If you saw the Illinois soccer team before the NCAA tournament selection show on Monday, you would have never guessed it lost to Ohio State in Sunday’s Big Ten Tournament championship.

The Illini players were relaxed and joking around, seemingly unaware of the fact that, though unlikely, they could be snubbed from getting a bid in the tournament.

But that is the new mentality that the Illini gained as the regular season winded down. After taking down two top-25 teams in their past five games, the Illini are confident in what they can do. In fact, some felt like it was not a matter of if they would be picked, but when.

“I wasn’t too worried. I had a lot of good feelings about getting in and we heard that we we’re going to be alright from some coaches so it made us feel better,” senior forward Niki Read said.

The committee felt the same way as Illinois, giving the team an at-large bid to play Missouri in Columbia, Mo. this weekend. With the slump that the Illini experienced earlier this season, they were just happy to hear their name get called.

“Because of the up and down we had earlier this season, we weren’t going to be too picky,” Read said. “We just wanted to get in and it didn’t matter who we played.”

Throughout most of the season, Illinois could not beat a ranked opponent and even lost games that it was favored to win. Without a statement win, the Illini knew that if they continued to play like they had, they were in great danger of missing the postseason.

The Illini got hot at the right time, though, and defeated then-No. 24 Michigan and No. 3 Penn State over the course of a four-game unbeaten streak. The 1-0 upset of Penn State was the first time the Nittany Lions were shut out all season. Despite losing to Ohio State in the tournament championship, Illinois is still confident in its ability to make a run.

“Definitely the fight and having the belief that, no matter what happens in a game, we can come back,” junior forward Megan Pawloski said when asked what they would need to carry over from this past weekend. “We just didn’t have enough on Sunday, but I think it gave everybody on this team the belief that we can beat anyone out there.”

Illinois played Missouri to a 1-1 tie last season in an exhibition match in Columbia, so the team knows a little bit about what to expect when it travels there this weekend.

“It’s a good team, it’s a team that’s extremely athletic. (Missouri is) certainly going to put us under pressure and we’ll have to deal with that,” head coach Janet Rayfield said. “We’ll do a lot of film studying this week to get ready for that, but any game you play this time of year, you know it’s going to be a battle.”

Rayfield is an alumnus of North Carolina, and, if the Illini can take down Missouri, they will likely travel to Chapel Hill, N.C., to take on the second-seeded Tar Heels. 

Rayfield played under North Carolina’s Hall-of-Fame head coach Anson Dorrance from 1979-82 and left the program as the school’s all-time leader in goals scored. 

She will use that potential matchup to motivate the Illini for the upcoming first round. More importantly, though, the five seniors on the team are now getting ready to play each game like it is their last, giving them extra incentive to keep the season alive.

“I just told the team they could do me a favor by taking me back to Chapel Hill, but I think there’s pressure to win the first game, there’s pressure to win every game,” Rayfield said. “This senior class just wants to keep playing, and we’ve been talking for a long time about how every win just buys us one more game, and that is certainly true right now.”

Charlie can be reached at [email protected].