Published 11/14/2011 9:55:09 PM by Shane Barrow from soccermogul

The field and bracket for the 2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Championship was announced Monday and the tournament’s #1 seed was awarded to North Carolina. The Tar Heels enter the tournament with a record of 17-2-2 and are in search of their second national championship in school history.

Other top teams include second-seeded Creighton, which enters the tournament 18-2, #3 Connecticut (17-3-2) and fourth-seeded Boston College (14-6). Those teams lead a field of 48 hoping to advance to the Men’s College Cup, which will be played at Regions Field in Hoover, Ala., Dec. 9 and 11, with UAB serving as a first-time host.

The remaining top-16 seeds in order are Maryland (13-3-3), SMU (13-6-1), South Florida (12-3-3), UC Irvine (16-5-1), St. John’s (New York) (14-6-2), New Mexico (17-0-3), UAB (13-4-3), Louisville (12-6-2), UCLA (15-4-1), James Madison (12-4-2), UC Santa Barbara (14-6-1), and Indiana (12-3-5). The top-16 teams receive a first-round bye.

There are several very interesting opening round matchups and some even juicier potential second round matchups.  One of the most interesting opening round games pits Wake Forest visiting South Carolina.  Another even better opening round matchup has 3 loss Furman at 4 loss Charlotte.  Probably the best opener though has to be Big Ten Northwestern traveling to defending champions Akron.

The second round holds even more to look forward to as the Akron-Northwestern winner must travel to SMU.  Top overall seed North Carolina will host the winner of Elon and Coastal Carolina.  Other potential second round games could see Virginia at UCLA, Duke at unbeaten New Mexico and West Virginia at Maryland.

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