior day in that span.
However, Virginia Tech does have its highest regular season win total since the 2007–2008 season when the Hokies fell in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament. The winner, Hokies or Eagles, advances to play the top seeded and No. 3 team in the country, North Carolina.
The strong match-ups continue as sixth-seeded Virginia faces off against 11th-seeded North Carolina State. The 17th-ranked Cavaliers enter 9–2–5 and 3–2–3 in the conference while the Wolf Pack enters 5–11 with only one conference win. The two also did not face off in the regular season, and neither won when facing Virginia Tech, with Virginia tying 0–0 and North Carolina State falling 0–3. The winner of Cavaliers and Wolfpack will go on to play the third-seeded team in the tournament, No. 7 Louisville.
The third game will have seventh-seeded Notre Dame, coming in ranked 12th in the nation, battling 10th-seeded Duke. While the Hokies were able to defeat the Blue Devils earlier in the season, they fell to Notre Dame 1–4 in their only match-up. The Fighting Irish must rebound after losing four of their last five, including against Duke just three games ago. The winner will advance to play third-seeded, No. 2 Wake Forest.
The last of the opening round games consists of the lowest seeded Pittsburgh facing Syracuse. Neither has won its last two games as the Orange have had back-to-back ties against Clemson and Wake Forest, and the Panthers tied Virginia and Virginia Tech in the season finale. The winner will play Clemson in the next round.
The tough competition will only get tougher as the tournament progresses, as the ACC Tournament is stacked with tremendous programs. These games will make great tests for the teams, better determining the contenders and pretenders as they go on to the NCAA tournament.