The 2014 NCAA Division I men's soccer tournament is the 56th annual edition of the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship tournament. The brackets for the tournament were announced on November 17, 2014, with each of the 48 participating teams gaining an invitation through either an automatic or at-large bid determined by the NCAA. The First, Second, Third, and Quarterfinal Rounds were held at college campus sites across the United States determined by seeding and record. The four team College Cup finals tournament were held at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina on December 12 and 14, 2014.[1]
The Virginia Cavaliers won their seventh NCAA Championship title, defeating UCLA and avenging their loss to the Bruins in the championship game of the 1997 College Cup.
A total of 48 teams qualified into the tournament proper, either automatically, or through an at-large bid that is determined by a selection committee. Each conference that field varsity soccer teams is awarded one automatic berth into the tournament. Depending on the conference, that automatic berth was either given the champions of the regular season, or the tournament that culminates the regular season. Twenty-four teams earned automatic bids into the tournament, while 24 entered through an at-large bid.
Of the 23 schools that had previously won the championship, 13 qualified for the 2014 tournament.
Format
Like previous editions of the NCAA Division I Tournament, the tournament featured 48 participants out of a possible field of 200 teams. Of the 48 berths, 24 were allocated to the conference tournament or regular season winners. The remaining 24 berths were supposed to be determined through an at-large process based upon the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) of teams that did not automatically qualify.
The NCAA Selection Committee also named 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 played in a single-elimination match in the first round of the tournament for the right to play a seeded team in the second round.