March 30, 2001

SOUTHERN CONFERENCE MEN'S SOCCER ASSURED AUTOMATIC BID

GREENVILLE, SC -- The Furman men's soccer team will have extra incentive to three-peat as Southern Conference Tournament Champions as the conference is guaranteed an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament in 2001.

Furman has won five SoCon Tournament titles since 1994 and each time the Paladins were forced to participate in an NCAA play-in match against the champion of the Big South Conference. After dropping its first three play-in matches, the Paladins won the match in both 1999 and 2000.

"This places even more importance on the conference tournament," said Furman head coach Doug Allison. "I am pleased to see that the improvement of this league has corresponded to an automatic bid."

The Southern Conference is guaranteed an automatic bid because the league qualified as one of the top 12 conferences in the nation. There is still a good chance that the NCAA will expand the men's tournament from 32 teams to 48 teams for the 2001 season. In fact, men's and women's soccer tournament expansion is listed as the top priorities for the NCAA Championships/Competition committee. If the field is expanded all Division I conferences would receive automatic bids, but the Southern Conference¹s improvement in the RPI assures that it will have an automatic bid regardless of the NCAA¹s ruling.

The 2001 Southern Conference men¹s soccer tournament is scheduled for November 15-18 in Charleston, S.C. The NCAA Tournament will start the following weekend, with the format to be determined after the NCAA rules on the size of the field.