Virginia Soccer | Cavaliers Seek 17th ACC Championship Against SMU Sunday

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The top-seeded and No. 4-ranked Virginia men’s soccer team (12-1-4) is set to face off with seventh-seeded No. 25-ranked SMU (10-4-4) in the ACC Men’s Soccer Championship match on Sunday (Nov. 16) at First Horizon Stadium in Cary, N.C. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. on ESPNU.

Admission
Championship game tickets are $15 in advance and $20 on gameday. Tickets only are available online and no walk-up sales will be available. Fans can purchase tickets online using this link.

Exclusive group pricing is also available for groups of 10 or more, along with unique on-field opportunities. For details, visit theACC.com/groups or contact tickets@theacc.org.

How to Follow:
Sunday’s match against SMU will air on ESPNU, which is available through the ESPN app and at WatchESPN.com for customers who have the ACC Network as part of their TV subscription. Links to both the broadcast and live stats are available at VirginiaSports.com. Fans can also get updates by following the program’s official Twitter account (@UVAMenSoccer).

For Openers: 

• UVA enters the game riding a 14-game unbeaten streak – the third longest in NCAA Division I and one of just six teams with an active unbeaten streak of 10+ games (Vermont, Princeton, UVA, UCSB, Sacred Heart, Furman).
• The Cavaliers went undefeated in ACC play with a record of 5-0-3. It marks the first time Virginia went unbeaten in ACC play was in 2001 when the team went 6-0-0, the same season UVA last earned the top seed in the tournament
• The tournament 1-seed has only won the event once since 2014 (#1 Wake Forest def. #6 UVA on PKs, 2017).

Hoos in the ACC Tournament

• Virginia is set to make its 21st appearance in the ACC Tournament Final (11 titles, 9 defeats)
• UVA and Clemson have won 16 total ACC Championships, a 17th would give Virginia the most of any current ACC program
• UVA has appeared in 54-percent of the tournament’s 39 championship games
• The Cavaliers have won four ACC titles in Cary, N.C. and suffered two defeats in title games
• Virginia holds an all-time record of 50-21-14 in the ACC Men’s Soccer Championship

A Sweep on the Line

• Virginia won the season’s first meeting at SMU 1-0 to clinch the ACC regular season title
• The last time Virginia won both a regular season and tournament title was in 2019 (Coastal Division)
• Prior to the ACC’s implementation of divisions, Virginia last swept the outright regular season and tournament titles in 1995
• The Cavaliers shared a regular season title with Duke and NC State before going on to win the tournament title in 1997
• The first meeting between UVA and SMU this season remained scoreless through 83 minutes until Bacary Tandjigora netted the winner in the 84th minute, the team’s latest game-winner of the season.
• Tandjigora entered as a substitute in the 83rd minute as a striker and scored the winner 80 seconds later

NCAA Selection Committee Ranking

• The Cavaliers were ranked No. 3 in the NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Selection Committee’s top-16 rankings announced Friday evening (Oct. 17)
• Based on results through games of October 14, Princeton, Stanford, Virginia and Portland received the top four seeds. The top four seeds are crucial, as if the seeds hold those four teams would have the opportunity to host quarterfinal matches with a bid to the Men’s College Cup on the line.
• The ranking is based on the criteria used to select and seed the 48 teams for the Division I Men’s Soccer Championship and in no particular order includes strength of schedule, Rating Percentage Index, head-to-head competition, results versus common opponents, strength and results against non-conference opponents, late season performance in the last eight games and strength and results against conference opponents.

Results Against Top-10 Opposition

• Virginia was tested early with a run of three consecutive matches against opponents ranked in the nation’s top-10. The Cavaliers went 2-0-1 against No. 8 Virginia Tech (T, 2-2), No. 6 Louisville (W, 1-0) and No. 1 Wake Forest (W, 6-3).
• The stretch marked the first time UVA matched up with three-straight top-10 opponents since 2022 when Virginia went 2-1-1 against No. 3 Syracuse, No. 10 Pitt, No. 10 Denver and No. 2 Duke.
• The last time UVA opened ACC play with back-to-back road matches against top-10 foes was in 2000, when No. 11 Virginia posted a 2-0 win at No. 5 Wake Forest before defeating No. 10 North Carolina 3-1 in Chapel Hill.
• UVA then went on to topple No. 2 NC State (W, 1-0) on the road.
• The Cavaliers hold a record of 97-76-39 against top-10 opposition all-time
• Since the start of 2022, Virginia has recorded 14 positive results (wins or draws) against top-10 opponents with eight of those results coming on the road:

*Opponent advanced on penalties in postseason play

The Virginia Standard

• As an 11-seed in 2024, the Cavaliers earned a first round bye in the NCAA tournament for the third consecutive season.
• UVA is one of just five programs to earn first-round byes in each of the last three seasons and is the only program that earned multiple top-eight seeds in that span.
• The Cavaliers the Cavaliers have reached the ACC Semifinal in three of the last four seasons