Grad Students

Started by 2xfaux, November 08, 2022, 01:03:25 PM

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2xfaux

Things are not very lively here these days but I am wondering if anyone has thoughts about the effect that so many grad-students and fifth year seniors will have this year.  I understand this is mostly because of the Covid year and we will probably be seeing this for the next 2 years.   

daveyjonez

It had a MASSIVE effect on the Centennial Conference this year- look at the Johns Hopkins Women's roster. They are always good, but when you have multiple D1 grad transfers that were impact players for 4 years as undergrads, they are REAL tough to compete with. Just the reality and ongoing effects of the Covid year.

2xfaux

Hopkins was one of the teams I thought about when asking the question.

Stryker

From my perspective, there is a significant difference between a home-grown 5 yr senior/grad student and a 5th year transfer from a D-1 school. While there are clearly many D-3 players that have the skills to play D-1 and may have chosen not to for reasons unique to them,  many (not all) D-1 players have size and skill advantages over the usual D-3 player. 

A team like John Hopkins with 9 graduate students has stacked the deck in their favor. 2 of the grad students (1 fwd and 1 defender) are home-grown, having played their entire career at Hopkins with the forward contributing 10 goals and 2 assists. The starting goalie and the backup goalies are both 5th year transfers from D -1 schools. The remaining 5 grad students are all 5th yr transfers from D-1 schools that play significant time and contributed 37 goals and 24 assists.  But most D-3 schools have not followed the path of John Hopkins.

Looking at the top 25 rankings, there are only a few schools that have added D-1 5th yr transfers. Case Western has added 2 forwards who have contributed 15 goals and 10 assists. Emory added 2 transfers that contributed 4 goals and 5 assists. Carnegie Mellon added a goalkeeper who played only 4 games. MIT added a midfielder who contributed 1 goal and 1 assist. Babson added a forward who contributed 7 goals and 7 assists.

There are 4 other teams in the top 25 that have 5th year players on their roster but they are all home-grown, playing their entire carer at their schools. Those teams are Misericordia (4), Montclair State (1), Wartburg (5) and Tufts (1). The rest of the top 25 have no 5th year players.

While I have not gone back to check the 2021 teams, my recollection is that there were a lot more teams with 5th year players that year that seemed to have an impact. This year, John Hopkins seems to be an outlier and I do not foresee many other schools in 2023 getting many D-1 transfers.

PlaySimple

Quote from: Stryker on November 08, 2022, 05:17:14 PM
From my perspective, there is a significant difference between a home-grown 5 yr senior/grad student and a 5th year transfer from a D-1 school. While there are clearly many D-3 players that have the skills to play D-1 and may have chosen not to for reasons unique to them,  many (not all) D-1 players have size and skill advantages over the usual D-3 player. 

The other factor is that while there are many D3 players that have the skills to play at the D1 level, and may be comparable to many players that went the D1 route, those players at the D1 level will generally develop more simply due to playing against and training with, better players. It's really simple. Training with better players and playing against better players will make better players.

There are some exceptions, though. Some of the mid-major D1 conferences are probably comparable overall to some of the top D3 conferences such as the UAA. Many teams that play in the UAA, NESCAC, or any of the top D3 teams, really, could hold their own against many of the mid-majors. Even St Thomas, which transitioned to D1 from D3, has had some moderate success and there are plenty of D3 schools that were better than the Tommies when they made the move. It is true that the Tommies were 6-8-3 overall and 2-6-1 in the Summit conference but they have been in some close games vs some tough opponents and this is only their 2nd full year in D1. It was to be expected. 


A team like John Hopkins with 9 graduate students has stacked the deck in their favor. 2 of the grad students (1 fwd and 1 defender) are home-grown, having played their entire career at Hopkins with the forward contributing 10 goals and 2 assists. The starting goalie and the backup goalies are both 5th year transfers from D -1 schools. The remaining 5 grad students are all 5th yr transfers from D-1 schools that play significant time and contributed 37 goals and 24 assists.  But most D-3 schools have not followed the path of John Hopkins.

A national championship from JHU would not surprise me at all.

The other advantage that JHU has, and I do not fault the school or team for this at all, is that it has extensive and top-echelon graduate programs. Many D3 schools don't even have graduate programs or, if they do, the offerings are quite limited. I had this discussion with someone else and they argued that many D3 schools have graduate schools. That just is not true unless, as I stated, the offerings are limited. Major research institutions like JHU, Chicago, MIT, WashU, etc, will have more top-level graduate programs than the typical D3 liberal arts school. 

I am curious about other sports and if there were appreciable numbers of transfers from D1 programs. I am aware of a few in cross country that went from D1 to a D2 or D3 as graduate students but am unsure of other sports.


I have comments in bold, above, as well.

The reverse of going from D1 to D3 is the athlete that goes from D3 to D1. This does not happen often but it does happen.

Gabbie Cesarone is a great example of this. She is an outstanding center back and coming out of St Charles HS in Chicagoland, she could have gone to many D1 schools and started as a freshman. Gabbie went WashU and had an outstanding career. In her sophomore year she was both a D3soccer.com 1st team All-American and a United Soccer Coaches 1st team All-American. In Gabbie's senior year at WashU she won just about every possible accolade you can imagine. WashU, like many D3 schools, had very limited competition in her junior year due to covid, unfortunately. She then went on to Minnesota to study public health as a grad student. For Minnesota, she started 19 of 19 games, led the team in minutes played, had 6 goals and 2 assists with 4 game-winners.

In another sport, cross country and track, Ella Baran is now at Colorado as a graduate student after competiting at Johns Hopkins. Baran is one of the top runners on one of the top women's cross country teams in the country. She took 7th place at the PAC-12 cross country championships and was Colorado's 3rd runner. Colorado won the team championship. This weekend she will be in the regional meet and will more than likely be competing in the NCAA championship after that.

Esther Seeland is another great example of an athlete that made the jump from D3 to D1. Seeland played soccer and ran track at Messiah. She started most games games throughout her soccer career at Messiah and won multiple National Championships in track. She also qualified for the Olympic Trials in the 800 meters. Seeland is now at Virginia and competed in cross country this fall and was fairly successful despite being more of a mid-distance runner. This upcoming winter & spring she should score a lot of points for the indoor & outdoor track teams.

I know that I am getting off topic and this is not the focus of the thread but I like hearing about D3 athletes that have found success at the D1 level.


daveyjonez

I agree with all of your comments PlaySimple- spot on.

PlaySimple

Good read about Cesarone's decision to play at WashU out of high school and her decision to play at Minnesota as a post-grad.

https://mndaily.com/274247/sports/gabbie-cesarones-long-journey-shaped-her-into-gophers-soccer-leader/

CentPA

Happy Thanksgiving - I just watched SimpleCoach's Thanksgiving video and he recapped the women's final four: https://youtu.be/5FIQOAw1u3o

Hopkins definitely has to be the favored team for all the reasons mentioned in some of the above posts.  I watched the Hopkins / Misericordia game and after looking at the Box Score (and even knowing about the D1 transfers), I was still a little surprised at what's happening at Hopkins this year.

During the Misericordia game they used 4 subs out of a total roster of 35.  The starting 11 consisted of 6 5th year grad students (more than half) 2 of which are "home grown" and 4 are D1 transfers.  The remaining 5 starters include 3 freshmen and 2 sophomores.  The four that were used off the bench include 2 5th year D1 transfers and one freshman and one sophomore.  What you don't see on the field at all during the game are any juniors or seniors!  Imagine being a senior that came to Hopkins in 2019 (the year before COVID) and now in 2022 you are sitting on the bench because 7 D1 5th year transfers came in (I'm purposely ignoring the 2 home grown 5th year seniors).  Talk about renting a team for a year.

daveyjonez

Quote from: CentPA on November 24, 2022, 09:49:55 AM
Happy Thanksgiving - I just watched SimpleCoach's Thanksgiving video and he recapped the women's final four: https://youtu.be/5FIQOAw1u3o

Hopkins definitely has to be the favored team for all the reasons mentioned in some of the above posts.  I watched the Hopkins / Misericordia game and after looking at the Box Score (and even knowing about the D1 transfers), I was still a little surprised at what's happening at Hopkins this year.

During the Misericordia game they used 4 subs out of a total roster of 35.  The starting 11 consisted of 6 5th year grad students (more than half) 2 of which are "home grown" and 4 are D1 transfers.  The remaining 5 starters include 3 freshmen and 2 sophomores.  The four that were used off the bench include 2 5th year D1 transfers and one freshman and one sophomore.  What you don't see on the field at all during the game are any juniors or seniors!  Imagine being a senior that came to Hopkins in 2019 (the year before COVID) and now in 2022 you are sitting on the bench because 7 D1 5th year transfers came in (I'm purposely ignoring the 2 home grown 5th year seniors).  Talk about renting a team for a year.

Yes, that would be tough on a senior for sure. My kid plays in the Centennial- really tough to compete with D1's w 4 years of playing experience, year round training, etc. The quality and depth made it very difficult to say the least. Most of these grad transfers were impact players at their previous schools. She did enjoy the challenge of trying to hang in there against them though! (She's an outside back).

Ron Boerger

Quote from: CentPA on November 24, 2022, 09:49:55 AM
Happy Thanksgiving - I just watched SimpleCoach's Thanksgiving video and he recapped the women's final four: https://youtu.be/5FIQOAw1u3o

Hopkins definitely has to be the favored team for all the reasons mentioned in some of the above posts.  I watched the Hopkins / Misericordia game and after looking at the Box Score (and even knowing about the D1 transfers), I was still a little surprised at what's happening at Hopkins this year.

During the Misericordia game they used 4 subs out of a total roster of 35.  The starting 11 consisted of 6 5th year grad students (more than half) 2 of which are "home grown" and 4 are D1 transfers.  The remaining 5 starters include 3 freshmen and 2 sophomores.  The four that were used off the bench include 2 5th year D1 transfers and one freshman and one sophomore.  What you don't see on the field at all during the game are any juniors or seniors!  Imagine being a senior that came to Hopkins in 2019 (the year before COVID) and now in 2022 you are sitting on the bench because 7 D1 5th year transfers came in (I'm purposely ignoring the 2 home grown 5th year seniors).  Talk about renting a team for a year.

#notwhyd3