UAA 2019

Started by nesoccerfan10, June 03, 2019, 01:01:00 PM

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WUPHF

Washington University defeated Dominican 3-0.

The sophomores led the way tonight with three quality goals including this header from Nolan Wolf: https://twitter.com/i/status/1172689656825155585

Buck O.

The UAA is not exactly off to a strong start this year.  Last year, the lowest ranked UAA team at the end of the season was Brandeis at #51 (all ratings per Massey); this year, three teams are currently ranked below #100.  Given that we're already better than halfway through the non-conference season, I've got to think this is going to affect the SoS that has gotten so many UAA teams into the tournament in the last couple of years.

Going through the teams, in order of their Massey ratings:

#9 Chicago (2-0-3):  Some things never change.  Highest rating in the league, despite the not-so-gaudy (but nevertheless undefeated) record.  That record is fortified by the fact that each of their opponents is a top-100 team.  The two teams they've beaten, #44 Hope and #46 North Park, are the two-highest rated teams to have been beaten by UAA teams this year.  As we all know, Chicago's Class of 2019 included every conference POY since the Eisenhower Administration, but they've responded well to those losses.

#25 Rochester (3-2): The wins were against teams outside the top 100, so they've won the games they should have won.  The losses were both against top-12 teams, but they were one-goal losses, one in OT, and the stats suggest that the games were pretty even.  So while a team with the U of R's level of success over the last couple of years could have reasonably expected a result against Cortland or John Carroll, they've still responded well to losing a lot of players.

#30 WashU (3-1-1):  A loss and a tie against top-100 opponents and three fairly comfortable wins against teams ranked between #132 and #148.  The loss to St. Thomas easily could have been a better result for the Bears, as WashU was the better team in the first half against St. Thomas, but then went a man down just before halftime.  All in all, a good performance.  Some people were asking where the goals would come from, and the answer seems to be "everyone," as only one player has more than one goal (and he has two).

#34 CWRU (3-1-2):  A bit of a disappointment to date, as more was expected from the pre-season favorites.  The strongest of the three wins is against #159 Heidelberg; they're 0-1-2 against top-50 opponents, none of whom are in the top 20.  While I invoked the Plexiglas principle with regard to NYU when I was making my preseason predictions, it may also apply (albeit less strongly) to CWRU.   Teams that outperform their expectations one year are the teams that are the most likely to take a step back the next season, and other than NYU, no team in the UAA outperformed its expectations in 2018 more than CWRU.

#43 Brandeis (3-2-1):  A solid start.  Losses to Tufts and W&L are certainly no cause for shame.  The rest of their schedule has also been pretty solid, as only one of their opponents is ranked below #102, and they've done reasonably well against it, with the only blemish in that part of the schedule being the tie against #85 WPI. 

#105 CMU (3-3): And now we get into the disappointments section.  CMU was doing all right--not fantastic, but all right.  The team they defeated in their season-opening win, #51 Salisbury, was the highest-ranked team beaten by any UAA team other than Chicago this year.  The two losses were against top-30 teams.  And then they lost to previously winless Allegheny last night.  Allegheny is now ranked #266, so they must have been close to #300 before that game.  Ouch.

#129 Emory (1-3-1): Three losses against top-40 teams and a win against a sub-200 team:  Both as expected.  A tie against #184 Birmingham-Southern (the college whose name sounds the most like a railroad)? Not so great.

#181 NYU (0-4-1):   My expectations were not as high as others, as I expected some regression to the mean, but they seem to have regressed right past the mean.  The opening 4-0 loss to #47 Ithaca?  Well, these things happen sometimes.  The next three losses?  Hobart's a good team (#20), but Drew and RUC are ranked in the mid-100s, so that was cause for concern.  And then they tied Baruch, which was ranked in the 300s (now #293, thanks to this result)?  Ick.


PaulNewman

^^^^^^^^^Really well done.  Enjoyed reading it.

WUPHF

Your pre-season predictions, though not perfect, are holding up well so far as is the prediction by Coach Clarke that his team is better than last year.  I knew we would see more talent from the sophomore class, but the freshmen class is impressive too.

By the way, that last Carnegie Mellon result...

I did not see it so I should not comment, but I figured the Tartans dominated and could not find the back of the next.  That does not appear to be the case though judging by the box score: https://athletics.cmu.edu/sports/msoc/2019-20/boxscores/20190916_wyew.xml

Quote from: Buck O. on June 05, 2019, 04:46:28 PM
OK, here goes, with each group in alphabetical order:

Top three:  Case, Chicago, WashU
Second three:  Deis, Emory, Rochester
Last two:  CMU, NYU

Domino1195

Quote from: WUPHF on September 17, 2019, 08:01:34 PM

By the way, that last Carnegie Mellon result...

I did not see it so I should not comment, but I figured the Tartans dominated and could not find the back of the next.  That does not appear to be the case though judging by the box score: https://athletics.cmu.edu/sports/msoc/2019-20/boxscores/20190916_wyew.xml


I watched most of the first half - CMU started strong but midway through the half Allegheny looked like the better team. With respect to the two UAA teams in the GL: CMU is underachieving right now. They have not put to together a complete 90 minutes in any of their games I saw. They jumped on Salisbury - up 2-0 within the first 20 minutes of the game and then hung on for their lives by game's end. Salisbury missed a chance to tie with 5 minutes to go - CMU player on the goal line makes a great play. But when they possess and swing the ball , involving everyone on the field, they really look good.

Case was just over-ranked. I prefer "over-ranked" vs "overrated" because overrated feels like criticism of the players. Having seen them 5 times - twice in person - there's nothing they are doing wrong to drop points. The GL teams they are playing are just better than ratings or rankings indicate they are.

The parity discussion in the other thread - it surfaces about this time every season. There is definitely more equality in the GL, but I think the initial rankings of teams and expectations created by those rankings are also part one's assessment of a team or league.

blooter442

Quote from: WUPHF on September 17, 2019, 08:01:34 PM
I did not see it so I should not comment, but I figured the Tartans dominated and could not find the back of the next.  That does not appear to be the case though judging by the box score: https://athletics.cmu.edu/sports/msoc/2019-20/boxscores/20190916_wyew.xml

The most interesting thing I saw in the box score was that the game started at 07:30, and not 19:30. ;) Early kick off taken to a whole new level — although the Premier League's early Saturday kickoff is 7:30 a.m. my time (12:30 local time).

WUPHF

Washington University shrugged off a slow start to give Wheaton a great game before eventually falling to the Thunder.

The Bears had a 14-8 advantage on shots on goal including three point-blank shots that were saved by the Wheaton GK.  The Bears missed on a first-half penalty kick and the game looked as though it may end 3-1 before the Bears got one back. 

3-2 was the final.

MaturinNYC

Looks like the UAA got back on track a bit this weekend with wins or draws for everyone except for the aforementioned WashU. game. The league hasn't fared well so far in the non-conference schedule, but good to see several teams starting to hit their stride.
Father, club & HS coach, sometime ref and ever a fan of the game

Buck O.

Quote from: MaturinNYC on September 23, 2019, 10:29:25 AM
Looks like the UAA got back on track a bit this weekend with wins or draws for everyone except for the aforementioned WashU. game. The league hasn't fared well so far in the non-conference schedule, but good to see several teams starting to hit their stride.

This week, the UAA started to get back to being the UAA, with wins over top-50 teams in Loras and Hobart.  But #9 John Carroll and #38 Wheaton (IL) both went 1-0-1 against the UAA, and Deis dropped points to sub-100 WNEC.  Opportunities for UAA teams to improve their rankings will be limited over the next week, since several teams play the softest part of their schedule right before entering into UAA play.  Since my post last Tuesday (with all rankings referring to Massey):

#10 Chicago (3-0-4) fell one slot, with a tie against #38 Wheaton (IL) and a win over #31 Loras.  Loras now becomes the highest-ranked team to have lost to a UAA team this year.  Next up: just a trip to #6 Calvin on Wed. for a rematch of last year's national semifinal match that ended the careers of Chicago's Class of 2019.  Then the Maroons play #92 Kalamazoo and #142 Elmhurst, which will be the first team outside the top 100 they've played.

#18 Rochester (5-2) rose 7 slots with wins over #144 Geneseo St. and #48 Hobart.  Next, they play #319 St. John Fisher and #239 Alvernia.

#36 CWRU (4-2-2) dropped two slots with a loss to #9 John Carroll before rebounding to defeat #58 Adrian.  Next up:  #184 Marietta and #43 Otterbein.

#46 Brandeis (3-2-2) dropped three slots with a tie against #139 WNEC, the worst result for a UAA team this week.  Next up:  #168 Wheaton (MA) and #274 Mitchell.

#47 WashU (3-2-1) only played once, and dropped 17 slots due to a loss to #38 Wheaton (IL).  They'll play #190 Webster and #222 Greenville next.

#67 Emory (3-3-1) really enjoyed their weekend in Texas, rising 62 slots due to wins over #103 MHB and #61 UT-Dallas.  Next up:  #105 Sewanee and #170 Rhodes.

#96 CMU (4-3-1) rebounded from their loss to Allegheny by beating #268 Grove City and then tying #9 John Carroll, the first blemish on JCU's record.  As a result, they rose by 9 slots.  Next up:  #76 Lycoming.

#177 NYU (2-4-1) finally got some wins, defeating #344 SUNY Maritime and #347 Hunter.  For quite a while, the game against Maritime was scoreless, and I was wondering if NYU would follow its tie against Baruch by gakking up another game against a sub-300 opponent, but they finally came through with a goal in the 81st minute.  They only rose by 4 slots in the rankings due to those wins, but they'll have a chance to move much further if they can get a result against #52 Stevens.

WUPHF

Brandeis finishes 0-0 with the 5-loss Wheaton College (Mass) Lyons.

d3commenter

Quote from: WUPHF on September 24, 2019, 08:58:58 PM
Brandeis finishes 0-0 with the 5-loss Wheaton College (Mass) Lyons.

Brandeis needs to get their freshman stud DeNight back to create some offense for them

blooter442

They've exceeded expectations to date given their graduation and coaching changes, but I'll be very impressed if Chicago gets out of Michigan without a loss.

Domino1195

Quote from: blooter442 on September 24, 2019, 09:31:04 PM
They've exceeded expectations to date given their graduation and coaching changes, but I'll be very impressed if Chicago gets out of Michigan without a loss.

Calvin taken to OT three times this year - at home; has played two teams with a winning record. Chicago's 5 road games YTD (2 home) were against substantial opponents.  I did see some of Calvin's victory over ONU - can attack as we've seen in the past. Have conceded 8 goals against lesser competition - conceded 9 goals in all of the regular season last year. No doubt they will be up for this game but they are not the defensive team of the past.

blooter442

Quote from: Domino1195 on September 25, 2019, 06:31:47 AM
Calvin taken to OT three times this year - at home; has played two teams with a winning record. Chicago's 5 road games YTD (2 home) were against substantial opponents.  I did see some of Calvin's victory over ONU - can attack as we've seen in the past. Have conceded 8 goals against lesser competition - conceded 9 goals in all of the regular season last year. No doubt they will be up for this game but they are not the defensive team of the past.

Fair enough, and upon further reflection they also did lose a lot of offensive production last year. I guess I didn't realize how much of the scoring load Witte, McCaw, et al carried. Even so, I didn't ever really consider Calvin to be a "defensive" team, although Vegter was an absolute stud and his loss can't be understated.

As for Chicago, the win against Loras on Friday night was impressive, but it seemed like a smash-and-grab based on the shot count — Chicago's recap even described it as "opportunistic" finishing. Defensively they have been solid, and I do think Katsimpalis could be as good as Bonin was in net, and the GAA of 0.75 speaks to that.

What I think prompted this observation, though, is that these early-season Chicago results remind me of the 2015 season, when — having fallen ass-backwards into the UAA title the previous year (going 5-0-2 in conference yet 6-5 out of conference) they started 2015 5-0 and seemed ready to be anointed repeat UAA champions — but I felt that the results were relatively unconvincing. In the sixth game, they got smacked 4-0 at home by Loras. That was really when the dam burst: they won just two of their next seven and they almost missed the NCAA tournament (a 3-2 2OT win against WashU from 2-0 down in the last game of the season likely proved crucial in their selection). They were a young team at that point — actually I do think in terms of sheer talent (Koh, Lopez, etc. were freshmen) they were more talented than Brandeis, who won the UAA that year, but Brandeis was more experienced and ground out sixteen one-goal wins. A reverse from the previous year when the Judges went 17-2 in the regular season versus Chicago's 11-5-2 but Chicago won the conference. Moreover, Chicago matured a lot following that year (the first of 3 consecutive conference titles). However, I don't think this team is as strong as any of the teams 2015 to present, and definitely not offensively.

Moreover, Calvin throttled Chicago 4-1 last year in that NCAA game, and that could have been five or six, they were that dominant. Chicago's 1-0 win at Calvin earlier that year seemed a million miles away from that, the Maroons got absolutely ripped apart. That still weighs pretty heavily on the mind, although admittedly neither team is 100% the same. Moreover, Chicago's leading scorer thus far has three goals and they have scored a total of 10 goals in 7 games — worth noting that Chicago has played a tougher slate; still, not exactly awe-inspiring offensive production, and the four ties speak to that. Put all those factors with Calvin playing at home, and I have a tough time seeing anything other than a Calvin win.

Could Chicago win? Absolutely. Moreover, I am well aware that no two years are the same. Still, can't get by my hunch. I guess it's up to the Maroons to prove me wrong.

Domino1195

As far as "offense" goes this year, from a GL and Midwest perspective: I find the attack of most GL teams to be offensive! ;D

I'll post some thoughts on some key GL games tonight over on that thread but I think if the opponents of some GL teams left the field during a game it might still take them 10 minutes to score.

Calvin's OT game winners against Wooster and Aquinas were headers directly off a corner kick. Set pieces - always important - are dominating boxscores. I saw a goal from the run of play last week - didn't know how to respond.