Kansas Jayhawks women’s soccer opponent & location announced for 2024 NCAA Tournament

Days after winning the Big 12 Tournament, far exceeding its preseason pick of 12th in the conference, Kansas soccer learned its NCAA Tournament draw with Monday’s Selection Show.

The unseeded Jayhawks will hit the road to see the No. 8 seed Saint Louis Billikens (14-1-6). Led by head coach Katie Shields, SLU won the Atlantic 10 regular-season title and a seventh straight conference tournament title. Saint Louis holds a 16-game unbeaten streak ahead of the first-round matchup.

“You’re excited to play, maybe a little bit of disappointment for not hosting,” Kansas coach Nate Lie said of the team’s reaction to the draw.

Lie, former head coach at Xavier, has faced SLU four times in his coaching career, holding a 2-2 record.

“I gave them my two-cent rundown on SLU. The first thing is, they’re pretty darn good,” Lie said. “They’ve won a whole, whole lot. I think I saw seven-peat, which I don’t care what conference. That means not only are you good now, but your culture carries through. The people walk into a winning environment, walk out of a winning environment and are taught from Day 1.

“Huge credit to Katie for what she’s built there. We have a lot of respect for them.”

Kansas (13-5-4) enters the tournament riding an eight-game win streak following the Big 12 Tournament — in which the Jayhawks took down the top three seeds to win the title. The Jayhawks saw four players named to the all-tournament team: defender Caroline Castans, goalkeeper Sophie Dawe, defender Olivia Page and forward Lexi Watts.

“I think we just gained chemistry together, just being able to get wins under our belt and just playing together throughout the season,” Castans said of the recent hot streak. “I’m just grateful for my team.”

Castans and Watts were named to the All-Big 12 first team at the end of the regular season.

The Billikens are led by the A-10 Offensive Player of the Year in forward Emily Gaebe (15 goals); she holds the program’s record for career goals (45). In the net is SLU’s all-time career wins (80) and shutouts leader (50) Emily Puricelli. Puricelli has a 0.51 goals against average this season with 10 shutouts.

SLU also has the A-10 Defensive Player of the Year in Lyndsey Heckel.

“Emily Gaebe is the tip of their spear,” Lie said. “One of the best in the country. … And then they’ve anchored down with all-conference, all-region defenders.”

In his first year at the helm of the Jayhawks, Lie said that a preseason goal was the NCAA Tournament. But he wasn’t sure how realistic that was given Kansas hadn’t made the tournament since 2019.

Now, he’s the first Big 12 coach ever to win the conference tournament as a first-year head coach, all part of a run that he referred to as a “pinch-me moment.”

“Did I think that we were going to win a Big 12 championship and run through the first, second and third seeds? Probably not,” Lie said. “But we knew that there was a ceiling here, that we have good players that have talent, and we just had to kind of align it and get it pointed in the same direction.

“I’m a big believer that you can outperform your talent, or you can under-perform it. That’s oftentimes how I view programs. And I think one of the things I’m proud of is we have a lot of talent in this room, and I think we’re now starting to perform to that level or above it.”

Game time is set for 7 p.m. Central on Friday, Nov. 15, at Hermann Stadium in St. Louis. The winner will then face the winner between No. 1 seed USC and Sacramento State.

Missouri State draws No. 3 seed Iowa

The Bears (13-4-3) took home the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament championship for their automatic bid to the NCAAs, and will head to Iowa City on Friday. The Hawkeyes (13-2-4) finished third in the Big Ten regular-season race.

Game time is set for 6 p.m.