Five Finals, One Night: Ivy, Big Ten, Big East, NESCAC and U SPORTS All Decided on Sunday

Sunday night is finals night, and it’s a big one. Five conference and national titles get decided in the space of a few hours, and then the NCAA bracket comes out.

Ivy League, noon ET (10:00pm PKT): Princeton v Yale, Cambridge. Princeton are the defending champions, on a nine-game winning streak, and were NCAA finalists last year. Yale are the story of the tournament so far. They upset No. 4 Harvard 2-1 in the semifinal, ending the regular-season champions’ run in a game delayed by lightning. Princeton beat Cornell 1-0 in theirs, Pru Lindsey scoring the only goal late in the second quarter. Harvard won the first two Ivy tournaments, so a Princeton win keeps the new order in place. A Yale win would be the upset of the weekend.

Big Ten, 11:00am CT (10:00pm PKT): Northwestern v Maryland, Big Ten Network. The top two seeds, exactly as it should be. Northwestern beat Indiana 3-0 in the semifinal. Maryland beat Iowa 4-1. The winner takes the auto bid, and both of these sides will fancy their chances in the NCAA Tournament regardless.

Big East, noon ET (10:00pm PKT): UConn v Old Dominion, Philadelphia, ESPN+. UConn are 15-1 and have won 12 straight, but they needed a 53rd-minute goal from Lucy Zich to get past Villanova 1-0 in the semifinal. Old Dominion upset Liberty 1-0 in theirs, knocking out the team that beat UConn in last year’s final. UConn are favourites, and rightly so. But ODU have already ruined one favourite’s weekend.

NESCAC, noon ET (10:00pm PKT): Tufts v Middlebury. The fifth Tufts-Middlebury NESCAC final. Tufts are 17-0 and needed a late comeback and an overtime winner to beat Williams 3-2 in the semifinal. Middlebury beat Bowdoin 2-0. Tufts are chasing a fourth title. Middlebury are in their 17th final. This is the best rivalry in Division III, and it rarely disappoints.

U SPORTS, Canada, Warrior Field, Waterloo. The bronze-medal game is UPEI v Waterloo at noon EST (10:00pm PKT), and the gold-medal game is UBC v Toronto at 2:30pm EST (12:30am PKT Monday). UBC got there by beating UPEI 4-0 on Saturday, Mackenna Brown, Sukhman Hundal, Puneet Litt and Sydney Le scoring. Toronto held hosts Waterloo to a goalless draw, which was enough to send them through. UBC finished pool play unbeaten. Toronto have been the hardest side to beat all week. Watch it on CBC Gem and CBC Sports YouTube.

Then, when the finals are done, the NCAA Division I selection show airs at 10:00pm ET (8:00am PKT Monday) on NCAA.com. Eighteen teams, ten auto bids and eight at-large picks. The first round is Friday 13 November, the final is in Louisville on 22 November.

For our money, the Ivy final is the pick of the night. Princeton should win it. But Yale have already beaten the best team in the league once this weekend, and sides that do that don’t fear anyone.