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The cheering echoed from the Club Level at The Pit throughout the arena Monday morning. The New Mexico men’s soccer team had just locked up its second highest NCAA tournament seed in school history.
The NCAA selection committee awarded UNM, the Conference USA regular-season champion, a No. 7 seed for the national tournament, which opens this week. Following a first-round bye, the Lobos (11-5-2) will host either George Mason or William and Mary at 7 p.m. EST (5 p.m. MST) Sunday.
“We wanted to get a top 8 seed,” senior goalkeeper Michael Lisch said. “That means we’re going to host a couple of games at home until possibly the Elite Eight. That’s good.”
The team earned an at-large bid into the tournament after missing out on automatic berth granted to the conference tournament champion. That prize went to Charlotte, which topped a Tulsa squad that bounced the Lobos out in the C-USA semifinals.
UNM has earned 11 NCAA bids since 2001, including 10 under head coach Jeremy Fishbein, and holds an 8-6-3 all-time record in the tournament. In 2005, the NCAA awarded UNM a No. 2 seed. The Lobos eventually played Maryland in the championship game that season.
The team also reached the Sweet 16 in 2004, 2011 and 2012.
This time around, Fishbein said he wasn’t 100 percent certain UNM would even get a top 16 seed that grants a first-round bye.
Heading into the C-USA tournament, the Lobos held a top five RPI ranking, a metric the NCAA selection committee considers when generating the field.
“The main thing was, you want to get that bye and get a second-round home game,” Fishbein said. “That validates a great regular season, and it did. It’s great to see that we got that respect and we have this opportunity.”
Playing in a tough new conference helped that cause.
Competing in C-USA for the first time, UNM won the regular-season title with a 7-1-1 record in a schedule that included wins over then-No. 24 Old Dominion and then-No. 10 Alabama Birmingham. ODU and UAB finished second and third, respectively, behind UNM in the standings.
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Home games have favored UNM throughout its NCAA tournament history. The Lobos won five of their seven NCAA games held in Albuquerque, and they advanced in their only tied outcome by winning a penalty kick shootout. A year ago, UNM captured a 3-1 NCAA home victory over Virginia.
“You talk about the altitude, our crowd. The last two years have been absolutely electric on those Sunday nights, and I expect nothing different this Sunday night,” senior defender Kyle Venter said. “We’ll get ready and we’ll await who we play.”
In all, three Conference USA squads reached the tournament.
Charlotte earned a No. 13 seed and will host either Coastal Carolina or East Tennessee State in the second round, while Old Dominion plays Drexel in the first round.
The Atlantic Coast Conference sent the most teams to the tournament with six in the field. The Big East and Big Ten each have five, and the Pac-12 placed four, including No. 1 seed UCLA.
UNM must not get ahead of itself and keep its eye on the next task at hand, Fishbein said. That means the Lobos’ full attention will be on Sunday’s contest, but they first must wait for the George Mason-William and Mary first-round game on Thursday.
“It’s just a matter right now, taking a deep breath, feeling fortunate and having confidence in our guys and confidence in our program,” Fishbein said.
