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GREENSBORO -- As they boarded a bus for Baltimore on Monday morning, the members of the UNCG men's soccer team didn't know the full historical context of their trip. They were just glad to be making it.

If the Spartans do to Loyola (Md.) tonight what they did to Duke on Friday, they'll be the first team in the NCAA tournament's 50-year history to enter with a losing overall record and win two postseason games. Of their five sub-.500 predecessors, two managed to win their opener. Their road ended shortly thereafter.

"It's all about confidence," coach Michael Parker said after the 2-0 victory over the Blue Devils. "Once the confidence has come into us, which has been in about the last four or five games, we're a different team."

The story so far speaks to the unpredictable nature of the world's most popular game, but maybe there's something else to it. March commands the attention of the Old North State's sports fans like no other month; November and December produce more glory.

In the fall, the NCAA conducts Division I championship events in football (the establishment formerly known as Division I-AA), men's and women's soccer, men's and women's cross country, men's water polo, field hockey and women's volleyball. A team from North Carolina has won a fall title in something every year this decade. Only California can match that, and the Golden State has 51 percent more Division I athletes in the applicable sports than this one fields.

Sure, they're not big on field hockey in California, but they make up for the deficit by providing 12 of the nation's 22 programs in men's water polo.

Closer to home, the UNC women's soccer program keeps on churning with three more NCAA championships this decade, but it is no longer the only source of banner-hanging around here.

Appalachian State football is working on its fourth straight title. If Jerry Moore were 59 and self-promotional, he'd be on the BCS coaching interview circuit. But he's 69 and self-effacing, two qualities that won't get him on Chuck Neinas' speed-dial. Neinas, the headhunter to the stars, will still work for his BCS clients and Moore will still coach the Mountaineers. The others will get rich and famous; Moore will collect peace and trophies.

Wake Forest field hockey barely missed its fourth NCAA title of the decade Sunday when it lost to Maryland in the championship game. The Demon Deacons will host the semifinals and finals in 2009, and that's a pretty good hint that they'll remain in the picture.

Just across the Winston-Salem campus, coach Jay Vidovich's team is doing its best to turn men's soccer into a high-scoring sport. In defense of their 2007 title, the Deacons have scored 68 goals in 20 games, an NCAA-leading average of 3.4 a pop. Loyola's second -- at 2.4 per game. In other words, the Deacs' scoring rate is 41 percent better than anybody else's in a sport with more than 200 teams.

For the sake of admittedly imperfect comparison, the Oklahoma football team would have to average 71 points a game to hold that kind of dominance over Tulsa, its nearest pursuer on the scoring chart. (OK. Texas Tech says that's not implausible. But you get the point.)

How good are the Deacs? One of UNCG's captains said last week that Wake plays a different game than everybody else. He made it sound like he'd rather be frozen to a light post on Spring Garden Street than face the Deacs again after they beat his Spartans 6-0 back in October.

But that was before the NCAA draw came out and before the Spartans shocked Duke in last week's first round. The tests will keep coming as long as the Spartans keep earning them.

Elsewhere in Bracketville, Duke and Carolina are in the women's soccer quarterfinals. UNCG eliminated the Blue Devils, but the Deacons and Tar Heels remain as the men's soccer field is trimmed today from 32 clubs to 16.

If history prevails, one of them will win something, and California will still have company. Provided, of course, that it can keep up.

Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rob.daniels@news-record.com