2016 NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Tournament


The 2016 NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Tournament was the 58th annual single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of NCAA Division I men's collegiate soccer. The first, second, third, and quarterfinal rounds were held at college campus sites across the United States during November and December 2016, with host sites determined by seeding and record. The four-team College Cup finals was played at BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston, Texas on December 9 and 11, 2016.
The Stanford Cardinal successfully defended their 2015 title. Stanford played the North Carolina Tar Heels to a scoreless draw in the semifinals before winning a penalty shootout, 10–9, to advance to the Championship game. The Cardinal then also tied the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, 0–0, in the final before claiming the back-to-back title with another penalty shootout victory, 5–4.
Stanford tied the NCAA record for the Lowest Goals-Against Average in the Tournament of 0.00 by becoming the fourth team to not allow their opponents to score a goal in the tournament. The other three co-record-holders are the 1976 San Francisco Dons, the 1995 Wisconsin Badgers, and the 2009 Akron Zips.

Qualification

All Division I men's soccer programs except for Grand Canyon, Incarnate Word, and UMass Lowell will be eligible to qualify for the tournament. Those three programs are ineligible because they are in transition from Division II to Division I. The tournament field remains fixed at 48 teams.
Of the 24 schools that had previously won the championship, 13 qualified for this year's tournament.

Format

As in previous editions of the NCAA Division I Tournament, the tournament features 48 participants out of a possible field of 203 teams. Of the 48 berths, 24 are allocated to the 21 conference tournament champions and to the regular season winners of the Ivy League, Pac-12 Conference, and West Coast Conference, which do not have tournaments. The remaining 24 berths are supposed to be determined through an at-large process based upon the Ratings Percentage Index of teams that did not automatically qualify.
The NCAA Selection Committee also names the top sixteen seeds for the tournament, with those teams receiving an automatic bye into the second round of the tournament. The remaining 32 teams play in a single-elimination match in the first round of the tournament for the right to play a seeded team in the second round.

Schedule

RoundDate
First roundNovember 17, 2016
Second roundNovember 20, 2016
Third roundNovember 26–27, 2016
QuarterfinalsDecember 2 − 4, 2016
College Cup: SemifinalsDecember 9, 2016
College Cup FinalDecember 11, 2016

Bracket

Regional 1

Regional 2

Regional 3

Regional 4

2016 College Cup

Results

First round

Second round

Third round

Quarterfinals

College Cup

Semifinals

National Championship

Statistics

Goalscorers

;4 goals
;3 goals
;2 goals
;1 goal
;Own goals