PEORIA, Ill. - After sweeping through the 2010 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Men's Soccer Championship, Bradley (11-8-3) drew a former Valley rival for its NCAA Tournament first-round game. For the first time in five NCAA Tournament appearances, the Braves will open postseason play on the road when they visit Tulsa (11-6-2) at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
The winner of the Bradley-Tulsa game will visit seven-time national champion Indiana (9-7-2), the tournament's #14 seed, in a 5 p.m. game Sunday.
Tulsa owns an 8-4-2 all-time record versus Bradley and 11 of those games were played as MVC rivals during Tulsa's two stints of MVC membership (1991-95 and 2000-04). The most-recent matchup, however, was a non-conference clash, which Tulsa won, 2-1, Sept, 20, 2009 at the SMU Invitational. In Bradley's last visit to Tulsa, the teams played to a 2-2 draw. Bradley's lone win at Tulsa came during the 2001 season, when the Braves earned a 3-2 victory.
Riding the momentum of a 6-1-2 record in its last nine games, Bradley is making its fifth NCAA Tournament appearance. The Braves played first-round home games in 2000 (Illinois-Chicago), 2002 (New Mexico), 2005 (Milwaukee) and 2007 (DePaul). Bradley lost those first three games as an at-large entry before winning its first MVC Tournament title in 2007 and advancing to the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals with a 2-0 victory versus the Blue Demons at Shea Stadium, a 5-4 shootout win at Indiana, after battling the Hoosiers to a 1-1 draw, and a dramatic, 3-2 win at Maryland in double overtime.
