Unlike counterparts in sports that rush to reduce their fields from 64 to 16 teams, the NCAA women's soccer tournament eases into motion. The first round gets a week all its own. Games are spread across 32 sites, and only half of the original field is sent packing by the time it concludes.
Danger still lurks for those slow off the starting line, a lesson Hofstra taught No. 4 seed Boston College and Virginia Tech taught another No. 4 seed, Texas, in opening-round upsets over the weekend. But as the second week arrives, 14 of 16 national seeds remain, and it's still difficult to predict a winner.
Now things get interesting. Remaining teams disperse to eight sites around the country, each No. 1 or No. 2 seed hosting what amounts to a mini-tournament on Friday and Sunday for places in next week's quarterfinals.
As the second round nears, let's reset the state of the tournament.
Top seeds trudge into second round
The four No. 1 seeds advanced by a combined margin of just 11-1. That merits "just" because the top seeds combined for at least 14 goals in the opening round in each of the previous 10 years.
After a 1-0 win against Loyola-Chicago, Florida State is just the second No. 1 seed in the past five years to win a first-round game by a single goal. Stanford easily dispatched Seattle 3-0 in its opener, but already missing several key contributors, the Cardinal played without Madison Haley and Tegan McGrady, who are nursing undisclosed injuries, for the second week in a row.
And in trailing for more than 50 minutes of its game against Central Connecticut, Georgetown was behind for more minutes than all No. 1 seeds in the past three opening rounds combined.
But let's not get carried away. The Hoyas rolled off three goals in quick succession to restore order. The Seminoles outshot Loyola 26-2 and were never in much danger. And the Cardinal not only picked apart Seattle on Friday night but have also dealt with injuries all season while keeping intact their 42-game unbeaten streak, sixth longest in Division I history. Fellow No. 1 North Carolina had the least trouble of all in a 4-0 win against Howard.
For another thing, the previous low in the past 10 tournaments was 2011, when the four top seeds scored just 12 goals in the opening round. All four made the College Cup that year.
Add in No. 2 UCLA, which played like a No. 1 seed once it had most of its roster available and blitzed San Jose State 5-0 behind two goals from Ashley Sanchez and a goal and two assists from Jessie Fleming, and the favorites did all that was required of them in the opening week.
Pac-12 delivers a message
UCLA and Stanford weren't the only Pac-12 teams that marched into the second round. Nor were they the only conference members that played like No. 1 seeds.
Five Pac-12 teams made the tournament, fewer than either the Big 12 or Big Ten and nearly half as many as the SEC. Ranked comfortably inside the top 10 by the human polls, RPI and most any other measure available, USC was nonetheless seeded fourth. The league's middle class of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah and Washington State was shredded -- only Arizona and Washington State were awarded at-large bids. Well, the quintet that survived the purge outscored opponents 22-1 in the opening round, including Arizona's 3-0 win against Denver and Washington State's 5-1 win against Montana.
And then there was USC, the extent of whose slight didn't end with its seed. While even a team like Washington State played a first-round opponent with an RPI deep in triple digits -- geography and minimizing travel costs are a key component of all first-round pairings -- USC drew Long Beach State, No. 37 in the RPI. Among seeds, only No. 3 Texas A&M (North Texas) and No. 4 Duke (Rutgers) drew first-round opponents with better RPI numbers. The Aggies and Blue Devils crept away with 1-0 wins. USC matched the first round's biggest margin of victory in a 6-0 rout. North Carolina transfer Alea Hyatt topped a balanced scoresheet with a goal and two assists.
The Pac-12 certainly played like a league that deserved better treatment.
Golden goals galore
It looked for much of the weekend as if for the first time since 2000, no first-round game would be settled from the penalty spot in a shootout. Boston University and LSU, the lone game scheduled for Sunday, changed all of that.
The last team into the second round, the Tigers were the first to advance via penalty kicks (despite missing their first three in the shootout). Not that the first weekend lacked drama.
Four games were decided in the 20 minutes of overtime allotted between regulation and shootouts. Those extra minutes were the means by which No. 3 Texas A&M staved off what could have been the round's biggest upset. Ally Watt scored the winner against North Texas with 118 seconds remaining. Wake Forest's Giovanna DeMarco and Kansas' Katie McClure also scored golden goals, against Ohio State and Saint Louis, respectively.
But what was definitively the latest, and arguably the strangest, goal of the weekend gave Lipscomb a win in its first NCAA tournament game. Having endured a barrage of 28 shots from Mississippi State through the first 109 minutes, Lipscomb had a free kick near midfield as the clock ticked under a minute in the second and final overtime. Dominique Diller's free kick clipped off the back of teammate Justis Bailey's shoulder in the box, veered off toward one of the goal posts and slipped past both another Lipscomb player and a defender.
Bailey never saw the ball that hit her, but the senior's second career goal extended her career and left Lipscomb with the best winning percentage in NCAA tournament history at 1-0-0.
All eyes now on Tallahassee and Morgantown
The bracket doesn't have convenient names for its various parts, but whether called the Florida State region or the lower left, one quarter of what remains commands attention this weekend.
Start in Tallahassee with the No. 1 seed. Coming off a controlled, if low-scoring, win against Loyola, the Seminoles will get another test from South Florida's Evelyne Viens -- and she will get an opportunity to make or break her Hermann Trophy candidacy. The Canadian junior reached 20 goals for the season with a strike in the first-round win against Albany and is second among active Division I players in career goals despite having a season still to play.
And if both Florida State and USC avoid second-round upsets, the real headliner is Sunday's Sweet 16 game in what should have been, at the least, a quarterfinal.
It doesn't stop there for this part of the bracket. In Morgantown, No. 2 West Virginia, fresh off a 6-0 first-round win against Radford, and No. 3 South Carolina could meet in a high-profile Sweet 16 game. But South Carolina reaches Sunday only if it survives a second-round game against Penn State. Unseeded despite winning a Big Ten regular-season title and ranking No. 14 in the most recent United Soccer Coaches Top 25, Penn State hasn't officially lost a game since the end of September -- and beat West Virginia, among others, earlier this fall.
Don't bet on the No. 2 seeds
Since the second and third rounds started sharing a weekend in 2011, No. 1 seeds have reached the quarterfinals in 25 of 28 possible instances. With the caveat that all three instances in which the No. 1 seed did not advance took place in the past two seasons, that's still reason to consider Florida State, Georgetown, North Carolina and Stanford the favorites this week -- all the more for North Carolina and Stanford, which can't face a seeded opponent.
History is less kind to the No. 2 seeds, despite their home-field advantage. In the same time span, No. 2 seeds reached the quarterfinals in just 13 of 28 instances. Only once, in 2016, did more than two No. 2s reach the quarterfinals in the same season.
Most often, it's the No. 3 seed that advances instead. That has happened eight times since 2011. But even then, it thus far has been more likely that a No. 1 seed reaches the quarterfinal than either a No. 2 or No. 3 seed.
It's something to keep in mind as unseeded but perhaps overlooked Vanderbilt travels to No. 2 Baylor or No. 3 Santa Clara eyes a potential opportunity to derail No. 2 UCLA.