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The USF men's soccer team season has been, let's say less than memorable. The team started off with high hopes, trying to build on its Elite Eight run in the 2011 NCAA Tournament. The Bulls started off ranked fifth in the country, then won their first three matches of the season and hit #2 in the polls. And from there, it was almost completely downhill. The Bulls actually went on a long unbeaten streak after suffering their first loss to South Carolina, but many of those games resulted in ties when wins were necessary. Throughout the season, the Bulls failed to capitalize on opportunities to gain ground in the Big East standings, finishing with a 2-3-3 conference record and capping it all off with a loss to a DePaul team that hadn't won a Big East game before then.
Luckily, the Bulls' non-conference schedule may just give them a shot at the tournament anyway, despite missing their own conference tournament. With wins over SMU, Tulsa, Florida Gulf Coast, Butler, Mercer, and top-15 St. John's, USF's RPI sits at 25 as the rest of the country enters their conference tournaments. After the 31 Division I conference champions get their automatic bids, USF will wait for the at-large announcements to come out to see if they can salvage this season with another NCAA Tournament bid.
The women's team, unfortunately, wasn't so lucky, despite finishing very strongly. After a surprise 10-5-4 regular season, their Big East championship hopes were struck down in penalty kicks against Georgetown in the semifinals. But the ladies were confident that they had done enough to make it into the tournament. The team ended the regular season on a 7-game unbeaten streak before a season-closing loss at Marquette and getting points in 10 of 11 games at one point. It appeared that the Bulls would make the postseason after making some noise in the Big East tournament, but it turns out that the rest of the conference isn't that good at soccer this year. Even with all the wins, USF finished with an RPI of just 54, not enough to get into the tournament. Meanwhile, five Florida schools made the field -- Florida, FSU, UCF, Miami, and Florida Gulf Coast, two of which USF beat this season.
So despite a great season, the USF women will get an extended offseason and some momentum to use towards making the tournament next year. At least we might have some more men's soccer to watch.