Forty-two schools had been placed into the bracket.
And with only six tournament teams to be revealed - including several potential opponents from the Northeast - the Penn men's soccer team held its collective breath.
Then the list came up: Towson, Fairfield, Connecticut, Providence, Hofstra, Wake Forest.
With that, the door closed on the Quakers' 2006 season.
The NCAA Tournament selection committee bypassed the Red and Blue, instead inviting Ivy foes Harvard and Brown to the field of 48.
For Penn, that last slate of teams brought with it feelings of disappointment and resignation. But the result didn't come as a complete shock, at least in coach Rudy Fuller's eyes.
"I wasn't surprised, to be honest with you," he admitted. "We were obviously pleased with the way we finished the season. I think we had too many things going against us to get in at-large."
The most prominent weaknesses in Penn's resume were in the non-conference schedule. Penn's best non-conference win was against Hartwick, which had a mediocre season. And it was further hurt by losses to pedestrian La Salle and American.
Brown, by contrast, earned a win against No. 19 Boston University and lost only one non-Ivy game.
None of that matters now, of course, particularly to Penn's four seniors. Dan Cepero, Andy Howard, Ryan Tracy and Chuck Snyder will leave Penn after the cruelest of endings and without an NCAA Tournament appearance to their names.
"To be sitting in a room with the other guys on the team and not see your name come up - it hurts," said Cepero, this year's captain and goal-keeper.
Cepero's heroic efforts - three clean sheets in his final three matches - put Penn in position to win the Ivy League and bypass the committee.
But the Quakers could only muster a goalless draw against Brown despite controlling the game. Ironically enough, it was the Bears that grabbed the second of the Ivy League's two spots.
"It's easy to look back and say, 'What if, what if,'" Cepero said. "That was not our intention, but you can't help but do it if you're outside the team and looking back on the season that was.
"Yeah, it's frustrating. You could harp on things in the past, but we're not going to dwell on it too much."
Even so, the Penn Class of 2007 has plenty to be proud of, including a win total of 31 that ranks it among the top ten in the program's history.
"They left the program in better shape than when they came in," Fuller said. "We're thankful for them.
"If I was in their shoes, I would certainly want to have an opportunity to continue playing. I would have wanted to put myself in the mix and extend my final season."
In the end, though, it wasn't to be. So for the fourth consecutive year, the men's soccer team will be forced to watch the NCAA Tournament, rather than play in it.
