Week 1 Rankings (guess):
1. OWU (3-0)
2. Kenyon (3-0)
3. CMU (3-0)
4. Thomas More (2-0)
5. Geneva (2-0-1)
6. Ohio Northern (2-1). Beat Wheaton MA. OT loss at Babson
7. Rose-Hulman (2-1). Beat Centre. Loss to Chicago.
8. Case Western Reserve (2-1). Loss to TM, but weak wins
9. Capital (1-1). Beat K-zoo
10. John Carroll (1-1). Beat Elmhurst
Lastguy, looks about right. Probably would have included 2-0 Denison (with good road win over Emory) and DePauw, and Grove City may be a sleeper. Wabash also has a shot to run off 6-7 straight wins with a very soft schedule. John Carroll ramped up their schedule but may suffer from it with big road trip to play NC Wesleyan and Methodist. And I'm curious to see which way Oberlin's season will go.
Next 5 games....
OWU -- @Otterbein, Spalding, @Centre, @Ohio Northern, Thomas More (last 3 will be good tests but would be surprised to see OWU lose any of those, especially with Thomas More appearing to have less than stellar defense)
Kenyon -- CMU, Marietta, @Centre, @Muskingum, Wittenberg (CMU obviously is huge and Centre away always is a challenge, and next game after those 5 brings Case Western)
CMU -- @Kenyon, @Wooster, Bethany, Westminster (PA), Grove City (Grove City game will be big for both teams)
Thomas More -- @Capital, Denison, Centre, @OWU, @Heidelberg (toughest stretch in the region and TMC living dangerously giving up goals)
Denison -- Wilmington, @Thomas More, @Capital, Marietta, OWU (another tough set of games but wins away at TMC and Capital would be huge)
DePauw -- Franklin, @Olivet, @KZoo, Loras, Rose Hulman (Well, that looks rough too, followed by Oberlin and @TMC)
Case Western -- @Baldwin Wallace, John Carroll, @Wooster, @Wilmington (JCU game a big one and next game after these 5 is @Kenyon)
Ohio Northern -- Wittenberg, Thiel, Brockport, OWU, @Case (3 major tests there in a row)
Capital -- Thomas More, Case, Waynesburg, Denison, Hiram (some landmines there with OWU looming)
Oberlin -- Waynesburg, Earlham, @Grove City, Medaille, @Baldwin Wallace (looks soft except for @Grove City and need to run table on these 5 with @DePauw next)
Others -- Grove City, Geneva, Wabash, John Carroll, Rose Hulman
Based on Massey - Denison will most likely make it. Based on what we saw from Denison in spring games, I thought they were going to be in for a long season. They did start 2 freshman this weekend, only have two seniors. Makes me wonder about Emory . . .
Got to feel bad for Kalamazoo. I told some of their fans Friday as we drank away the rain-out that teams come in and expend tremendous physical and emotional energy playing OWU the first night and hit the wall the next. Capital has been the beneficiary three times, beating Colorado College, K-zoo and tying Christopher Newport they day after these teams played OWU. Sunday's game was moved to Capital, on turf, humid and it was 100+ degrees on the field at kick off.
Massey Ratings:
Kenyon
OWU
Thomas More
John Carroll
CMU (Messiah result not posted), not enough for them to bump Kenyon or OWU.
K-zoo (3rd result not posted)
Denison
Ohio Northern
Case Western
DePauw
----------------
Rose-Hulman
Geneva
Is this the first year NSCAA has not posted rankings after the first weekend? I can't remember....
Lastguy, you don't have your game legs yet, lol. Now you got Kalamazoo in Great Lakes!
Weather already impacting games today - Cap and Thomas More moved to tomorrow at 7pm.
Quote from: NCAC New England on September 08, 2015, 06:45:59 PM
Lastguy, you don't have your game legs yet, lol. Now you got Kalamazoo in Great Lakes!
Son of a bee sting.
Kenyon now 4 from 1 after week 4 loss to DePauw on D3 Soccer poll. Will be interesting to see where they land on NSCAA later today. DePauw made it into top 25 for D3 as well. Current Great Lakes teams in D3 top 25:
#4. Kenyon (down from 1 after 1-0 loss to DePauw)
#9. Denison (up from 13 following W's vs Heidelberg and Hiram)
#13. Carnegie Mellon (down from 7 following big 4-2 loss vs Brandeis
#17. Thomas More (up from 24)
#24. DePauw (just made list after 1-0 win vs previously #1 ranked Kenyon)
Receiving votes: Case Western (98), OWU (19)
I think I'd put TMC ahead of CMU in my own ranking due to the draw at Westminster, but it's not a quantitatively objective opinion.
Interestingly, Massey now has:
TMC 1st of all Great Lakes teams at #8
Kenyon 2nd at #11
Denison 3rd at #14
Case Western 4th at #22
DePauw 5th at #25
OWU 6th at #34
CMU 7th at #46
I think Massey has it closer to my sense of current team strength/ability than D3 Soccer. Kenyon vs. TMC would make a very interesting game, as it did last year in round 1 in Gambier, ending in PK's...
Huge week for NCAC. NCAC game picks and predictions for current week: (Home teams listed first, scores listed in same order as teams.)
Saturday 10/10/15: Relatively easy day for more highly ranked teams, but upsets always possible. Oberlin vs. Wabash (@Oberlin) is game of the day.
- DePauw vs. Hiram: 2-1 DePauw will stay at top of NCAC at 3-0-0 if they pull a W at home; shouldn't be much of a problem for the Tigers.
- Allegheny vs. Denison: 0-1 Definitely give Big Red the W, but they haven't been scoring big and Allegheny has held a number of teams to low scores. Could easily be 0-2 or 1-2 if Denison offense plays well
- Oberlin vs. Wabash: 2-1 Wabash last 3: losses to OWU and Centre and draw vs. Allegheny; Oberlin held strong UAA team Case Western to 1-1 draw in 2OT, plus Oberlin has HFA
- Wooster vs. Kenyon: 0-3 Not much of a contest; wish Kenyon had a tougher schedule today going into next 2 games
- Wittenberg vs. OWU: 0-3 Not much of a contest here either. Wittenberg has HFA, but not enough to matter much if OWU momentum continues and players healthy
Wednesday 10/14/15: Much bigger game day for NCAC! Game of the day is Kenyon vs. Oberlin (@Kenyon).
- Kenyon vs. Oberlin: 2-1 Kenyon takes a W at home vs. the Yeomen (the sting of DePauw loss still fresh) if they can penetrate a defensively postured Oberlin squad
- Wabash vs. Denison: 0-1 Wabash has HFA, but Denison is the better team. Crawfordsville crowd tough, but betting on Big Red to ride home with a W
- Allegheny vs. Hiram: 1-2 This is pretty close to a pick 'em for me but I'm giving Hiram a slight edge, even though they're on the road.
- OWU vs. Wooster: 3-0 Not much of a contest here, even worse in Delaware, OH for the Scots. 2 easy games for OWU not necessarily best for them going into following week, but easy game for Bishops
- Wittenberg vs. DePauw: 0-2 Not much of a contest here either. DePauw will collect another W and go 4-0-0 in NCAC
10/10 recap (home team first, scores ordered home first, away second)
Wooster vs. Kenyon: 1-6 Kenyon
Oberlin vs. Wabash: 0-1 Wabash
DePauw vs. Hiram: 1-0 DePauw
Allegheny vs. Denison: 1-0 Allegheny
OWU vs. Wittenberg: 6-0 OWU
1 big upset (Allegheny over Denison) and 1 surprise (Wabash over Oberlin). Definitely makes NCAC dynamics interesting! DePauw maintains only perfect NCAC record; OWU and Allegheny w/ no losses, but one tie each. Kenyon, Denison with one loss each and Oberlin with 2 losses. Kenyon maintains current best overall record at 9-1-0. OWU strong momentum continues but tougher games ahead for both Bishops and Lords.
NCAC Review
DePauw 3-0 (@Wittenberg, @Wooster, OWU, @Denison, Wabash, @Allegheny)
OWU 2-0-1 (Wooster, Allegheny, @DePauw, @Oberlin, Kenyon, Hiram)
Kenyon 2-1 (Oberlin, Denison, @Hiram, @Allegheny, @OWU, Wabash)
Denison 1-1-1 (@Wabash, @Kenyon, Wooster, DePauw, @Wittenberg, Oberlin)
Wabash 1-1-1 (Denison, @Hiram, Wittenberg, Wooster, @DePauw, @Kenyon)
Oberlin 1-2 (@Kenyon, @Wittenberg, Allegheny, OWU, Hiram, @Denison)
****Allegheny is 2-0-1 but with only 3 total wins all season not considered a strong contender for a NCAC playoff spot
DePauw should be 5-0 and OWU 4-0-1 when the Tigers host the Battling Bishops on 10/20 for a mid-week night game. The DePauw-OWU game should go a long towards determining the regular season winner and home field for the NCAC playoffs, at least until OWU hosts Kenyon for another mid-week showdown on 10/28. Getting OWU at home definitely adds to DePauw controlling their own fate, with an away game at Denison the only obvious potential remaining serious challenge thereafter as the Tigers get the Little Brown Jug game (or something like that) with Wabash at home.
With a win at DePauw, OWU would trump the Tigers as the frontrunner and squad controlling their own fate, creating even more drama for the Kenyon visit 8 days later, assuming the Lords can be clean at home in their back-to-back rivalry games with Oberlin and Denison. No easy task for the Lords as Oberlin and Denison always play well against the Lords, usually producing very tight 1-goal kinds of games. The Lords also would have to handle road games with Hiram and Allegheny leading into the short trip to Delaware to make the OWU tilt as compelling as possible.
Preseason one would have guessed that DePauw, OWU and Kenyon would be the top NCAC contenders, but Denison can put themselves very squarely back in the mix with away wins at Wabash and Kenyon. The Wabash game, with long travel mid-week, will not be easy, especially if the Big Red are even mildly looking ahead to the Lords. If Denison can somehow navigate the coming week they'll still face home games down the road with DePauw and Oberlin. If Wabash can knock off Denison at home, then the Little Giants would be favored in the next 3 and a very competitive 5-1-1 heading into back-to-back road games with DePauw and Kenyon, a daunting challenge to end the season. Oberlin, already with 2 losses, must be considered on the outside looking in as games with Kenyon, OWU and Denison remain.
The edge at the moment belongs to DePauw and OWU. Knowing that a win for DePauw would likely be handing the regular season trophy to the Tigers, I expect OWU to prevail in that one, especially as the Tigers were very fortunate to leave Gambier with a win after being mostly dominated against Kenyon. As noted, the Lords have considerable work to do but an OWU win at DePauw would provide an opening for Kenyon to regain control of their own destiny. Denison is a longshot for one of the top two spots but certainly still very viable to land one of the other two playoff slots. Denison's trip to Wabash could be key in terms of determining the final playoff spot.
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 11, 2015, 02:55:01 PM
NCAC Review
DePauw 3-0 (@Wittenberg, @Wooster, OWU, @Denison, Wabash, @Allegheny)
OWU 2-0-1 (Wooster, Allegheny, @DePauw, @Oberlin, Kenyon, Hiram)
Kenyon 2-1 (Oberlin, Denison, @Hiram, @Allegheny, @OWU, Wabash)
Denison 1-1-1 (@Wabash, @Kenyon, Wooster, DePauw, @Wittenberg, Oberlin)
Wabash 1-1-1 (Denison, @Hiram, Wittenberg, Wooster, @DePauw, @Kenyon)
Oberlin 1-2 (@Kenyon, @Wittenberg, Allegheny, OWU, Hiram, @Denison)
****Allegheny is 2-0-1 but with only 3 total wins all season not considered a strong contender for a NCAC playoff spot
DePauw should be 5-0 and OWU 4-0-1 when the Tigers host the Battling Bishops on 10/20 for a mid-week night game. The DePauw-OWU game should go a long towards determining the regular season winner and home field for the NCAC playoffs, at least until OWU hosts Kenyon for another mid-week showdown on 10/28. Getting OWU at home definitely adds to DePauw controlling their own fate, with an away game at Denison the only obvious potential remaining serious challenge thereafter as the Tigers get the Little Brown Jug game (or something like that) with Wabash at home.
With a win at DePauw, OWU would trump the Tigers as the frontrunner and squad controlling their own fate, creating even more drama for the Kenyon visit 8 days later, assuming the Lords can be clean at home in their back-to-back rivalry games with Oberlin and Denison. No easy task for the Lords as Oberlin and Denison always play well against the Lords, usually producing very tight 1-goal kinds of games. The Lords also would have to handle road games with Hiram and Allegheny leading into the short trip to Delaware to make the OWU tilt as compelling as possible.
Preseason one would have guessed that DePauw, OWU and Kenyon would be the top NCAC contenders, but Denison can put themselves very squarely back in the mix with away wins at Wabash and Kenyon. The Wabash game, with long travel mid-week, will not be easy, especially if the Big Red are even mildly looking ahead to the Lords. If Denison can somehow navigate the coming week they'll still face home games down the road with DePauw and Oberlin. If Wabash can knock off Denison at home, then the Little Giants would be favored in the next 3 and a very competitive 5-1-1 heading into back-to-back road games with DePauw and Kenyon, a daunting challenge to end the season. Oberlin, already with 2 losses, must be considered on the outside looking in as games with Kenyon, OWU and Denison remain.
The edge at the moment belongs to DePauw and OWU. Knowing that a win for DePauw would likely be handing the regular season trophy to the Tigers, I expect OWU to prevail in that one, especially as the Tigers were very fortunate to leave Gambier with a win after being mostly dominated against Kenyon. As noted, the Lords have considerable work to do but an OWU win at DePauw would provide an opening for Kenyon to regain control of their own destiny. Denison is a longshot for one of the top two spots but certainly still very viable to land one of the other two playoff slots. Denison's trip to Wabash could be key in terms of determining the final playoff spot.
Great analysis, as always! A few random thoughts to add:
- Agree completely that the Tigers vs. Battling Bishops matchup is the most important near term game for NCAC in terms of HFA and regular season champs.
- I caught enough of the Allegheny Denison game yesterday to walk away feeling that, while Allegheny is still not a serious contender, they have serious potential to be a spoiler for the other contenders for rest of the season and a team that nobody should take lightly as an easy W. This is supported by the relatively low-scoring and/or close games they've had vs. stronger teams recently. During the portion of 2H that I watched, I thought the Gators controlled possession far more than Big Red and outplayed them pretty completely, making the big home W entirely deserved. In fairness, I did not see 1H.
- Wooster came out strongly against Kenyon yesterday, at least relative to my expectations. Said differently, the Lords came out flat and sluggish in 1H vs. the Scots relative to my expectations too. The tide clearly reversed in 2H and Kenyon decided to do what they're capable of doing... Playing weaker teams is not great for prepping the Lords for tougher games. I'd love to see them schedule a few more tougher, non-conference matches (like Case and CMU) earlier in the season to get them ready for tougher NCAC conference games and NCAA play. The Lords do have HFA for Oberlin on Weds, but they need to start winning games in 1H and not need to be trailing to get their mojo flowing. It won't work against OWU IMO, and it's a high risk strategy for Oberlin, Denison and Wabash.
- Oberlin playing Wittenberg and Allegheny is not great prep for the OWU game for them either (unless they have injuries)...though, as I said above, Allegheny is capable of surprising teams and should not be overlooked.
- Wabash is a key game for Denison going into the Lords game, with both games away for the Big Red. The Allegheny game definitely takes some wind out of their sails. Personally, I'd like to see Denison prevail, but Wabash is tough in Crawfordsville and, from personal experience, a tough crowd of home fans to support the Little Giants (they were shockingly unsportsmanlike last year for the Lords game). Agree that a W for Wabash puts them in strong shape with only DePauw and Kenyon to stop them. Kenyon did get vindication for the 1-0 loss in Crawfordsville with a tournament win, but the sting is still fresh in many players' minds from 2014. I expect to see the Lords very fired up for this game at home and to have a good home crowd to support them.
- OWU has 3 relatively easy games in a row, all at home, before they go on the road to face DePauw and Oberlin and then return home to face Kenyon. I'd give OWU the edge on both away games, but a loss at either is possible.
VERY important result for Kenyon, and they desperately needed that kind of game for games ahead. Also very fortunate to get the win. Not saying Oberlin deserved to win, but they could have. Oberlin is much better than a 7-5-1 team and I'm sure the home loss to Wabash where they really outplayed Wabash is tough to take. More than a few times Kenyon players underestimated the athleticism of Oberlin players and lost the ball, and they have some dangerous attacking players to help Ingham out now. Their GK was outstanding. Oberlin should win a bunch of games but probably will have to win out and beat OWU in order to have a chance at a playoff spot (and then they still may need a little help). Kenyon has A LOT of work to do if they are going to ensure a bid and make a serious run. At times they get so stretched they look they there is no midfield and little resistance through the midfield as numerous times Oberlin quickly transitioned from a Kenyon attack all the way back to Kenyon's CBs (who are playing well btw). Kenyon also IMHO looked very sloppy, with poor touches and resorting to long ball too frequently. Again, there are moments of good passing but not really sustained build-up through the midfield. They looked more athletic than technical today, and perhaps so desperate to score and get ahead that they sometimes are just too hurried. And the stretch that TennesseeJed referred to in the 2nd half was not good. After an excellent play and finish by Amolo, Brown went to the bench and Oberlin dominated and threatened for a solid 15 minutes. Almost waited too long to get Amolo and others back in, and as soon as he did the game tilted back dramatically to Kenyon's favor again. The potential is definitely there for Kenyon but they certainly are not there yet. They really need to get focused and get more solid and crisp over the next 3 games.
P.S. I really credit the Oberlin coach for the style of their play and strides they have made in that program. Oberlin is a fantastic school and probably edges Kenyon as the top academic school in the NCAC, but it also has a reputation for being a very artsy, alternative, progressive kind of school and not an "athletic" school by any stretch. Getting good soccer players there I'm guessing is not easy, and they now have some very good soccer players.
Wow. Great end to end action in Denison @Wabash game. Ended 0-0 but both teams desperately trying to score and Wabash almost got caught twice in last minute with no numbers back. Denison hits cross bar and then chips GK under 10 secs and not sure how ball didn't go in (although also looked like at least 3 Denison players were offsides and not called so maybe they weren't).
General thoughts on the NCAC:
Technically, it's a four team race: DePauw, Kenyon, OWU, and...Allegheny? Not to discount the Gators, but they had a non-conference record of 1-6-1, with 23 goals against and only 9 goals for. Now they sit at 3-0-1 in the NCAC, tied for second. In reality, their record is a mirage - they haven't played the other big three teams, and they've won their last two games with 6 shots (3 SOG) in each. That's just not going to cut it.
Denison is out of the race, and the Big Red have a small margin of error for making the conference tournament. They've already dropped 7 points, and they still have to face Kenyon, DePauw, AND Oberlin. Only blessing is they seem to have caught OWU just before they hit their stride. But it may come down to Denison vs. Oberlin, and whether either of those teams can pick up points off of the top 3 teams.
As for the title, I don't know if there's a clear favorite. Leg up to DePauw because they haven't dropped any points. OWU/Kenyon is a wash IMO because OWU has one extra point but still has to play both teams. OWU getting the soft part of the conference right now is a blessing, as they were extremely beat up (still no excuse for the debacle that was the Thomas More game) and seem to be getting healthy and on the right track. On that note, I'll politely disagree about playing tough competition - I think it's important to see tough competition at some point during the season, but don't think it's nearly as important as health or having a team playing well. Messiah won all those titles despite a cupcake conference. They played tough teams early to get used to it, then used the conference slate to heal up, bed in the new guys for depth, and get their offense and possession play flowing.
As for the big matchups. I think the current OWU squad matches up better with DePauw than a few years ago. The 2010-2013 teams really dominated the ball, and that was exactly what DePauw wanted - they'd just soak up pressure and hit ridiculously quick on the counter. They pasted the 2011 title team 4-2 that way in the conference championship, and it's been close to even since then. But OWU has been playing a little more direct at times, varying the tempo, and that is tougher for DePauw. Also, DePauw has to feel confident based on results (Witt in OT aside), and they're at home. That might encourage them to come out and play a little more, but I don't think they want to get into a shootout. I wouldn't. OWU's speed is built for the counter, it's just something they've never used much until the last season or two.
Kenyon has OWU left, but the more dangerous game for the Lords IMO is Denison. Not because it's more difficult, but because Kenyon really can't avoid another slip before the OWU game. Denison always seems to give them major issues, and they'll be playing desperate. One thing I've noticed, without watching a ton, is that Amolo has been scoring some big goals. I thought (and still think) the thing that will get Kenyon over the top is if he can produce against the really good teams.
Finally, here's a wild scenario that could play out if OWU beats DePauw. Kenyon @ OWU. If OWU wins, they win the conference; if Kenyon wins, they win at least a share of the conference (with DePauw); if they draw, DePauw wins the conference. That would make for a great game - tons of incentive to attack. These games in recent years have been pretty tight, more physical and territorial than pure soccer. But I thought the conference championship last year was by far the most open/entertaining one I've seen in a long time - and this year's might end up being exactly the same, especially if that scenario played out.
Good analysis.
Couple of thoughts. Oberlin has been really unlucky and will have to be basically flawless to get a NCAC playoff spot. DPU is very fortunate and also hard to figure. Beat Loras and Kenyon and go to double OT with Witt, although tremendous laser strike from 30+ yards to win it. Should be in Great Goals. Teams don't get punished for winning OT games but they sure are costly when you lose them as you get nothing. RE: injuries....not good whenever they happen but there are better times and worse times. I wish Kenyon had played a couple of tougher games, but the bigger problem is that they just haven't played that much at all. Only 3 games in over 3 weeks I believe. Other issue of course is that not having some tougher games may lead to less than desired SOS. And of course hard to know ahead of time every year. Waynesburg actually was pretty good last year, pushing TMC and Grove City but misery this year (and must have lost a large senior class).
The other point about Kenyon and why they could have used a couple of more games, period, and one or two against solid competition, is that they are trying to gel together a line-up (including subs) of more than half a team. Hopefully they won't pay too much for the lack of games and will peak at just the right time and while still relatively fresh and healthy. We'll have to see. I expect them to be VERY sharp against Denison and play their most complete game of the year. They will need to be as Denison will be highly motivated because of rivalry, having a very good season themselves, and last year's game.
Kenyon's starting junior left back (Resnekov) was not in for the entire game vs. Oberlin and may not be in for a number of games, or potentially the rest of the season. Unclear right now. One of the two starting sophomore right backs slid over to left and the other played the right. Lucky too that Barnes wasn't injured again. It was concerning when he left for a few mins in 2H, limping off the field. Losing Resnekov isn't a total loss for the Lords (and I'm not saying I don't think he's a really important player, but I think they can handle this one position for a couple of games), but it does take out a 60+ minute per game guy who's been very effective in his spot this year and requires Kenyon to rely on freshmen for subs (again, not being critical of their freshmen--they're talented, just not that much field time yet at the college level for many of them) during the most difficult and most critical time in their season. If there's another critical injury (or illness), the Lords will have a tougher time coping than they did against the Yeomen.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 15, 2015, 12:50:12 AM
Kenyon has OWU left, but the more dangerous game for the Lords IMO is Denison. Not because it's more difficult, but because Kenyon really can't avoid another slip before the OWU game. Denison always seems to give them major issues, and they'll be playing desperate. One thing I've noticed, without watching a ton, is that Amolo has been scoring some big goals. I thought (and still think) the thing that will get Kenyon over the top is if he can produce against the really good teams.
Wondering if you meant can't
afford rather than can't
avoid? I assume you meant the former, that they can't afford another NCAC slip up and I agree. (If you actually meant avoid, then I respectfully disagree.) The Denison game was pretty evenly matched last year, ending in a 1-0 Kenyon win as I recall, and I'd expect it to be tight again this year, particularly given Denison's significantly improved play this year vs. 2014. Kenyon does have HFA this year and I'd expect the Lords to get a decent crowd to the field. I don't think the Lords' fate lies as singularly on Tony's shoulders as I interpret your comment above, but he's clearly an important weapon for Kenyon and he, as well as the others, need to score goals more quickly, more reliably and more frequently under pressure. I also don't think I'd necessarily agree that they'll play desperately either, though I acknowledge that this is very subjective and very much a matter of one's perspective, and I'm clearly biased towards the Kenyon side... I'd expect them to play assertively and with real determination and to try to aggressively put points on the board early in the game. I'd love to see them moving the ball through the midfield a bit more too and a few less long balls hoping to find a forward inside the opponent's 30 yd line...
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 15, 2015, 12:50:12 AM
Finally, here's a wild scenario that could play out if OWU beats DePauw. Kenyon @ OWU. If OWU wins, they win the conference; if Kenyon wins, they win at least a share of the conference (with DePauw); if they draw, DePauw wins the conference. That would make for a great game - tons of incentive to attack. These games in recent years have been pretty tight, more physical and territorial than pure soccer. But I thought the conference championship last year was by far the most open/entertaining one I've seen in a long time - and this year's might end up being exactly the same, especially if that scenario played out.
Couldn't agree with you more: The conference championship was a great, entertaining game last year. Bottom line is that all three teams have their work cut out for them--Kenyon potentially more than the other two just given their remaining schedule and the fact that they've dropped a game to DPU. No matter what happens during the regular season (i.e., who wins the NCAC conference), the NCAC championship tournament games will be hard fought, fun to watch games, no matter who wins the season's top record. Great year to watch NCAC soccer because there's so much strength across the conference this year.
Agree with all TennesseeJed. The Lords can absorb not having Resnekov for a few games if needed, especially as I think the top 3 (or 4) outside backs are fairly interchangeable (maybe lose a touch of pace with one and gain a bit on the technical side with another but really pretty even). But they can't afford more key injuries of any serious nature. They need all of their available firepower in the midfield and up top, and you don't want your young backline to be "a work in progress" as the move into the crunch part of the season. Also agree that Amolo should expect help and I think he'll get it. Great to have Glassman back at full or near-full strength and hopefully this will be his first year in three where he can be healthy for any post-season run. Also thought Amolo looked much more in control of his game (and his emotions). If the offensive talent around him -- Barnes, Eudy, Glassman, Jeon, Lee, etc -- step up and are sharp I think Amolo is too good not to break through himself or create goals for others moving forward. I'd like to see Carmona get himself into more attacking positions, but he is valuable coming out of the holding area with his superb handling and distribution skills. Don't want to downplay what it would mean to win a regular season NCAC title, or the conference tournament title, as I'm sure the Lords will go hard after both, but the success (or lack thereof) of Kenyon's season will be determined after all that. In that sense, the only real pressure is to make sure you remain viable for a NCAA bid.
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 16, 2015, 11:01:39 AM
Agree with all TennesseeJed. The Lords can absorb not having Resnekov for a few games if needed, especially as I think the top 3 (or 4) outside backs are fairly interchangeable (maybe lose a touch of pace with one and gain a bit on the technical side with another but really pretty even). But they can't afford more key injuries of any serious nature. They need all of their available firepower in the midfield and up top, and you don't want your young backline to be "a work in progress" as the move into the crunch part of the season. Also agree that Amolo should expect help and I think he'll get it. Great to have Glassman back at full or near-full strength and hopefully this will be his first year in three where he can be healthy for any post-season run. Also thought Amolo looked much more in control of his game (and his emotions). If the offensive talent around him -- Barnes, Eudy, Glassman, Jeon, Lee, etc -- step up and are sharp I think Amolo is too good not to break through himself or create goals for others moving forward. I'd like to see Carmona get himself into more attacking positions, but he is valuable coming out of the holding area with his superb handling and distribution skills. Don't want to downplay what it would mean to win a regular season NCAC title, or the conference tournament title, as I'm sure the Lords will go hard after both, but the success (or lack thereof) of Kenyon's season will be determined after all that. In that sense, the only real pressure is to make sure you remain viable for a NCAA bid.
Well stated NCACNE. Your last point reinforces my basic earlier message but is more to the point: ultimately, the titles and recognition, and certainly HFA, AQ and seeding are all very important, but getting in the tournament, one way or another, is sufficient to give you a shot at the title that really counts and the season conf record doesn't count much once you're in...as the 2014 champs proved... I think the worst-case scenario, and biggest potential risk for the Lords, is a second in conf loss, and a loss in the conf championship that could potentially put them in a third spot in the regional rankings, which would mean they're likely out of the tournament with no AQ and no pool C... Hoping that someone can dethrone the Tigers and that Kenyon wins Denison and then pulls a W or T vs OWU.
I've noted your previous desire in past posts to see Carmona play his holding mid position a bit more aggressively and I think that he showed some progress in the past 2 games, particularly against the Yeomen. I don't think Wooster was the best game for evaluation but I think there was ample evidence there too. I think that it can be difficult to play some midfield spots when there are a lot of long balls from CBs and GK across the center line looking for forwards, particularly when the opponent is credible and capable on a rebound attack. They spend a lot of time running the field, expending energy for little incremental return, with turnovers and a return attack (possibly another long ball back to the Kenyon side) the most likely outcome. Good for fitness, but not a high probability offensive strategy in my book. Better defensively if you just want to clear the ball out of your end of the field, buy a little time and rest your CB's for a few seconds. The CB's are doing well defensively 1-1 IMO but don't have the best ball handling skills and are definitely not the best distributors of the ball on the team. Better to feed the outside backs or midfielders who are better on the ball and move it more precisely up field. In fairness, there was a blend of strategies in the Oberlin game, but not as much as I would like to see and in interviews with players, I sense that many of them feel the same. I agree that it's great to see JG healthy and playing more and it was great to see him put 2 in the net recently. He's a workhorse for the Lords and one of their best at applying forward pressure to the opponent's defenders and GK. I think he also gets the best out of Tony A many times, as they seem more in synch than some of the newer forwards. Love to see his physicality and hope that his minutes continue to increase over next few games.
Ryan, I'm kind of directing this question to you since you played at OWU (congrats, btw!), but it's up for grabs too. Why does OWU seem to play almost exclusively night games? Is it just field scheduling? Does Doc Martin prefer night games? Just curious.
TJ - correct, I meant Kenyon can't afford another slip-up at this point (that's what I get for posting so late). And to clarify, my reference in terms of playing desperate was to Denison, not Kenyon, as Denison hasn't been scoring goals and could really use a good result to get back on track.
The thing with Amolo, in my opinion, is that he's the guy that's usually been able to break games open for Kenyon against teams that sit and defend, or can't hang with Kenyon for a full 90 minutes. But, particularly against OWU the last couple seasons, he hasn't caused many issues. So I think if Kenyon can get him, as the focal point of the attack, to produce against the best opposition, that's going to put them in a much better position to win.
Kenyon often controlled much of the territory when I played at OWU, but a lot of the time they just failed to do anything with it. For example, in 2010 they outshot us heavily in Gambier, but only put 2-3 on goal and we won 4-1. The same thing happened in the first matchup last year, as Kenyon dominated field position but neither team came close to scoring. That's what was so different in the conference championship - they were getting somewhere.
As for an NCAA run, the draw is key. Kenyon's last three trips ended in a loss to Final Four OWU (2014), champ Messiah (2013), and Elite Eight OWU (2010). You have to think that with a more favorable draw the Lords like their odds. It would be nice to see the committee split the NCAC teams, especially if three get in this year, so that we aren't limited to only one with a shot at a deep run.
Quote from: TennesseeJed on October 16, 2015, 12:55:39 PM
Why does OWU seem to play almost exclusively night games?
I think it's mostly for the atmosphere, and I know the players prefer playing at night because it just feels more exciting. It makes it much easier to get fans as well - all sports teams practice at 4pm so for midweek games that would decimate the student/parent attendance. Aside from that, I assume it's just preference, having lights, all of that. I don't know how much of an advantage it is come tourney time, except that OWU often gets to host and then they're used to playing at night. The Final Four alternates years between guys and girls playing during the day or at night, so no real advantage there.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 16, 2015, 12:58:33 PM
TJ - correct, I meant Kenyon can't afford another slip-up at this point (that's what I get for posting so late). And to clarify, my reference in terms of playing desperate was to Denison, not Kenyon, as Denison hasn't been scoring goals and could really use a good result to get back on track.
Thanks for clarifying both, and I agree with you on both. It's getting down to the wire and after a fantastic start to the season, the Big Red have definitely waned a bit in the Allegheny and Wabash games. Sorry I misinterpreted the reference.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 16, 2015, 12:58:33 PMThe thing with Amolo, in my opinion, is that he's the guy that's usually been able to break games open for Kenyon against teams that sit and defend, or can't hang with Kenyon for a full 90 minutes. But, particularly against OWU the last couple seasons, he hasn't caused many issues. So I think if Kenyon can get him, as the focal point of the attack, to produce against the best opposition, that's going to put them in a much better position to win.
Tony definitely is capable of opening games up. I agree entirely. His play can be a bit streaky and he needs to find and fully hit his stride for sure. He played well against Wooster, but we need to see him play with that level of success against Denison, Allegheny and OWU, when the teams are capable of pressuring the Lords' attacks more effectively and have him under deep cover. I think he suffered in the DePauw game from being called too many times for offensive fouls under 2-3x coverage, honestly rendering him almost unable to move forward for a good chunk of the game and forcing a lot of turnovers, but I openly admit I'm biased and may not be seeing it fully objectively. As I said above, I think it's great that Glassman is back in because I think he seems to often be more able to push Tony and raise his game than some of the other Kenyon forwards.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 16, 2015, 12:58:33 PMKenyon often controlled much of the territory when I played at OWU, but a lot of the time they just failed to do anything with it. For example, in 2010 they outshot us heavily in Gambier, but only put 2-3 on goal and we won 4-1. The same thing happened in the first matchup last year, as Kenyon dominated field position but neither team came close to scoring. That's what was so different in the conference championship - they were getting somewhere.
I think this played out to some extent in the details underlying the box score stats when both teams played Wooster (though in fairness, I only saw 5-10 mins of the OWU vs. Wooster game). OWU scored 3 in 1H and 4 in 2H, with roughly even shooting across both halves, if I remember correctly. Kenyon outshot Wooster dramatically (as they did Oberlin and others), but allowed them to go up 1-0 early in 2H before they got (you fill in the blank: mad enough, enough composure, serious, focused, etc...) to finish and convert SOG's to G's...Similar end results, but very different ways of getting to the W. Kenyon has had many games this season and last, where there are more than enough shots and sog's to win games more convincingly than they have but they've suffered from a low conversion rate. They should have scored more than once vs. Oberlin IMO but the Yeomen freshman GK played a fantastic game and avoided a lot of GA's that some other teams and GK's would have ceded.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 16, 2015, 12:58:33 PMAs for an NCAA run, the draw is key. Kenyon's last three trips ended in a loss to Final Four OWU (2014), champ Messiah (2013), and Elite Eight OWU (2010). You have to think that with a more favorable draw the Lords like their odds. It would be nice to see the committee split the NCAC teams, especially if three get in this year, so that we aren't limited to only one with a shot at a deep run.
Couldn't agree with you more. Thought the same last year. Would be great to see a couple of NCAC teams in different quadrants and not see each other until later in the matches. I don't get the sense that there's any real chance of that happening, but you could easily make the case that DePauw could play with North and/or Central teams. It might be harder to separate Denison, Kenyon and OWU on purely geographic reasons, but if there was another way to segment them, it'd be great.
I'm guessing that normally it's almost impossible to have OWU and Kenyon (or most Ohio schools) in different sectionals and even the other side of the sectional as the other side last year played at Emory (where Whitworth prevailed). Last year I think they could have because Wheaton got placed out West and hosted and OWU could have been sent to Wheaton, just as Kenyon was sent to Wheaton the prior year. Don't know exactly but might have been even closer for OWU than going to Calvin last year.
Speaking of sectionals and sites and such, I wonder if TMC has a shot at hosting if they win out (which is more than likely).
P.s., just a quick point re: earlier discussions on Tony Amolo's play this season, given the sometimes very high expectations for him...
NCAC Stats Leaders: (Does not include most recent games on Saturday):
Rank Name School Points GP G A Shots Goals/shot Points/GP
1 B. Schaefer OWU 30 14 12 6 61 .197 2.14
2 T. Amolo Kenyon 24 10 10 4 36 .278 2.40
3 J. Ingham Oberlin 24 12 11 2 47 .234 2.00
Quick conclusion: Tony is 2nd (I believe) in points after the Oberlin game, with 4 fewer games played than Schaefer and 2 less than Ingham. Not saying there haven't been a lot of unfortunate missed opportunities for him to score even more, but the same could be said for Schaefer, Ingham and other stats leaders. Easy to get down on very talented players when their teams are not putting up as many goals as we'd like to see, but his goals/shot and points/game played ratios are better than the other two leaders, so had he played as many games as the others and maintained his current point ratio, he'd likely be first in the NCAC. Still have high hopes (and expectations) but just don't want to fail to recognize success and credit where credit is due, not just for Tony, but for the others as well.
Fair, good points, TJ. Barring injury, Amolo is on pace to shatter all Kenyon scoring records. And he has produced in some big games. He got what turned out to be the GW as a frosh vs Wheaton in the round of 32 at Wheaton, notched a PK in the shootout vs TMC last year in the tournament, scored against CMU and last week against Oberlin this year, and there are more. I think he has the whole package in terms of playmaking, passing, shooting and finishing. While he is physically solid and sturdy, he's not a big kid who is going to steamroll you, and while he has very good pace he's not lightning fast. He does need the players around him to be threatening to create some space for him to operate. Teams no doubt try to mark him out of games, and I agree with you that he got beat up against DPU and wasn't given any leeway against those tactics. I wasn't on him so much because he didn't do more but because I thought he had some responsibility in letting DPU and the ref get him out of sorts which in my opinion led to the ref not giving him any breaks on the day. And I was really impressed with how he handled himself against Oberlin and basically just played. RH is correct...he's hasn't gotten a lot done or scored against OWU yet (but of course no one else really has either and their best games against OWU were real team efforts). I will say that he had a terrific free kick just a few minutes into the 2nd half of the Sweet 16 game that might have really turned that game with @40 minutes left, and Beemiller, the GK for OWU, made a phenomenal save on a ball that was bending into the top right corner. At any rate, I know Tony personally and he knows I'm a huge fan. He can be mad at me after the season ;). Ironically, I actually took some shots on this board last year for pumping him up too much! Beyond my own craziness, I'm hard on him (and the team in general) because I know how much they want it. I also can afford to be a bit freer with my commentary compared to prior years. Looking forward to the game today. Should be a good one.
Wow. DePauw is really playing with fire. Down 2-0 to Wooster in 1st half. They most likely will come back and win, but very surprising after they barely, barely escaped from Wittenberg. OWU just beat Wooster 7-0. Of course if they win the game will count just as much as the others, but not great messages to send out with OWU about to head to Greencastle.
Well, you definitely called it that they'd likely at least catch up...currently tied at 2-2 w/ less than 8' left in 2H. Even a tie, which is still way too early to call, would really make for an interesting end to the NCAC season! I guess Wooster really got their mojo flowing after two floggings by Kenyon and OWU. Unfortunately, Wooster has some of the lowest quality video around... I've only seen just a few mins of the game, but the Wooster GK is earning his pay today! Scots are playing the Tigers in late 2H like they played Kenyon in early 1H. Didn't get to see the OWU game...
Update: Going to OT
Quote from: TennesseeJed on October 17, 2015, 01:52:51 PM
Well, you definitely called it that they'd likely at least catch up...currently tied at 2-2 w/ less than 8' left in 2H. Even a tie, which is still way too early to call, would really make for an interesting end to the NCAC season!
The second game in 24 hours that NCAC has predicted the team 2-0 down would come back to 2-2. Whether it's a case of being clairvoyant or pure coincidence, impressive nonetheless!
Quote from: blooter442 on October 17, 2015, 01:57:32 PM
Quote from: TennesseeJed on October 17, 2015, 01:52:51 PM
Well, you definitely called it that they'd likely at least catch up...currently tied at 2-2 w/ less than 8' left in 2H. Even a tie, which is still way too early to call, would really make for an interesting end to the NCAC season!
The second game in 24 hours that NCAC has predicted the team 2-0 down would come back to 2-2. Whether it's a case of being clairvoyant or pure coincidence, impressive nonetheless!
It'd be even more impressive if he can call the winner now that it's still 2-2 in 2OT! I'd be one happy dude to see the Scots dining on Tiger for dinner tonight! Not likely if they keep giving so many set pieces to DPU...
DPU @ Wooster 2-2 Final 2OT
I was so disgusted watching DePauw equalize that after 2-2 I quit watching and took a nap. 2 soft goals for DPU IMHO as Wooster committed a terrible foul in the box and then let a fairly harmless free kick turn into EJ Moore getting loose and from a bad angle burying a shot to level. Can't believe Wooster held them off for the rest of the game and 2 OTs. The draw will do for now.
Still laughing 2 days later about Mr.Right's "white coats" post. When the white coats come for me, my only request is gonna be "well, can I at least finish this last post" lol.
And now I'm calling for the white coats to come get me, as the Kenyon video not working.
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 17, 2015, 03:40:32 PM
And now I'm calling for the white coats to come get me, as the Kenyon video not working.
Funny, I was about to write the same thing...Live stats is now updating for me but I still have no video...
Surprising that Kennedy Kommor is not starting for Big Red. Any idea if it's injury-related? Big loss for Denison if he's out for today. Scratch that...he just subbed in.
Kenyon takes Denison Big Red 3-0 and goes to 4-1 in NCAC. Denison drops to 1-2-2.
Good, very solid win for Kenyon. I worried they were letting the Big Red hang around too long after Amolo scored, as I could see Denison equalizing off a long free kick or a corner or something. Would like to see the Lords cut down the free kicks given away in their own half, and there are teams (Midd, Amherst, OWU, etc, etc) who will punish you if you give them too many of those. Also thought the Lords tried to play a little too fine at times, looking for the extra tight pass for a perfect shot when they could have let a few more go and then looked for a rebound. All in all, though, a pretty dominating performance. And most importantly the other forwards are starting to come up big which is going to help out Amolo moving forward.
Hiram beats Wabash 2-1. The 4th NCAC playoff spot is wide open.
The Great Lakes is the strongest its been in my handful of years following along IMHO.
The cream appears to be (alphabetically):
Case Western (big game tomorrow)
Kenyon
OWU
Thomas More
I'm guessing all of the above could beat each other on the day.
Closely behind in the next tier (alphabetically):
Carnegie Mellon
DePauw
Ohio Northern (quietly now 13-3, unblemished in the OAC, and holding a W over OWU)
Next tier (alphabetically):
Denison
Grove City
John Carroll
Oberlin
Penn State-Behrend
Rose-Hulman
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 17, 2015, 08:45:43 PM
The Great Lakes is the strongest its been in my handful of years following along IMHO.
The cream appears to be (alphabetically):
Case Western (big game tomorrow)
Kenyon
OWU
Thomas More
I'm guessing all of the above could beat each other on the day.
Closely behind in the next tier (alphabetically):
Carnegie Mellon
DePauw
Ohio Northern (quietly now 13-3, unblemished in the OAC, and holding a W over OWU)
Next tier (alphabetically):
Denison
Grove City
John Carroll
Oberlin
Penn State-Behrend
Rose-Hulman
I think we're going to see the tale of two seasons with several of these clubs. The OWU shut-out streak seems to support the MO for this team two years running - early bumps, team gels and wins out. I was surprised that Denison had the start they had but it seems the team over achieved early on - great pre-conference record none-the-less. Thomas More's challenge is going to be staying focused during weak conference play and somehow enter the post season sharp. ONU is a solid team with many of the same types of players on the field. They remind me of both Case and TM as to how their teams are built. John Carroll is clearly missing all those seniors from last year - they're getting results but hardly dominating their opposition.
Kenyon and OWU have a diversity of players - especially on the attacking side - that give them the edge versus the rest of the field. ONU has a couple of guys that know how to score - TM has their standout attacker - that on any given day can lead them to victory. But of the teams I've seen first hand (8 on this list) I think OWU and Kenyon have the best chance of going to the final four.
NCAC - appreciate the more detailed info on Mr. Amolo. I wasn't trying to knock him at all either, just know he's usually the game-winner for Kenyon and in the tourney teams that go deep get production from those guys. So I think my view is that he's a proxy for Kenyon's success - if he performs they're likely to do well.
DePauw dropping points yesterday is rough. I do think the style of play factors in, as maybe they're just built to counterattack and prefer playing that was as opposed to breaking down a team that concedes possession. Will be interesting to see how they handle OWU coming to town. OWU looks like they're playing well but it's going to be a drastic step up in competition, especially on the defensive side. Question is whether the shutouts are results of schedule or a real improvement in the back.
Huge weekend for Case and really muddies how to figure out the top 4 in Great Lakes as projected above. Congrats to them and great for their program. Really too bad the game Kenyon didn't and isn't happening. And Ohio Northern appears to be the hot team in the next group waiting for a falter. CMU was down 1-0 to Emory last I checked.
I got curious about the stats raised by TJ for the NCAC, so this is where we appear to be today, expanded to include the Great Lakes region overall. I may have missed someone, so please chime in if I did.
Brian Schaefer -- OWU -- 13 G, 7 A (15 games)
Tony Amolo -- Ken -- 12 G, 4 A (12 games)
John Ingham -- Ober -- 12 G, 2 A (14 games)
Matt Kinkopf -- Ohio Northern -- 11 G, 6 A (16 games)
William Webb -- CMU -- 10 G, 5 A (12 games)
Chris Cvecko -- Case West -- 10 G, 2A (14 games)
and the punch line....
Austin Juniet -- TMC -- 12 G, 17 A (14 games)
Brian Runyon -- TMC -- 13 G, 9 A (14 games)
So aside from games played, TMC has two players ahead of the others. TMC had as tough as schedule as anyone until conference play, and in fairness, the numbers for Juniet and Runyon should continue to inflate from here until tournament time. Juniet, for example, had a goal and a whopping 5 assists in yesterday's game versus Westminster (PA). Regardless, 17 assists is a boatload.
Amolo and Schaefer likely will battle to the end of the regular season or whatever the cut-off is for conference POY. Both appear to be healthy and in form. Amolo will have less games and I'm sure plays less minutes based on Kenyon's usual subbing patterns. I'm on record on the site describing Schaefer as an excellent, dangerous player, and I will say that he's even better than I thought. He had a very strong season last year, but he's doing everything and more that one would expect in terms of him taking over as the leader of the team in the wake of Colton Bloecher's graduation. I don't think there is any question that Juniet, Schaefer and Amolo are on pace for All-American honors, and IMHO Juniet has to be a serious contender for NPOY or national offensive POY especially if he, Runyon, RJ Best, et al can take TMC on a deep run.
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 14, 2015, 06:03:18 PM
...
P.S. I really credit the Oberlin coach for the style of their play and strides they have made in that program. Oberlin is a fantastic school and probably edges Kenyon as the top academic school in the NCAC, but it also has a reputation for being a very artsy, alternative, progressive kind of school and not an "athletic" school by any stretch. Getting good soccer players there I'm guessing is not easy, and they now have some very good soccer players.
I was just curious about the relative admissions of the 2 schools (Oberlin vs. Kenyon, because I know there is definitely some competition amongst students at both schools...) after your recent post, so I did a little digging on comparable acceptance rates among top performing DIII soccer programs w/ highly competitive admission standards and low acceptance rates (proxy for strong academics), as reported by US News and World Report. I listed every school on the list that I was familiar with as being a competitive DIII men's soccer program. Apologies if I left any off the list--not intentional--I just didn't recognize the name, or it was an oversight. Many of the most competitive schools on the USNWR list are DI (Ivies, Georgetown, Stanford, etc...), so this list is not close to 100 because it only lists DIII programs that I knew of that had DIII soccer programs.
MIT, NESCAC, UAA and a few Centennial conference schools are no surprises, but there are a few here and there that might surprise you!
From US News and World Report Article on Top 100 Colleges with Lowest Acceptance Rates in 2014: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate
College/Univ. Accept. Rate ConferenceMIT: 7.9% NEWMAC
U Chicago: 8.8% UAA
Caltech: 8.8% SCIAC
Claremont/Mudd/Scripps: 10.8%/14.3%/27.3%, resp. SCIAC
Pomona-Pitzer 12.2%/13%, resp. SCIAC
Amherst: 13.8% NESCAC
Bowdoin: 14.9% NESCAC
Johns Hopkins: 15% Centennial
Swarthmore: 17% Centennial
Wash U: 17.1% UAA
Middlebury: 17.2% NESCAC
Tufts: 17.3% NESCAC
Colorado College 17.9% SCAC
Coast Guard 18.1% NEWMAC
Williams 19.3% NESCAC
W&L 19.6% ODAC
Carleton 22.8% MIAC
Vassar 23.5% Liberty
Wesleyan 23.9% NESCAC
CMU 24.6% UAA
Haverford 24.7% Centennial
Kenyon 25.1% NCAC
Bates 25.4% NESCAC
Babson 26.3% NEWMAC
Hamilton 26.4% NESCAC
Emory 26.8% UAA
CUNY-Baruch 27.9% CUNYAC
Colby 28.1% NESCAC
CUNY-Lehman 28.9% CUNYAC
Oberlin 32.7% NCAC
Trinity 33.0 NESCAC
Totals # Schools on List/Total Schools in Conf Region Schools in RegionNESCAC: 10/11 New England 13
UAA: 4/8 Multi-Region {Great Lakes (1), Central (2), South Atlantic (1)} n/a
SCIAC: 3/8 West 4
NEWMAC: 3/8 New England incl. above
Centennial: 3/10 Mid-Atlantic 3
CUNYAC: 2/9 East 3
NCAC: 2/10 Great Lakes 3
SCAC: 1/8 West incl. above
Liberty: 1/9 East incl. above
MIAC: 1/11 North 1
ODAC:
1/12 South Atlantic 2
Central
2Total 31 31
I'd have to say that based on gut feel and history, I would have agreed with you that Oberlin might slightly edge Kenyon academically, but the stats and data above potentially suggest otherwise (though I freely admit that this is just one factor and acceptance rate is not a perfect determinant of academic rank--which is subjective in any case). With respect to SCIAC schools, I also consider Pomona and Pitzer as one, and same for Claremont/Mudd/Scripps, because they are listed as a single school for soccer and conference listing purposes, so each only counts as 1 school in the overall conference totals. So, of the top 100 most competitive (or lowest acceptance rate) colleges and universities, strong d3 soccer programs account for 32 of the top 100 schools, by my count and they are pretty widely distributed amongst regions too but with concentrations geographically that likely won't surprise anyone...
Interesting stats but maybe a little misleading. Certainly acceptance rate is a huge factor to consider and one of the more compelling, but I don't think it's the sole or even overriding factor, as Williams has been ranked #1 for as long as I can remember and you wouldn't conclude that just from these stats, nor, for example, would almost anyone conclude that Colorado College is academically "higher" than a Carleton. Also would need to get admit rates for like 5 and 10 year periods. You're highlighting Kenyon's lowest rate in the school's history. Many years Oberlin's has been lower, and I can't think of a year where Kenyon was ahead of Oberlin in US News (although they are almost tied this year I think). For me, they are very much in the same tier of schools academically and saying much beyond that is probably pretty meaningless.
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 19, 2015, 01:07:24 PM
Interesting stats but maybe a little misleading. Certainly acceptance rate is a huge factor to consider and one of the more compelling, but I don't think it's the sole or even overriding factor, as Williams has been ranked #1 for as long as I can remember and you wouldn't conclude that just from these stats, nor, for example, would almost anyone conclude that Colorado College is academically "higher" than a Carleton. Also would need to get admit rates for like 5 and 10 year periods. You're highlighting Kenyon's lowest rate in the school's history. Many years Oberlin's has been lower, and I can't think of a year where Kenyon was ahead of Oberlin in US News (although they are almost tied this year I think). For me, they are very much in the same tier of schools academically and saying much beyond that is probably pretty meaningless.
All perfectly legit, good points NCACNE. I was editing my original post to address your first point regarding acceptance rates being the sole factor in academic rank when you replied. I agree with you that it's certainly not. At the end of the day, the academic rankings (whether from USNWR or other sources) are all subjective (though their subjective conclusions may be in part based on some quantitative measures, including the one reflected here), just as our DIII soccer rankings are. This was just one recent objective set of criteria that's a highly correlated proxy for academic strength (and the most recent one I could find--I did not select it to prove a particular point). I agree w/ your suggestion too that a time series describing the trends for each school would be more informative, but I don't have the data (nor the time or inclination) to put it all together... But, I agree entirely that it would be more interesting and more informative than this single data point. I'm not sure I agree entirely that they're misleading, as we haven't necessarily agreed on a conclusion or mutually accepted an objectively determined set of criteria with which to decide superiority. It would also depend on whether we're looking at the data for a current assessment only, or for a historical perspective.
The parallel with soccer rankings and academic rankings in this context is nearly perfect and entirely pertinent to this forum. The data presented above are no more misleading in one sense than any single Massey Ratings set, or NSCAA or D3 Soccer Polls are, if taken in isolation, (though I acknowledge they each do incorporate more than 1 criteria in assessing rank) in assessing who the de facto top 25 soccer teams are. There's no objective standard or criteria, nor universal agreement amongst all participants, that a given team is, de facto, better than another. The existence of this forum illustrates that there is no shortage of strong (subjective) opinions and interested parties and no general agreement on the "right" rankings for individual teams, nor agreement on who will win any given match. (Note the abundance of "pick 'em" contests, in which we both participate, as evidence.)
Tufts winning the NCAA tournament in 2014 illustrates the ranking dilemna perfectly. The Jumbos were not the number one ranked or seeded team, yet they won. One camp would say that they were the best team, ipso facto and/or post hoc, because they won. Another would say that they were, de facto, always the best team, yet the rankings were incorrect and "mislead" observers. Yet another would argue that Tufts was never the best team, irrespective of the fact that they won, and irrespective of the fact that they were ranked #1 following their NCAA victory in post-season rankings, but that they just got lucky for a variety of reasons and didn't deserve to win, etc... This is further complicated by assertions that Tufts needed to be ranked number 1 in postseason and early season polls/rankings, simply because they won last year's tournament, when the actual reality is/was that all teams changed (graduations, injuries, departures, transfers, etc.) from year to year, so it doesn't follow logically that last year's champ is automatically the best team going into the next season. (This does not mean that we can't all accept this as a modus operandi, but there is ample debate on this subject here too, and elsewhere.) If this were, in fact, true, then there would be no reason to have a tournament at all...the same team would continue to win. Messiah and OWU have made careers attempting to prove this point...:) ) ((Note: I'm not taking a position here w/ respect to Tufts. I am arguing both sides for the point of illustration. I like Tufts as a team personally...I have no idea whether they were the "best" team last year, or this year--though they were certainly the best, using final scores as an objective measure, in each of the games that they played during the 2014 NCAA tournament...) The point is that just because one or more rankings (NSCAA, USN&WR and others) assert something to be so, doesn't necessarily make it so, without advance agreement on what's being measured. Flying Weasel provides ample reasons why the NSCAA rankings are problematic.
The intent here was not to draw conclusions or prove anything with a scholarly degree of rigor, I just found it interesting and pertinent to your earlier point, and following your reply, to soccer and sports rankings in general. Glad you found it interesting too. :)
My guess is that this region will be the toughest to predict for NCAA Regional Rankings as there are so many teams in close proximity and there will be tons of flux over the next few weeks.
Quote from: Mid-Atlantic Fan on October 19, 2015, 04:26:52 PM
My guess is that this region will be the toughest to predict for NCAA Regional Rankings as there are so many teams in close proximity and there will be tons of flux over the next few weeks.
I think UAA, NJAC and SUNYAC will be interesting too but agree that NCAC's going to be interesting to say the least!
My guess would be something along these lines:
1. Thomas More 12-1-1
2. Kenyon 11-1-0
3. Ohio Northern 13-3-0
4. Ohio Wesleyan 11-2-2
5. Case Western 11-2-1
6. DePauw 9-1-3
7. PSU-Behrend 13-1-1
8. CMU 8-2-3
9. Dension 9-2-2
10. Rose-Hulman 9-2-3
RV: John Carroll 9-3-1, Geneva 8-3-3, Wabash 9-3-2
Besides Ohio Wesleyan WHAT are Ohio Northern's big wins? I do not see many...
Quote from: Mr.Right on October 19, 2015, 04:40:41 PM
Besides Ohio Wesleyan WHAT are Ohio Northern's big wins? I do not see many...
I am no expert on this region but I do follow it/try to follow it. OWU and John Carroll are their 2 big wins. Wheaton(Mass.) at the time was big since they ended up winning 7 straight after losing to ONU, but have struggled as of late losing 5 of their last 7 to be 9-7. That's all I have for you on their good wins.
Quote from: Mid-Atlantic Fan on October 19, 2015, 04:37:51 PM
My guess would be something along these lines:
1. Thomas More 12-1-1
2. Kenyon 11-1-0
3. Ohio Northern 13-3-0
4. Ohio Wesleyan 11-2-2
5. Case Western 11-2-1
6. DePauw 9-1-3
7. PSU-Behrend 13-1-1
8. CMU 8-2-3
9. Dension 9-2-2
10. Rose-Hulman 9-2-3
RV: John Carroll 9-3-1, Geneva 8-3-3, Wabash 9-3-2
Largely agree with your assessment in general but I'd probably swap ONU and OWU. I might also swap CMU and PSU-B, given what I see as a relatively weak schedule for PSU-B. Wouldn't have thought to include PSU-B as they haven't been on my radar and surprised to see that they're (somewhat quietly) 13-1-1! Would love to see relative SOS's for each team as well if anyone has run the #'s.
Wheaton MA will be no where near ranked...OWU will be and John Carroll is a bubble rank....Ohio Northern might have to win their respective league....I am jacked for Wednesday Oct 21st to see the rankings and I will be more jacked for Wed Oct 28th to see the "better" rankings
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 16, 2015, 04:53:53 PM
I'm guessing that normally it's almost impossible to have OWU and Kenyon (or most Ohio schools) in different sectionals and even the other side of the sectional as the other side last year played at Emory (where Whitworth prevailed). Last year I think they could have because Wheaton got placed out West and hosted and OWU could have been sent to Wheaton, just as Kenyon was sent to Wheaton the prior year. Don't know exactly but might have been even closer for OWU than going to Calvin last year.
Speaking of sectionals and sites and such, I wonder if TMC has a shot at hosting if they win out (which is more than likely).
In 2013, I noted in the NCAA brackets (http://www.ncaa.com/interactive-bracket/soccer-men/d3/2013) that Oberlin was in a completely different quadrant than OWU and Kenyon. Oberlin was paired w/ Oneonta, Rochester, CMU, and other Great Lakes and East region schools. Kenyon and OWU couldn't have seen Oberlin until a final match--not even in a semi-final. OWU and Kenyon, on the other hand, would have met for the first time in the Elite 8, if either team had made it that far. OWU had a bye and lost to RH in round 2. Kenyon lost to Messiah (2-1), who went on to win the crown that year, in the Sweet 16 round. Kenyon was paired w/ TMC and ONU. OWU was paired with RH and PSU-Behrend.
I haven't looked back further in time and I'm sure that there are many others here who know this far better than me, but if Oberlin can be put in an entirely separate bracket, there's no reason why the NCAA couldn't split OWU and Kenyon, it seems to me. I guess the NCAA could perhaps argue that Oberlin is closer to CMU, CW and others than Kenyon, TMC, RH and OWU, but Oberlin is also much closer to PSU-Behrend than OWU.
NSCAA Regional Rankings
Rank School Prev. W-L-T
1 Thomas More College
2 Kenyon College
3 Ohio Northern University
4 Ohio Wesleyan University
5 Penn State-Behrend
6 Case Western Reserve University
7 DePauw University
8 John Carroll University
9 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
10 Carnegie Mellon University
Also receiving votes: Geneva College (3), Denison University (2), Oberlin College (1), Hanover College (1)
Quote from: Mr.Right on October 19, 2015, 04:40:41 PM
Besides Ohio Wesleyan WHAT are Ohio Northern's big wins? I do not see many...
. . . and based on what happened to John Carroll last year there will be only one OAC representative (as it should be as the OAC is down quite a bit this year) - that being the conference tournament champ.
And there goes Ohio Northern. AQ or bust. Lost to Heidelberg 2-0.
Midway through 1H in OWU-DePauw, very little going on. OWU has probably just edged play, each team has had one good opportunity, OWU with a header and DePauw off a cutback. OWU's advantage is that DePauw is letting them get the ball deep into the forwards, even inside the box. Too many chances for those guys and they're going to score. DePauw's advantage is speed on the outside, which is how they created their first shot by getting in behind the outside back.
And just like that 1-0 DePauw. OWU had them pinned in, centerback slips on a backpass and DePauw is on a breakaway which was finished nicely. Think Steven Gerrard against Chelsea two seasons ago. Bad mistake but guy still had to run 60 yards and finished well.
Game settling into a familiar pattern. OWU with stretches of possession, DePauw probably looking more dangerous on the break.
1-1 at half. Wow, if ever there was a time to teach a familiar lesson in soccer. DePauw with a quick counter, smashes one off the post. OWU goes straight down the other end and buries a chance off an almost identical play, but with a more controlled finish.
Following the goal, OWU took more control. But if I'm DePauw I'd prefer it that way. I probably don't want a shootout if I'm them, I'd rather keep it compact and keep counterattacking effectively. Once they start committing too many men forward...well, that's how they gave up the equalizing goal. OWU went from nearly 2-0 down (off the post) into the DePauw net in probably 10-15 seconds.
Also, ref doing a very nice job of handling the game. Calling it probably tighter than necessary, but (if the parents are any indication) emotions are high and he's keeping it level.
2-1 OWU, nice finish after sloppy clearance from a free kick, but DePauw looks...tired? That seems odd to say coming out of halftime, but there's been a bunch of standing and 4 OWU players all reacted fastest on that goal. Dominant start to the half for OWU, but still 39 minutes to play.
Lords dominating play in Hiram against Terriers with 13 shots total vs. the Terriers 1, 8 shots on goal vs. 0, 5 corners vs. 1, and a 1-0 lead at half. Play a bit sloppy all around tonight, but the short turf football field venue not ideal for soccer, and making for a very fast, bouncy surface.
2-2 off a bomb from the edge of the 18 for DePauw. The Tigers got back into it off a series of long throw-ins, nothing in the run of play but it shifted the field and eventually the ball dropped to a guy who won a 50-50 and drilled one. Big goal for DePauw, as OWU looked to be turning the screws.
And 3-2 OWU. Have to say it was coming, OWU has been getting deep into DePauw's box for most of the game and this time they made them pay. 7 minutes left.
Also wanted to note Julian Gonzalez scored both goals for DePauw, and he's pretty much been DePauw's offense, taking 8/11 shots and both SOG for DePauw.
Ohio Wesleyan beats DePauw 3-2. Fair result, all things considered. 18-14 shots, 10-3 SOG, and OWU carried the play for almost the entire second half. DePauw's draw with Wooster is now very costly, as OWU can afford a draw against Kenyon and still win the NCAC.
Story of the game, IMO, was that OWU's two-man central midfield controlled DePauw's three-man setup, and both guys scored to boot. That allowed OWU to stay pushed up on the DePauw CBs, which ultimately paid off on the game-winning goal.
Agree that this obviously was big win for OWU and almost on cue they are in 1st place in the NCAC. Also agree a fair result on balance, although if I was a DPU fan I would say the game should have been 2-0 DPU and OWU would have been in serious trouble. While OWU had the possession, DPU had the more dangerous chances up until OWU tied the game one trip down the field after DPU hit the post on a play the kid should have finished to go up 2-0. Once 1-1, never felt OWU would or could lose although Gonzalez (a very dangerous player) made it interesting. OWU is absolutely lethal around the box. They are fantastic passing inside and around the box, and even if it's just a loose ball they are typically clinical in their finishing. That's a difference between them and other teams in these situations. You hit the post, they score on the next play. Game-changing plays that completely alter the course of the rest of the game. Lethal in first 5 minutes of each half (and went ahead in first 5 minutes of 2nd half). And OWU is super-competitive. They are known for being technical and very skilled and dynamic in attack, and they are, but they also compete and will give as good or better than they get. There is no arguing with the results.
Yep that's pretty spot on. I thought that up until the first OWU goal, DePauw was more dangerous, but as you mentioned you make a mistake - or even miss an opportunity, as smashing a ball off the post isn't really a mistake, per se - and you get punished. Frankly I think turf favors OWU, as it makes that short passing game you referenced even more dangerous around the box.
Since we're allowed to look ahead (the players can't/shouldn't, obviously), I think it's fitting that it would (or should) come down to Kenyon at OWU. The last time Kenyon (or anyone else) won the NCAC was 2007, when the Lords beat OWU 1-0 at Roy Rike. That game was a war, if the staples and concussion I had afterward were any indicator. Makes sense Kenyon would need to repeat that to take the conference title. Good news for the neutral is that both teams are hitting their strides right now.
Lords head home to Gambier with a decisive 4-1 W over Hiram. The video quality made it very difficult to see a lot of plays and definitely didn't make for the best post-game reporting, so no long analysis. Box stats tell the story reasonably well: 24 shots vs. 7. 15 SOG vs. 2. 7 corner kicks vs. 1.
With OWU's win at DePauw tonight, OWU and Kenyon both have 5 conf wins in NCAC, but OWU has a tie and Kenyon its only loss for their respective 6th NCAC matches. Current conf standings at 5-0-1 for OWU and 5-1-0 for Kenyon, giving the current edge to OWU. Next conference games for both teams are away, with Kenyon @ Allegheny and OWU @ Oberlin. The Lords face the Battling Bishops in Delaware, OH a week from tomorrow on Weds 10/28 for the biggest game remaining in the season for the NCAC. DePauw drops to 4-1-1.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 20, 2015, 10:14:53 PM
Yep that's pretty spot on. I thought that up until the first OWU goal, DePauw was more dangerous, but as you mentioned you make a mistake - or even miss an opportunity, as smashing a ball off the post isn't really a mistake, per se - and you get punished. Frankly I think turf favors OWU, as it makes that short passing game you referenced even more dangerous around the box.
Since we're allowed to look ahead (the players can't/shouldn't, obviously), I think it's fitting that it would (or should) come down to Kenyon at OWU. The last time Kenyon (or anyone else) won the NCAC was 2007, when the Lords beat OWU 1-0 at Roy Rike. That game was a war, if the staples and concussion I had afterward were any indicator. Makes sense Kenyon would need to repeat that to take the conference title. Good news for the neutral is that both teams are hitting their strides right now.
". . .you make a mistake - or even miss an opportunity, as smashing a ball off the post isn't really a mistake, per se - and you get punished."This is what I've seen in DIII this year - perhaps it has always been the case. The top 8 teams in the midwest are very equal, similarly built. On any given Sunday . . .
Stay compact with the back two lines and be patient for counters and mistakes. OWU, Kenyon and Thomas More have more of an ability to create their own chances than the others I've seen - rather than strictly rely on the "wait and pounce" tactic.
I can see many 0-0 games in the tournament - first two rounds - if these 8-10 teams meet up a second time.
A few musings before we head into the battle (likely plural) and this observer/fan regretfully but likely falls prey to full partisanship mode.
2007 is interesting in several regards. Yes, the last time OWU did not win the NCAC regular season, and as I think I mentioned in the rising programs thread, a seemingly very odd scenario where Kenyon won it, ended with a 14-3-2 record, and (morphing into Mr.Right style) DID NOT GET A BID!!!! ??? ??? ??? I'm gonna take a wild guess that Coach Brown wasn't on the cmte at that time, and I'm gonna guess that winning the NCAC title and not getting a bid has rarely or ever happened other than this instance. Kenyon did not advance in the NCAC semis, losing a PK shootout to Allegheny 6-5 (that went 8 rounds). Meanwhile, OWU advanced past Wittenberg, also in PKs. OWU then beat Allegheny 1-0 in the final, after the Gators had bested OWU 3-0 in the regular season. Allegheny did not get a bid as they were only 10-8-1. Apparently just 1 bid for the NCAC and at least on paper would look to be a major snub of Kenyon that year. OWU then lost (did not advance) in PKs to Transy in the 1st round of the NCAAs.
I noted last night that OWU typically is very technical (and lethal) with quick combination passing in and around the box. RH described well the approach that OWU employed last night versus the DePauw defensive strategy. What impresses me so much about Martin and his teams are their capacity to play different styles and attack differently based on the opponent and/or when needs dictate. I assume I'm not giving them too much credit and that this is by design. Kenyon usually tries to press high. They've scored in the first 5 minutes against Kenyon on at least two occasions in the last 2-3 years that I recall, including in the conference final last year when I think Shaefer played a long ball cross into Bloecher for a header for a goal. Boom. OWU, up 1-0. It's not just Kenyon...they do that to a lot of teams. Kenyon was good enough to survive that in the final last year but in general those sudden strikes so early can be tough to rebound from. They also have a history of their outside backs getting into the offense and scoring critical goals, but often even then the damage happens by them playing through the middle of the park with tight passes and runs more so than pure crosses coming in from the flanks. Witkoff did that in Gambier 3 years ago in a game that was 0-0 into the 2nd half and that Kenyon had probably outplayed OWU. The Battling Bishops in that game finished off the Lords in a Bloecher to Bloecher connection. In the last meeting last year, OWU knew that Justice had not played in the first weekend against Heidelberg or TMC, so they had to have a good idea that he was hobbled. Again, I assume by design, OWU seemed to drop their All-American Bloecher back deeper into the midfield, which sucked Justice in, and then Bloecher sent piercing balls right through the middle in that space to speedsters like Baum and Justice with his injury could not provide cover. If that was a strategy it certainly was brilliant. There was also the problem that Kenyon for whatever reason did not turn up as they needed to, and OWU outplayed the Lords in general. That said, as I suggested last night, events during a game can determine whether you get turned on (during the game) and whether the game changes. Kenyon was finally getting their feet under them after getting badly outplayed, got a nice cross in, and I believe it was Jeon who hit the post and then Amolo missed wide. 20 seconds later OWU is awarded a PK. Then OWU scores again shortly before the half, sending the Lords to the halftime break down by 2 goals for the first time all season and knowing that their national DPOY candidate just could not go.
A word on D3soccer.com's very own RH. He does not seem like the type to brag about himself in the least, but I certainly can. He has written some of the best pieces I've ever seen on the site, right along with the best we've seen from Mr. Shirk. Extremely bright, very insightful, and always spot on in terms of his analysis. This site (and all of us) are lucky to have him here, and I have no doubt that he could be a top-tier sports journalist if he wasn't pursuing what I'm sure will be a stellar legal career. His soccer credentials are also impeccable.... a 4 year starter at OWU who was a THREE (3) year captain, which I'm guessing is unprecedented in the annals of OWU soccer, and a First Team Academic All-American. He is an exemplar of the best of D3 athletics and what D3 athletics are all about, and no doubt is considered an icon among the pantheon of OWU greats over the years. While the Wall brothers may have grabbed more headlines as offensive stars, I'm guessing RH is the alum Coach Martin would call in the middle of the night if he needed assistance. No doubt he remains very close to the program, just as other alum players we've seen posting on the site the past couple of years remain close to their schools. Finally, if I was in OWU admissions I would highlight him, not only as a representative outstanding student-athlete, but as an example of the type of excellence the university in general can produce.
Jeez NCAC I can try to help you undo ur lips off his ass...but I agree he does a wonderful job along with FW and my man Bloots
Great Lakes In-Division Record Overall Record
1. Ohio Wesleyan 11-2-2 11-2-2
2. DePauw 9-1-3 9-1-3
3. Denison 9-2-2 9-2-2
4. Rose-Hulman 9-2-3 9-2-3
5. Thomas More 12-1-1 12-1-1
6. CWRU 11-2-1 11-2-1
7. Kenyon 11-1-0 11-1-0
8 Ohio Northern 13-3-0 13-3-0
I can rationalize why OWU might be first in the NCAA's regional rankings for Great Lakes given their most recent string of wins, but with their losses to ON and TMC and tie w/ Denison, as well as their lower overall win/loss record than other teams, and given that the entire season record counts, I'm surprised that OWU's in 1st place in the region. I'm completely baffled at how Denison and DePauw can be 2nd and 3rd and TMC, CWRU and Kenyon 5,6 and 7, resp.
Based on that ...Kenyon is in BIG trouble unless they get the AQ....That game that was never played vs Case might really hurt
Even if you take Kenyon out of the picture that ranking is just outrageous.
If you look at the data sheet for the GL region, it's dated 10/19/2015, but the record is correct through 10/20... Curious how the results could have been known prior to the date of the games...
I think, as with previous years, SOS is playing a large role in the rankings. NCAC earlier lamented the weakness of Kenyon's schedule - 28th of the 52 midwest teams, lowest of the 8 ranked teams.
It will be interesting to watch how SOS changes and what teams do to other's rankings by virtue of how well the finish - or falter - in the next two weeks. Capital, for example, can impact Denison, OWU, TM, Case and ONU:
| Institution | In-Division SOS (weighted OWP-OOWP) |
| Wittenberg |
0.583[/t][/t]
0.58[/t]
0.578[/t]
0.564[/t]
0.551[/t]
0.549[/t]
0.547[/t]
0.546[/t]
0.544[/t]
0.541[/t]
0.539[/t]
0.537[/t]
0.535[/t]
0.535[/t]
0.533[/t]
0.528[/t]
0.523[/t]
0.52[/t]
0.517[/t]
0.516[/t]
0.511[/t]
0.51[/t]
0.508[/t]
0.506[/t]
0.501[/t]
0.497[/t]
0.495[/t]
0.494[/t]
0.493[/t]
0.492[/t]
0.485[/t]
0.485[/t]
0.48[/t]
0.478[/t]
0.474[/t]
0.474[/t]
0.471[/t]
0.463[/t]
0.462[/t]
0.458[/t]
0.454[/t]
0.454[/t]
0.452[/t]
0.447[/t]
0.446[/t]
0.445[/t]
0.435[/t]
0.43[/t]
0.425[/t]
0.414[/t]
0.397[/t]
0.391[/t]
Doesn't compute for me. Kenyon has PLAYED 9 of the teams with SOS HIGHER than them, INCLUDING Waynesburg as one of those HIGHER!
The data is only to include games through Sunday as I understand it. The dates on the data sheets can be and historically have been all over the place between Monday and Wednesday, varying by region and gender, which has always given me the impression it's a date/time stamp for when it was last edited, not the cut-off date for inclusion of results. As far as I know the data sheets have not historically included results through to the date/time stamped on them.
Do you think you are seeing records that are only correct if including results from Tuesaday?
Based on all the info available from this site, d3 soccer and NCAA, I'm still scratching my head. If you take the SoS's of each team and multiply it by their respective in-division WL%, you should get a reasonably close proxy to the actual rankings, given that the RvR criteria hasn't yet been applied, unless I'm really missing the boat entirely. Or, the rankings must be subject to highly weighted, qualitative factors which are not disclosed.
Here's a quick calc on the SoS * W/L% for teams in the region that have been discussed or ranked as strong regional contenders in the GL region, ranked in order of their (SoS) x (W/L%) multiple:
Thomas More 0.516 -0.893 (0.4608)
Kenyon 0.494 -0.917 (0.4530)
Ohio Wesleyan 0.564 -0.8 (0.4512)
Denison 0.578 -0.769 (0.4445)
DePauw 0.544 -0.808 (0.4396)
CWRU 0.523 -0.821 (0.4294)
Rose-Hulman 0.549 -0.75 (0.4118)
Ohio Northern 0.506 -0.813 (0.4114)
Penn St.-Behrend 0.447 -0.9 (0.4023)
John Carroll 0.546 -0.731 (0.3991)
Carnegie Mellon 0.541 -0.731 (0.3955)
If in-division w/l% and SoS are both equally weighted (which they may not be), then the multiplication of the two factors will give the best indication of record and strength of schedule across competitors within the region, ignoring other factors, such as RvR, etc., which are not yet in these numbers. The ranking above squares much better with my sense of regional strength, particularly when the availability of SoS is transparent and provided using comparable methodology for all teams. The actual rankings put out by NCAA today continue to baffle me, unless the SoS has a significantly higher weighting than W/L%, in which case, teams would be ranked strictly using SoS, as follows, and which does also not line up with the published rankings...
Denison 0.578
Ohio Wesleyan 0.564
Rose-Hulman 0.549
John Carroll 0.546
DePauw 0.544
Carnegie Mellon 0.541
CWRU 0.523
Thomas More 0.516
Ohio Northern 0.506
Kenyon 0.494
Penn St.-Behrend 0.447
Obviously, neither approach gets close to the actual rankings. I'm obviously missing something, but what?
Quote from: Flying Weasel on October 21, 2015, 03:54:23 PM
The data is only to include games through Sunday as I understand it. The dates on the data sheets can be and historically have been all over the place between Monday and Wednesday, varying by region and gender, which has always given me the impression it's a date/time stamp for when it was last edited, not the cut-off date for inclusion of results. As far as I know the data sheets have not historically included results through to the date/time stamped on them.
Do you think you are seeing records that are only correct if including results from Tuesaday?
From the top of the GL Regional Sheet. Source: NCAA Regional Rankings links at bottom of rankings page.
GREAT LAKES REGION
D-III Men's Soccer
Generated 10/19/2015 01:18 PM
The GL .pdf is stamped as of Friday, 10/19/15, yet the records must be accurate through Saturday, 10/20 at least, because for the teams I've checked, who all played Saturday games, the number of games is accurate through Saturday's games, not as of Friday or before.
I just don't see how you can possibly justify Denison being ranked over Kenyon. I understand that SOS is a big deal and Denison has a much better stat (.58 vs .495). But if you actually go and LOOK at the two teams schedules, I don't see how Denison's SOS is so much higher than Kenyon's. They have a relatively similar schedule. The main differences are Denison has a win over Emory and Thomas More while Kenyon has a win vs Carnegie Mellon. I consider Emory and CMU pretty equal, so does that ONE win vs Thomas More really change a SOS from .495 to .58? Not to even mention that Kenyon just handled Denison 3-0 on Saturday, holding the Big Red to their season low 4 shots in the game.
Quote from: TennesseeJed on October 21, 2015, 04:05:48 PM
The GL .pdf is stamped as of Friday, 10/19/15, yet the records must be accurate through Saturday, 10/20 at least, because for the teams I've checked, who all played Saturday games, the number of games is accurate through Saturday's games, not as of Friday or before.
Your dates are off. Yesterday was 10/20, and those results are not included. OWU is now 12-2-2, DePauw is 9-2-3, but the data sheet has them as 11-2-2 and 9-1-3. So if they're accurate through 10/19 that would include the weekend's results, but not this week's results.
I don't disagree with anyone on this, but as FW pointed out this is pretty consistent with what the regional committees have done in the past. Whitworth, which is still undefeated, is not ranked at all because of their low SOS, so Kenyon might be lucky (in this twisted sense) to be included despite an SOS below .500. Now, this should take care of itself if Kenyon just needs to get above the .500 threshold, because a game with OWU plus 1-2 conference tourney games should bump it the .006 needed to get there.
And out of curiosity, does anyone have suggestions on improving this thing? The weighted SOS*Win% is an idea, anything else? For all its flaws, I think we'd all prefer something involving numbers rather than just a committee decision without any limitations or requirements to follow the data. This isn't the college football playoff committee, these are the coaches of teams involved.
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 21, 2015, 02:53:02 PM
Doesn't compute for me. Kenyon has PLAYED 9 of the teams with SOS HIGHER than them, INCLUDING Waynesburg as one of those HIGHER!
But playing teams with high SOS doesn't make your SOS high. Only 2/3 of an opponents SOS (the OWP portion) factors into 1/3 of their contribution to your SOS (the OOWP portion). Waynesburg's record is 1-11-1 (.115). Assuming Waynesburg's OWP is similar to their SOS, Waynesburg's contribution to Kenyon's SOS goes like this: 1.25 (away game multiplier) x [ 2/3(.115 OWP) + 1/3(.510 assumed OOWP)] = 0.308. To offset such a poor opponent, you might need a couple good opponents.
And that reminds me of another of the flaws in the NCAA's SOS calculations. There should be a threshhold on how low of a win pct. is applied. For an NCAA tournament aspiring team, there is no real difference between playing a 1-11-1 (.115) Waynesburg and a 3-7-1 (.318) Mt. St. Joseph, both are cupcakes for a Top 25-caliber team. But one can
hurt your SOS, the other can
kill it. I don't think that's right. You'd have to experiement to home in one a good lower bound, but any opponent's winning percentage below .400 (or whatever) should get counted as .400 (or whatever) for SOS calculation purposes. A cupcake is a cupcake, here shouldn't be degrees of cupcakes.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 21, 2015, 04:12:15 PM
Quote from: TennesseeJed on October 21, 2015, 04:05:48 PM
The GL .pdf is stamped as of Friday, 10/19/15, yet the records must be accurate through Saturday, 10/20 at least, because for the teams I've checked, who all played Saturday games, the number of games is accurate through Saturday's games, not as of Friday or before.
Your dates are off. Yesterday was 10/20, and those results are not included. OWU is now 12-2-2, DePauw is 9-2-3, but the data sheet has them as 11-2-2 and 9-1-3. So if they're accurate through 10/19 that would include the weekend's results, but not this week's results.
Sorry for the mistake and thanks for the correction RH. So, the weekend's games were included for SoS and W/L%, as they should have been and time-stamped appropriately. Sorry, again, for the confusion...
Quote from: Flying Weasel on October 21, 2015, 04:21:12 PM
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 21, 2015, 02:53:02 PM
Doesn't compute for me. Kenyon has PLAYED 9 of the teams with SOS HIGHER than them, INCLUDING Waynesburg as one of those HIGHER!
But playing teams with high SOS doesn't make your SOS high. Only 2/3 of an opponents SOS (the OWP portion) factors into 1/3 of their contribution to your SOS (the OOWP portion). Waynesburg's record is 1-11-1 (.115). Assuming Waynesburg's OWP is similar to their SOS, Waynesburg's contribution to Kenyon's SOS goes like this: 1.25 (away game multiplier) x [ 2/3(.115 OWP) + 1/3(.510 assumed OOWP)] = 0.308. To offset such a poor opponent, you might need a couple good opponents.
And that reminds me of another of the flaws in the NCAA's SOS calculations. There should be a threshhold on how low of a win pct. if applied. For an NCAA tournament aspiring team, there is no real difference between playing a 1-11-1 (.115) Waynesburg and a 3-7-1 (.318) Mt. St. Joseph, both are cupcakes for a Top 25-caliber team. But one can hurt your SOS, the other can kill it. I don't think that's right. You'd have to experiement to home in one a good lower bound, but any winning percentages below .400 (or whatever) get counted as .400 for SOS calculation purposes.
I like that idea you mentioned above in bold/italics. I doubt teams that are trying to make the tournament want to play a 1-15-1 team. That same team was probably an average just below .500 record the year before and for some reason tanked. It's unpredictable sometimes and that can affect a team's chances. An example of this that I can think of this year comes from the Empire 8 league with Elmira. They are 6-4-4 this year as compared to last year being 1-14-2. I doubt many people wanted to pick them up but for the teams that did they actually got rewarded in a way for it with the drastic progress that Elmira has shown in their turn around this season. At the same time for the teams that are picking other teams that they know will have a good record and be a challenge it's kind of unfair because they don't get any "bonus" points for playing a team with a good SOS. It's a good idea but tough to implement.
And Case is about to play Waynesburg! I suggested they drop that and play the Kenyon game but I'm sure that is impossible as well as probably just wrong. And there is no way for teams to know ahead of the year when they schedule. As I noted a while back Waynesburg actually was pretty good last year. I don't have an answer but when you line up the schedules of two teams and they look remarkably similar I just don't think we can accept such divergence. Obviously the Kenyon fans are outraged today. If it was reversed and this was happening to a 1 loss (in OT) OWU team I'm sure they would be outraged. And the point about Denison....my gosh, they just lost to Allegheny and HEAD-TO-HEAD vs Kenyon in a mismatch. Let's be real here. Kenyon was ranked #1 in both polls just 3 weeks ago. Now they can't break the top 5 in their own region? And the only thing that happened since on the negative end was an OT loss in a game they dominated against a ranked team?
I do agree about the Case game, and as I sort of foreshadowed the Case game likely would cost them TWO games...the Case game and the loss to DPU in a game they thoroughly dominated but were still not entirely prepared for.
Figured if we want to continue the Kenyon-ranking thread of conversation it might make more sense to do so here. I'm happy to continue the discussion as I think it has merit, but I don't want to hijack the national thread.
I agree completely with RH. No need to hijack the the national thread with Kenyon, considering nearly every post is dealing with Kenyon's conundrum of a regional rank. That being said, I would like to read RH's (or anyone's) justification for Denison being ranked ahead of Kenyon.
Perhaps not a justification, but here's possible reasoning if I'm the committee, loosely using their criteria. (1) Denison has a good record/win%; (2) Denison has really good wins over Emory and Thomas More and a tie against region #1 OWU; (3) Denison has, by far, the highest SOS of the ranked teams, and it's light-years beyond Kenyon's right now; (4) Denison and Kenyon have identical 5-0 records against common opponents (Heidelberg, Marietta, Muskingum, Wooster, Hiram).
I get that Kenyon easily handled Denison, but we can't just go head-to-head for the regional rankings. It's circular - Denison beat Thomas More beat OWU beat DePauw beat Kenyon beat Denison. So once you look beyond the head-to-head, it becomes less surprising, especially given Kenyon's low SOS. I said this in the other thread, but knowing Kenyon's SOS is below .500 makes it more surprising that they were ranked at all. Kenyon has avoided blemishes, which does count for something, but that's partially because they've played few quality teams, and the committee isn't going to speculate as to what they would have done against a better schedule.
As for the fact that Waynesburg kills the SOS, you can avoid some of the risk by upping the average level of your opponent. When you schedule several above-average teams, as Denison did, you can afford more blemishes because your SOS is so much higher. What's killing Kenyon isn't Waynesburg, it's the low number of non-conference games and playing below-average teams for nearly all of them. To put it in perspective, even if you substitute Waynesburg into Denison's and OWU's schedules for Thomas More - the biggest shift possible - both teams still have a much higher non-conference opponents' win%, with Denison at 0.525 and OWU at 0.516, compared to Kenyon's 0.452. And that's not even including Denison's cancelled game against John Carroll, which offsets (valid) complaints about Kenyon missing out on the Case game.
I just want to re-emphasize this doesn't reflect my view of the teams, or (to your point) the actual result between them. What it does reflect is that the committee works with data, and the criteria have been known and used for a long, long time, so Kenyon was on notice this could happen. Frankly, I'm guessing it's what happened in 2007, when Kenyon went 14-2-2, won the NCAC, played a very weak non-conference schedule and didn't get an at-large bid when they lost in PKs in the conference semis. That, above all else, just reinforces that Kenyon still has total control of their destiny this year with regards to an NCAA bid. Win the NCAC tournament and we've all just been spinning our wheels here.
Quote from: chelseafc30 on October 21, 2015, 04:08:46 PM
I just don't see how you can possibly justify Denison being ranked over Kenyon. I understand that SOS is a big deal and Denison has a much better stat (.58 vs .495). But if you actually go and LOOK at the two teams schedules, I don't see how Denison's SOS is so much higher than Kenyon's. They have a relatively similar schedule. The main differences are Denison has a win over Emory and Thomas More while Kenyon has a win vs Carnegie Mellon. I consider Emory and CMU pretty equal, so does that ONE win vs Thomas More really change a SOS from .495 to .58? Not to even mention that Kenyon just handled Denison 3-0 on Saturday, holding the Big Red to their season low 4 shots in the game.
The biggest differences in the two schedules are in the home vs. away differences and how that will impact each team's SoS. Denison played 8 of its 14 games away. Kenyon played 8 of its 13 games at home. It's not the case in reality, but if we assumed that the OWP's and OOWP's for each team were the same for Kenyon and Denison (which would be the case if they played the exact same schedule) for all games, there could be as much as a 47% difference in the weighted/adjusted OWP for Kenyon and Denison, depending on where each game is played. If Kenyon played a .600 team at home, they would add an adjusted OWP of .510 for that team/game. If Denison played the exact same team, but played it as an away game, their adjusted OWP for that same team/game would be .720. Obviously, with SoS's being a critical [primary] factor in rankings, and with the relevant spread for most ranked teams centering in the mid-.500 range (.525 to .575 seems to be the bulk of the distribution--this is an eyeball guess, not mathematically derived), the difference in adding a .510 vs. a .720 has a massive impact for something as minor (in my judgment--the NCAA obviously disagrees) as home field advantage.
The NCAA is not just rewarding you for playing away games, they are actually penalizing you for playing games at home. If you want to raise your SoS, the easiest way is to play more away games during the season. It's worth close to 47% on each OWP and OOWP, so the incentive to play a game away is huge. If your existing SoS is based on 10 home games vs. teams who all had .500 OWP's, your SoS would be roughly .425. If you played the same 10 games away, your SoS would be roughly .600. If you played half at home and half away, your SoS would be roughly .5125, so you can see that the NCAA strongly rewards away games, otherwise, an equal number of home and away games would offset each other in an SoS calc, assuming the OWPs and OOWPs of the teams played were the same.
The difference between Kenyon's and Denison's SoS is 1-(.578/.494) = 17%. Denison has played 57% of its games away; Kenyon has played only 38% of its games away. If the two schools played 3 of the same teams, but Kenyon played them all at home and Denison played them all on the road, a 19% difference times a 47% weight difference could easily reconcile a big portion (roughly 9% of the 17%) of the difference in respective SoS's... the other 8% is likely from differences in teams played and respective OWP's and OOWP's.
The main point I'm making is that with a variation in SoS's that's only about 10% wide (.575-.525/.525=.095, or 9.5%), but a multiplier that's 40%+ wide, the weighting of the home vs. away is too large and it overwhelms the underlying OWP and OOWP calcs in a way that creates very high SoS's for teams (any team--not just Kenyon or Denison) that have more away games in their schedules and very low SoS's for teams that play a lot of home games.
Note, that none of this addresses the Win % advantage Kenyon has over Denison, which needs to be accounted for in the overall ranking. The conclusion you must draw is that the committee strongly favors SoS over win % as the relevant ranking metric, even though it doesn't capture anything about a team's performance. It also doesn't consider the direct head to head match up or either team's results vs. ranked teams (RvR), but there is a mechanism for incorporating that information next week, if I understand the process correctly.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 22, 2015, 12:28:13 AM
Perhaps not a justification, but here's possible reasoning if I'm the committee, loosely using their criteria. (1) Denison has a good record/win%; (2) Denison has really good wins over Emory and Thomas More and a tie against region #1 OWU; (3) Denison has, by far, the highest SOS of the ranked teams, and it's light-years beyond Kenyon's right now; (4) Denison and Kenyon have identical 5-0 records against common opponents (Heidelberg, Marietta, Muskingum, Wooster, Hiram).
I get that Kenyon easily handled Denison, but we can't just go head-to-head for the regional rankings. It's circular - Denison beat Thomas More beat OWU beat DePauw beat Kenyon beat Denison. So once you look beyond the head-to-head, it becomes less surprising, especially given Kenyon's low SOS. I said this in the other thread, but knowing Kenyon's SOS is below .500 makes it more surprising that they were ranked at all. Kenyon has avoided blemishes, which does count for something, but that's partially because they've played few quality teams, and the committee isn't going to speculate as to what they would have done against a better schedule.
As for the fact that Waynesburg kills the SOS, you can avoid some of the risk by upping the average level of your opponent. When you schedule several above-average teams, as Denison did, you can afford more blemishes because your SOS is so much higher. What's killing Kenyon isn't Waynesburg, it's the low number of non-conference games and playing below-average teams for nearly all of them. To put it in perspective, even if you substitute Waynesburg into Denison's and OWU's schedules for Thomas More - the biggest shift possible - both teams still have a much higher non-conference opponents' win%, with Denison at 0.525 and OWU at 0.516, compared to Kenyon's 0.452. And that's not even including Denison's cancelled game against John Carroll, which offsets (valid) complaints about Kenyon missing out on the Case game.
I just want to re-emphasize this doesn't reflect my view of the teams, or (to your point) the actual result between them. What it does reflect is that the committee works with data, and the criteria have been known and used for a long, long time, so Kenyon was on notice this could happen. Frankly, I'm guessing it's what happened in 2007, when Kenyon went 14-2-2, won the NCAC, played a very weak non-conference schedule and didn't get an at-large bid when they lost in PKs in the conference semis. That, above all else, just reinforces that Kenyon still has total control of their destiny this year with regards to an NCAA bid. Win the NCAC tournament and we've all just been spinning our wheels here.
Well said. I saw Waynesburg last year - they weren't good then. Same for Otterbein, Marietta, Muskingum. Centre is the one opponent that, based on last year, you would think is hurting Kenyon's SOS. If you "just" look at stats and don't see the teams play you may read more into a team's strength than exists on the field. Massey et. al. are fun for reference - but thank God for playing the games!
The ball is firmly in their possession and they HAVE to get results. Allegheny is one of those "schedule-maker" games that young college kids can look past and hurt themselves by doing so. Same for OWU at Oberlin.
TM, Rose Hulman are locks for 2 of the top 4 spots - nothing of consequence left on either schedule. Rose drops if their SOS declines - not because they will lose but due to previous opponents declining results. OWU and Kenyon round out the top 4. I think Denison will continue to fade and fall below the 6th spot. ONU has cupcakes left - they may need help from teams they beat to "strengthen" their SOS - but they get 5th - but won't make the field unless they win their tournament. Case has some tough games left - if they sweep they could jump into the top 4 - I just don't think pull it off. 5th or 6th and on the bubble.
Ughhh. I ended the night thinking I was done, and then, this morning, with my head feeling a little clearer and seeing that there was a bit more activity later, I have a few points in response to a few points. And this will be my last, double-secret last post on these matters...until 15 minutes after turns out it's not, lol. Sorry and apologies to all in advance.
@FW, @RH, @anyone-else-interested....And FW, I'm moving our exchange over here for simplicity, politeness, etc. Maybe should be its own thread.
A discussion starts in one place and after a few reactions and responses back and forth there is more than one topic that is going on, sometimes to the point that we lost what the original thing was as some of us get interested/invested in other points that emerge along the way. One of my points is that I am interested in, not only like in this case how SOS works and whether it's component ingredients make sense to me, but also in what is happening on the board as we have the discussion. These things are organic in some sense and as a discussion goes on multiple things can be happening , which can be even more interesting, convoluting, frustrating, etc, etc.
FW, you know I'm not a newbie, and I know I'm not a newbie. I think you missed the point with that, and I found that a tad insulting. I thought I was pretty open about generally knowing how things work and admitting that I wasn't super-interested until "my team" was so directly impacted. I've commented before about other teams seeming to get screwed on this or other issues, and just yesterday I was questioning Middlebury's SOS and TMC's regional placement, but, yes, I'm not likely to go on for a bunch of posts or get "into a thing" about perceived extra-generous or bad happenings to teams I may be interested in but not both interested AND invested in. Not saying others don't do better at this or aren't more vigilant about appearing neutral when maybe they really aren't or whatever, but at least to some degree I think we all can fall prey to such weaknesses. I also think that, formally/officially/unofficially we all wear different hats or personas, depending on the topic, depending on the team involved, depending on how much it matters to us, etc, etc. I personally have tried hard to offer content and opinions far afield from "my team" and I'm sure the consensus would be that my better stuff has been when I do that, and I would suggest that this is more or less true for some other posters. There are times when something on your own team, as a retrospective or in hingsight, or providing insight that otherwise might not be provided, can be very good and pretty non-controversial. I think RH's piece way back on the anatomy of an upset and my own backstory/reflection on the impact of Kenyon's last graduating class on the standing of the program both at least roughly fall into that category. Certainly there are plenty of times when analysis involving one's own team can be quite good where any bias can be nicely handled and/or accounted for. And then there are times when I think things can get a little muddled and I'll be the first to admit that I am muddled in this moment or at least last evening. That doesn't necessarily insights are worthless or for anyone else who might be a bit muddled as well, but seems natural to expect an invested interested (vs just an interest) to be, well, more invested, and for that to influence what data I find and choose to present and what potential data doesn't even my mind to look into because I'm looking for the data that supports my point. There's also of course differences in style and how are brains work based on our own backgrounds. professions, etc....so some may be more logical/psychological/legal/ mathematical, etc and so some of apparent stalements may come down to some point that seems absolutely cyrstal clear from my perspective but not yours, and vice versa. So on to what I hope will just be a couple of points from some of last posts last night.
First, the idea that "your coach should have known, after all he was the chair of the cmte...our team planned for this so we're good, and that's what you guys should have done." In a word, EXACTLY. My guess is that that is exactly what "my team" did precisely because they do know, and obviously the plan is not panning out as expected. I was one of the first to complain about the Case game, so we can put some portion on that. Before I get to the "numbers" issue, I'll concede 1 game or even 1.5 games of a lesser schedule. I think I recall RH lamenting in the preseason or early season that OWU had an atypically soft schedule this year FWIW. Anyway, I think, aside from the # of home games issue that TJ has correctly underscored, I don't think anyone would have suspected the Kenyon was "too light" with CMU, Centre, Heidelberg (a NCAA team) and Case scheduled along with a NCAC schedule (a conference I believe RH just quantatively identified as one of the top 4-5 conferences in the country). "Planning" doesn't account for how few wins Waynesburg, Witt, Woos, Muskingum would rack up, and planning doesn't account for weather or bad field conditions (although the latter and not having the turf field ready for soccer if that was an issue I do at least put partly on the school). It's actually counter-intuitive to suggest that the coach didn't know what he was doing (and frankly, a tad insulting). I would bet that the coach has a very keen sense of how SOS works and what he planned for. [Domino, saw your post....Waynesburg may have been bad but they were 9-7-4 and 5-2-1 in conference last year and the year before 10-3-4....agree on Muskingum and Marietta but I think Kenyon, OWU, Denison, etc all play at least at least a couple of these teams every year in part due to location and in part maybe as favors? Certainly nothing unusual or different this year about having them on the schedule.]
Secondly, regarding the numbers, yes, the numbers are the numbers. TJ has raised a good point about weighting. And when so many are so surprised about so many teams, not just mine, regarding the results, that naturally is going to lead to even non-newbies taking a closer look at "OK, now how exactly is that SOS derived?" and does that make sense. Now I get that whether it makes sense or not is irrelevant to whether it's going to happen, but that's not irrelevant to discussion and whether it makes sense. I'd like to hear how TMC being as low as they are makes sense given their schedule, and whether they should be at risk if they don't get their AQ.
Third, the idea of "well, geez, just win your AQ and there's no problem" is the doozey for me, and impresses as pretty convenient, all things considered. Well, of course, that makes sense. But teams do the planning mentioned and try to have strong seasons just in case they don't win the AQ! Isn't that the/a point? Isn't that why you try really hard to limit your blemishes and feel pretty good when you do? Just comes across as a little dismissive and, to borrow the analogy from last night, a lot like a throwing up of exasperated hands, to say, well, yeah, you've had a great season, but go win the AQ just like an 8th place NESCAC team or 6th place NJAC team. We could just say that about every single team in D3 that has access to an AQ. And Whitworth having their AQ in hand is great for them and makes worrying about their SOS unnecessary, sure, but it doesn't negate whether they should be in that position. What about other NWC teams down the road? Will they almost by definition always have to win their AQ because of geography? Does a Whitworth have to spend a lot of money for an early season Messiah/Montclair double? [And yes, I know they played Wheaton last year.]
As I said with my initial reaction yesterday, I think my team will be fine. Also ironic that I was putting the brakes on earlier in the year about the high rankings and I believe you, FW, challenged, well, I get your reasoning for wanting them lower but who else are we going to put higher.
I'll close with the reference to the 2007 team, which I think makes one of my points. Perhaps it was the schedule. I honestly do not know what it was. I don't know if it was the ONLY time a regular season winner of the NCAC didn't get a bid or not, but that is an angle that could have been chosen to inquire about. While we may cite certain "facts" or numbers (or whatever), which facts we choose to highlight and which we decide not to explore quite as much are all part of what we all do. I think it's an assumption to suggest that the schedule might have been the primary reason (unless there is some real insider knowledge), but more importantly, I think that reflects what we all do....in terms of whether we react to a post here or not, choose to ignore a post, feel compelled to respond, or whatever. What we do, and what and how we choose to investigate, and what we deem as most notable, what games we follow or commentate on more closely than others, who we side with or don't side with, etc, etc, often is influenced by our own allegiances...whether in those moments our "client" is one of our teams, a colleague, the site in general, a conference, some muddled version of some or all of those, etc, etc.
Until next time... ;)
By far the most confusing region this year as some have stated earlier. Reminds me of Happy and Bob Barker getting into on the course...weird and confusing day that was. Anyways enough about my glory days. I vote TMC and Kenyon as the top 2 in this region. Kenyon has a horrid SOS though. CWR right behind them. If CMU makes the tournament that is a crime. Most overrated team in D3 Soccer this year.
I'm starting an online petition....Case and Kenyon should play at Case Sunday afternoon. Kenyon plays a 5:00 game at Allegheny Saturday and can stay at Lebron's place Saturday night. Case plays at Waynesburg at 6:00 and can ride home that night. Will get in a bit late but then they are at home. Conversely, Kenyon comes home Friday night and Case drops by on their way back to Cleveland for a 3:00 game at Kenyon. Gives Kenyon full 2 days of rest (almost 3) before night game at OWU and Case doesn't play again until next Friday. Both teams benefit. Pull a Popovich and just have subs go against subs if needed.
NCAC NE I like the way you think. I am guessing all your negative Karma is from Mr. Right? Wouldn't surprise me as you have good thoughts and logical conversations. That equals negative Karma from Mr. Right. I agree. I wish Kenyon and Case wouldn't have cancelled. Was actually a game I planned on attending. Very disappointing it didn't get rescheduled somehow.
Quote from: Shooter McGavin on October 22, 2015, 08:52:46 PM
NCAC NE I like the way you think. I am guessing all your negative Karma is from Mr. Right? Wouldn't surprise me as you have good thoughts and logical conversations. That equals negative Karma from Mr. Right. I agree. I wish Kenyon and Case wouldn't have cancelled. Was actually a game I planned on attending. Very disappointing it didn't get rescheduled somehow.
Shooter, Mr.Right and I gave each other probably 40-50+ negative karmas towards the end of last year, but we are on pretty good terms so far during this campaign. It's quite a sight when men over 50 act like children, but sometimes men over 50 need to act like children and one day you'll understand what that means. Try to appreciate his insights. He knows his stuff and he is a huge net plus for the site, especially when he is on his game, which has been pretty much all of the time straight through this season. Now let's get back to getting this Case-Kenyon game scheduled.
I agree and noted that in my last post before I even read this one. NESAC thread/topic though. He does know his stuff. It's fun to get him excited though. Adds to great conversation and friendly debate. Had a little fun earlier. Don't worry it will be mostly business from here on out. ;D Who would you take in that game though if they did play? Kenyon or Case?
Quote from: Shooter McGavin on October 22, 2015, 09:16:54 PM
I agree and noted that in my last post before I even read this one. NESAC thread/topic though. He does know his stuff. It's fun to get him excited though. Adds to great conversation and friendly debate. Had a little fun earlier. Don't worry it will be mostly business from here on out. ;D Who would you take in that game though if they did play? Kenyon or Case?
Shooter, I think Kenyon would handle Case pretty comfortably at Kenyon on grass. I've watched Case several times, like them a lot, and I'm a fan pulling for them to get in the tournament, but I don't think they present a ton of danger outside of Cvecko. Very solid defensively but my guess is that Kenyon's overall talent would break through. Similar to Kenyon-CMU game, but probably lower scoring and final score was deceiving there as that really was a 4-2 game. On the turf at Case I think would be more dicey with a higher chance for a draw. Case needs the game as much as Kenyon but Case also has to get through a gauntlet in the last 3 UAA games, so they might not want an extra very difficult game at this late stage in the season.
I like the analysis and agree. I watched 2 Case games this year. I think they have a boatload of potential which is why I tend to favor them as well. I also like Kenyon and think they can make a deep run in NCAA's. I would take Kenyon 2-1 on either field. Maybe a draw at Case as you mentioned.
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 22, 2015, 09:28:47 PM
Quote from: Shooter McGavin on October 22, 2015, 09:16:54 PM
I agree and noted that in my last post before I even read this one. NESAC thread/topic though. He does know his stuff. It's fun to get him excited though. Adds to great conversation and friendly debate. Had a little fun earlier. Don't worry it will be mostly business from here on out. ;D Who would you take in that game though if they did play? Kenyon or Case?
Shooter, I think Kenyon would handle Case pretty comfortably at Kenyon on grass. I've watched Case several times, like them a lot, and I'm a fan pulling for them to get in the tournament, but I don't think they present a ton of danger outside of Cvecko. Very solid defensively but my guess is that Kenyon's overall talent would break through. Similar to Kenyon-CMU game, but probably lower scoring and final score was deceiving there as that really was a 4-2 game. On the turf at Case I think would be more dicey with a higher chance for a draw. Case needs the game as much as Kenyon but Case also has to get through a gauntlet in the last 3 UAA games, so they might not want an extra very difficult game at this late stage in the season.
NCAC NE and Shooter,
Kenyon 3
Case 1
Denison continues to scratch and claw their way through the NCAC schedule. Not the best side in today's game, the beneficiary of a generous PK for their second goal. Their keeper did very well to secure their the point.
Kenyon Allegheny scoreless at half. Almost nothing has happened. Kenyon mis-hit a cross that glanced off the crossbar and Allegheny's GK took the ball off a Kenyon player's foot, but aside from that the game has been played in the midfield. Kenyon has had more of the ball and territory, but no real cutting edge yet. Allegheny isn't offering a ton going forward, but they're defending pretty well and trying to play a little bit. Kenyon has come close to getting in behind when they've chosen to go direct, which may be their way to a breakthrough in the second half.
Kenyon takes a 1-0 lead early in the second half off a fortuitous deflection that completely wrongfooted the GK. The goal had been coming, as the game is a little more open and Kenyon is getting deeper into the Allegheny end (and 18) with possession. Hard to see Allegheny coming back.
2-0, free header from Amolo. Allegheny had a little stretch of pressure, but that opened up the field and Kenyon put in a great cross, headed down and in from 8 yards out. Game, set, match.
OWU-Oberlin kicks off in a torrential downpour. Oberlin's field is top-notch, so hopefully it won't impact the game. Slip count at 8 17 26 (including one by each goalkeeper) and picking up speed...
0-0 at half. OWU put the squeeze on for the last 30 of the first half, but have created mostly half-chances. It's like watching a hockey game - nobody can change direction, every pass has to be to feet because it's so slick. But the field is holding up, and as players get tired it'll really favor the attacking players from each side and I'd expect someone to break the deadlock.
And Oberlin's GK has started to stand on his head. Several shots from point blank range, keeper makes some spectacular saves. Finishing could be better, but wow that was impressive. Oberlin holding on right now, but still dangerous on the counter with the field conditions.
1-0 OWU. There's the breakthrough. Just a long free kick, flicked in. Tough on Oberlin GK who has been really good, but fair on the balance of play so far.
Wow, Oberlin with the great chance. OWU misjudges the ball and it falls to an Oberlin player on the back post, GK closes the angle, stands tall and makes the save with his face. 9 to play, but you have to wonder if that was Oberlin's chance.
OWU 1 Oberlin 0. Kenyon and OWU square off Wednesday for the NCAC. An OWU win clinches the NCAC outright and a draw means they only need to beat struggling Hiram for the NCAC outright. A Kenyon win puts them in pole position for the crown.
**Edit because I can't do math. If they draw and Kenyon wins next Saturday while OWU draws/loses, Kenyon wins the NCAC.
I thought Kenyon looked pretty listless tonight, especially in the midfield where a couple of key players they really count on just looked off and had several inexplicable loose touches and/or giveaways. Allegheny can be a tough place to play, but Kenyon did enough to get the win and remain alive in the conference race. Watching a game on video, especially on a football field, is kind of a listless experience in itself and rarely gives you a good sense of what the action really is like live.
I watched most of the OWU game and they definitely were dominant in attack and also did enough to get the win. Ingham for Oberlin had a couple of good chances in the last 10 minutes, ones that he normally will finish but the OWU GK did make a good play on the first one. Even though they had to defend a ton, I was really impressed with how Oberlin played the game. Almost to a fault, they keep playing soccer and passing the ball around even in their own defensive third. Oberlin is a good team with some good young talent coming through. The GK played great, as he did against Kenyon, and he rarely if ever punted the ball, consistent with Oberlin's style, but I always wonder if occasionally they might just need to whack the ball out of there just to relieve the pressure and catch their breath. Wertman in the middle is really good and composed on the ball and I thought Chazin-Gray had a spectacular game at right back. He made some really big plays/strips on the defensive end, including on Schaefer and Lee, and he also was one of Oberlin's most dangerous players when they could get on the other end. They have some other nice players in the midfield who played with good composure under pressure.
I think DePauw dropping points today took some pressure off for the OWU-Kenyon tilt. At worst, a loss to Kenyon would put OWU in 2nd and still in the driver's seat for the #2 slot and a playoff home game, and a Kenyon loss would result in the Lords still being ahead of DePauw for the #2 slot as long as they beat Wabash at home. Of course both teams will try like heck to win the title, but a silver lining for the loser might be avoiding an away semi in Crawfordsville. Unfortunately for Oberlin they probably needed Denison to lose and/or get a result tonight themselves. The loss at home to Wabash really hurts them, but I still think they have a quality team as reflected by a draw with Case and two 1-0 losses to Kenyon and OWU.
Actually I guess Wabash is still very much alive but I think would need at least a split of a couple of tough away games, DePauw and Kenyon. And Allegheny amazingly is still alive and have DePauw at home for the final game of season assuming they get a win at Wooster. Denison still has work to do and they may have to beat Oberlin on the final day at home, which I do not think will be easy.
Just noticed that Capital beat John Carroll tonight. Big setback for John Carroll and out of nowhere Capital is now 5-1-1 in the OAC and has improved to 7-8-1.
Yes, I was very impressed with Oberlin. I really like what Coach New has done with them and respect how he approaches the game. I think the next step for them, aside from just continuing to increase the overall talent level, is to learn how to change pace and vary their play. As you alluded to, they were committed to keeping the ball on the ground, but they couldn't get out of their own half until the last 10 minutes or so. And their best chance came on a long diagonal ball, rather than the short passing game they'd been working.
Wabash still has to go to Kenyon and DePauw, so I'm thinking we're going to see Oberlin at Denison with fourth place and a spot in the NCAC playoffs on the line next Saturday.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 24, 2015, 10:17:14 PM
Yes, I was very impressed with Oberlin. I really like what Coach New has done with them and respect how he approaches the game. I think the next step for them, aside from just continuing to increase the overall talent level, is to learn how to change pace and vary their play. As you alluded to, they were committed to keeping the ball on the ground, but they couldn't get out of their own half until the last 10 minutes or so. And their best chance came on a long diagonal ball, rather than the short passing game they'd been working.
Wabash still has to go to Kenyon and DePauw, so I'm thinking we're going to see Oberlin at Denison with fourth place and a spot in the NCAC playoffs on the line next Saturday.
If so, that will be a great game. Ryan Fine is a really key player for Denison and he was injured during OT. The camera cut away for a long time and he did not return so that would be a really bad break for Denison if he is unable to go. And you just never know for sure what DePauw will do. Obviously will be strong favorites at home vs Wabash but that's the game they play for that Monen Ball thing or something, right?
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 24, 2015, 10:27:45 PM
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 24, 2015, 10:17:14 PM
Yes, I was very impressed with Oberlin. I really like what Coach New has done with them and respect how he approaches the game. I think the next step for them, aside from just continuing to increase the overall talent level, is to learn how to change pace and vary their play. As you alluded to, they were committed to keeping the ball on the ground, but they couldn't get out of their own half until the last 10 minutes or so. And their best chance came on a long diagonal ball, rather than the short passing game they'd been working.
Wabash still has to go to Kenyon and DePauw, so I'm thinking we're going to see Oberlin at Denison with fourth place and a spot in the NCAC playoffs on the line next Saturday.
If so, that will be a great game. Ryan Fine is a really key player for Denison and he was injured during OT. The camera cut away for a long time and he did not return so that would be a really bad break for Denison if he is unable to go. And you just never know for sure what DePauw will do. Obviously will be strong favorites at home vs Wabash but that's the game they play for that Monen Ball thing or something, right?
Did you see the back of my head? I was asked to move a couple times by the camera operator - me and a couple DePauw dads were practically arching backwards over the top railing so they could cover action down in the corner. Denison was really classless yesterday - constant bickering, foul language - you saw Russo get tossed. The ref did allow too much holding early on - but he was consistent in letting it go. When he complained after #7 got got yellow even some Denison fans were laughing as there was no doubt about the yellow. I think a less tolerant ref and DePauw wins that game 7 out of 10 times. I don't know if Oberlin will be willing to play a chippy game but that's what I expect they will get.
After a very difficult start, players leaving, starters out for the first 5 games Capital is playing good team ball. Guess it's better to end the season peaking - second place is theirs to lose - Heidelberg on Wed will be very difficult.
Quote from: Domino1195 on October 25, 2015, 04:57:51 PM
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 24, 2015, 10:27:45 PM
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 24, 2015, 10:17:14 PM
Yes, I was very impressed with Oberlin. I really like what Coach New has done with them and respect how he approaches the game. I think the next step for them, aside from just continuing to increase the overall talent level, is to learn how to change pace and vary their play. As you alluded to, they were committed to keeping the ball on the ground, but they couldn't get out of their own half until the last 10 minutes or so. And their best chance came on a long diagonal ball, rather than the short passing game they'd been working.
Wabash still has to go to Kenyon and DePauw, so I'm thinking we're going to see Oberlin at Denison with fourth place and a spot in the NCAC playoffs on the line next Saturday.
Wow, Domino, you do get around! Can't recall as I watched a bunch of different games and there was one in particular where someone's head was getting in the way (actually maybe the OWU-Oberlin game). Did it look like Fine (#12) for Denison was badly injured? The situation itself, if it does turn out to be basically a play-in game for the 4th NCAC spot will be ripe for chippiness. Maybe not Oberlin's preference, but Coach New seems like he can hold his on (saw him and Brown going at it in the Kenyon game), and Ingham and Wertman as leaders of the team seem very willing to mix it up if needed. Denison must feel a little chaotic and desperate right now....such a great start, stumbling down the stretch, the very high (maybe somewhat unexpected) regional ranking, and now at real risk of not even making the NCAC playoffs. I haven't checked to see if that game is simultaneous with Wabash-Kenyon, in which case Oberlin-Denison might be connected to Wabash''s result.
Good luck to your Capital Crusaders! And keep your insights coming as a neutral vis-a-vis your insights into the NCAC teams going forward.
If so, that will be a great game. Ryan Fine is a really key player for Denison and he was injured during OT. The camera cut away for a long time and he did not return so that would be a really bad break for Denison if he is unable to go. And you just never know for sure what DePauw will do. Obviously will be strong favorites at home vs Wabash but that's the game they play for that Monen Ball thing or something, right?
Did you see the back of my head? I was asked to move a couple times by the camera operator - me and a couple DePauw dads were practically arching backwards over the top railing so they could cover action down in the corner. Denison was really classless yesterday - constant bickering, foul language - you saw Russo get tossed. The ref did allow too much holding early on - but he was consistent in letting it go. When he complained after #7 got got yellow even some Denison fans were laughing as there was no doubt about the yellow. I think a less tolerant ref and DePauw wins that game 7 out of 10 times. I don't know if Oberlin will be willing to play a chippy game but that's what I expect they will get.
After a very difficult start, players leaving, starters out for the first 5 games Capital is playing good team ball. Guess it's better to end the season peaking - second place is theirs to lose - Heidelberg on Wed will be very difficult.
Looking at changes to SOS from wek one to week two, ranked according to largest increases to largest decreases.
| Institution | SOS week 1 | SOS week 2 | Overall
WL Pct | Delta SOS |
| Mount Aloysius | 0.414 | 0.459 | 11-5-1
( 0.676) | 0.045 |
| Wooster | 0.492 | 0.525 | 2-12-2
( 0.188) | 0.033 |
Muskingum | 0.445 | 0.475 | 4-12-0
( 0.250) | 0.03 |
| DePauw | 0.544 | 0.571 | 9-2-4
( 0.733) | 0.027 |
| Thiel | 0.43 | 0.455 | 2-13-1
( 0.156) | 0.025 |
| Hilbert | 0.425 | 0.448 | 3-10-1
( 0.250) | 0.023 |
| D'Youville | 0.463 | 0.485 | 1-14-0
( 0.067) | 0.022 |
| Hanover | 0.485 | 0.506 | 10-6-1
( 0.618) | 0.021 |
| Thomas More | 0.516 | 0.537 | 14-1-1
( 0.906) | 0.021 |
| La Roche | 0.446 | 0.466 | 9-8-0
( 0.529) | 0.02 |
| Bethany (WV) | 0.478 | 0.495 | 5-10-2
( 0.353) | 0.017 |
| Ohio Wesleyan | 0.564 | 0.58 | 13-2-2
( 0.824) | 0.016 |
| Heidelberg | 0.528 | 0.54 | 6-7-4
( 0.471) | 0.012 |
| Bluffton | 0.397 | 0.409 | 0-13-2
( 0.067) | 0.012 |
| Capital | 0.533 | 0.543 | 7-8-1
( 0.469) | 0.01 |
| Penn St.-Altoona | 0.391 | 0.401 | 11-4-2
( 0.706) | 0.01 |
| Baldwin Wallace | 0.454 | 0.463 | 4-11-3
( 0.306) | 0.009 |
| Berea | 0.452 | 0.459 | 1-7-0
( 0.125) | 0.007 |
| Allegheny | 0.58 | 0.585 | 4-9-2
( 0.333) | 0.005 |
| Carnegie Mellon | 0.541 | 0.546 | 9-2-3
( 0.750) | 0.005 |
| Penn St.-Behrend | 0.447 | 0.451 | 14-2-1
( 0.853) | 0.004 |
| Saint Vincent | 0.454 | 0.458 | 2-14-2
( 0.167) | 0.004 |
| Hiram | 0.535 | 0.538 | 6-7-3
( 0.469) | 0.003 |
| Rose-Hulman | 0.549 | 0.552 | 10-2-4
( 0.750) | 0.003 |
| Geneva | 0.539 | 0.541 | 9-4-3
( 0.656) | 0.002 |
| Earlham | 0.493 | 0.494 | 7-6-1
( 0.536) | 0.001 |
| Mt. St. Joseph | 0.485 | 0.486 | 6-9-1
( 0.406) | 0.001 |
| Medaille | 0.474 | 0.472 | 11-5-1
( 0.676) | -0.002 |
| Denison | 0.578 | 0.575 | 10-2-3
( 0.767) | -0.003 |
| Marietta | 0.52 | 0.517 | 8-8-1
( 0.500) | -0.003 |
| Ohio Northern | 0.506 | 0.502 | 14-4-0
( 0.778) | -0.004 |
| Westminster (PA) | 0.508 | 0.504 | 8-5-3
( 0.594) | -0.004 |
| Kenyon | 0.494 | 0.489 | 13-1-0
( 0.929) | -0.005 |
| Oberlin | 0.551 | 0.546 | 9-6-1
( 0.594) | -0.005 |
| Pitt.-Bradford | 0.458 | 0.453 | 1-13-1
( 0.100) | -0.005 |
| Transylvania | 0.474 | 0.468 | 7-3-6
( 0.625) | -0.006 |
| Franklin | 0.497 | 0.491 | 6-8-2
( 0.438) | -0.006 |
| Wittenberg | 0.583 | 0.577 | 3-11-3
( 0.265) | -0.006 |
| Manchester | 0.501 | 0.493 | 4-6-5
( 0.433) | -0.008 |
| Wilmington (OH) | 0.547 | 0.539 | 4-13-0
( 0.235) | -0.008 |
| Grove City | 0.535 | 0.525 | 10-5-1
( 0.656) | -0.01 |
| Waynesburg | 0.51 | 0.496 | 1-14-1
( 0.094) | -0.014 |
| Defiance | 0.435 | 0.418 | 6-9-1
( 0.406) | -0.017 |
| Pitt.-Greensburg | 0.48 | 0.46 | 4-11-1
( 0.281) | -0.02 |
| CWRU | 0.523 | 0.503 | 12-2-1
( 0.833) | -0.02 |
| John Carroll | 0.546 | 0.524 | 10-4-1
( 0.700) | -0.022 |
| Mount Union | 0.462 | 0.44 | 8-6-1
( 0.567) | -0.022 |
| Wabash | 0.511 | 0.487 | 11-3-2
( 0.750) | -0.024 |
| Franciscan | 0.471 | 0.445 | 6-10-1
( 0.382) | -0.026 |
| Otterbein | 0.517 | 0.491 | 8-5-3
( 0.594) | -0.026 |
| Wash. & Jeff. | 0.495 | 0.462 | 9-5-2
( 0.625) | -0.033 |
| Anderson (IN) | 0.537 | 0.498 | 3-9-4
( 0.313) | -0.039 |
Since most of the conversation centered on Thomas More and Kenyon, my quick thoughts.
(1) A bit surprised TM jumped all the way to #1, but very understandable. With RvR included and the jump in SoS, TM beats OWU on win%, RvR, and head-to-head, so OWU's big (but not as big) SoS advantage isn't enough.
(2) I don't think Kenyon is in as much trouble as the low ranking suggests. The fact that Kenyon is ranked at all is a sign of respect from the committee, because their SOS is easily the lowest of any ranked team - men's or women's - and they're only one of two ranked teams below 0.500. My thought process:
(a) Domino's stats showed SoS can jump in a single week. Kenyon plays @ OWU tonight - the best possible SoS game you could get - and then gets Wabash (decent win%) at home. Include the NCAC tournament, and I'm predicting Kenyon's SoS gets up to at least the 0.510 range, probably higher. At least in the ballpark of the low-end SoS teams from previous years.
(b) Carnegie Mellon is now ranked. If Kenyon wins tonight, they'll be 3-1-0 versus ranked teams next week, plus the SOS bump.
(c) If Kenyon loses/draws, odds are they're @ OWU for the conference final. Two more games against DePauw and @ OWU bump the SoS even higher. So a draw is not a bad result at all tonight. Yes, OWU probably wins the regular season, but a rematch @ OWU means another SoS bump. Then if Kenyon loses the AQ they'd finish 15-2-1 (or 15-3-0 if they lose tonight), with a RvR of 3-2-1 (or 3-3-0) and an SoS in the 0.520 ballpark. TM and Rose-Hulman probably get AQs or drop, OWU gets the AQ, and Kenyon could pass Denison/DePauw/CMU based on head-to-head and an increased SoS. That would make Kenyon top of the GL for at-large consideration.
Here we go. No. 2 Kenyon (13-1-0, 6-1-0) @ No. 17 Ohio Wesleyan (13-2-2, 6-0-1). Delaware got a decent amount of rain but much less than expected, and it's been dry there for a few hours and no rain for the rest of the evening. The field has been in great shape all year, so hopefully it holds up and lets these guys play.
1-0 Kenyon very early. First attack of note, Kenyon gets the end line and drills one off the post, rebound to Amolo who puts it in the corner, nice finish. Can't ask for a better start if you're Kenyon. Ball is moving well so field looks playable.
Sorry to see a player injured and down early in the game. Hopefully, it won't be as serious as it appears it may be on the video feed.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 28, 2015, 07:08:56 PM
Delaware got a decent amount of rain but much less than expected, and it's been dry there for a few hours and no rain for the rest of the evening. The field has been in great shape all year, so hopefully it holds up and lets these guys play. Ball is moving well so field looks playable.
Looks quite windy from the flag, trees and fence!
Quote from: TennesseeJed on October 28, 2015, 07:32:03 PM
Looks quite windy from the flag, trees and fence!
And now here comes some rain. Shows you what I know - or rather what the Weather Channel knows.
1-1 now. Long diagonal ball, one mistake and OWU scores. Game is pretty open at the moment, going to make for a lot of scoring opportunities, especially with the elements.
Also looks like OWU has the wind (although it's hard to tell). There's a wind screen around the field which lessens it when the ball is on the ground, but anything in the air right now is being affected
Jed have you been spending some time with the camera man? Looks a little wobbly...
God Jay Martin looks about 90 years old....His time has gotta be coming...
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on October 28, 2015, 07:54:30 PM
Jed have you been spending some time with the camera man? Looks a little wobbly...
I am 800 miles away, about to pass out from dizziness after trying to watch the first half... :-\ I'd definitely recommend someone at OWU give the cameraman a streaming under the influence test--I think your instinct about his condition is spot on.
1-1 at the half. Not much in the last 20 minutes of the half, although Clougher saved Kenyon's bacon with a couple minutes left. Threw himself at the feet of an OWU player free from 8 yards out, sure goal if he didn't get a touch. Kenyon possessed a little bit better, but OWU generated more action in front of goal.
OWU as usual looks very athletic and I like their CB but Kenyon looks to have team speed in a lot of places...Their GK made a nice save but looks awkward to me like he would have a tough time getting to the ground fast enough, kinda like Bull
2-1 Kenyon. Another slip/bad touch - almost exactly what happened for Ohio Wesleyan's goal - and Kenyon find themselves back in front.
General quality of the game has dropped substantially this half. Much more direct from both sides, lots of fouls and slipping.
The most active players have been the goalkeepers - and not in the good way, as each team, particularly Kenyon with the lead, keep playing the ball backward. Kenyon is doing a nice job squeezing the life out of the game.
Final: Kenyon 2, Ohio Wesleyan 1. I'd say a fair result based on the second half - Kenyon didn't do a whole lot going forward, but they kept OWU from creating anything in attack. And in a game with two pretty even teams mistakes are often the difference. Watching it, my biggest thought is that it's going to be very, very difficult for teams to come back on Kenyon.
That was not a pretty game to watch, and I don't mean that because of the result. My general test for the quality of a game is fouls versus shots. Total fouls 35, total shots 32, SOG 11. So yea, not very good for the neutral. But both teams are capable of playing, and I would imagine that under different circumstances in the next few weeks we'll see better soccer.
Unless Kenyon drops points, they'll win the NCAC outright for the first time since 2007. Even a draw will be good enough for homefield advantage in the NCAC playoffs. DePauw beat Wabash and has probably sealed third, and Oberlin won as well. Oberlin and Denison are tied in 4th place, and Oberlin will play @ Denison on Saturday with fourth place and a probable trip to Kenyon on the line. Kenyon should be in good shape in the NCAA rankings with the SoS bump and 3-1 RvR for the next rankings.
OWU, on the other hand, is in a tough position. The SoS should remain about the highest in the region, but going into next week the RvR will probably still be 1-2-1 (or 1-3-1 if Ohio Northern makes it back in). They probably need to beat DePauw in the conference semis to get to 15 wins and two wins versus ranked to feel good about a bid. The bigger concern is that the guy who dislocated his shoulder was a starting CB, and him going down meant OWU moved their target forward into the back four. (Note: this is not meant to take anything away from Kenyon, more a commentary on how OWU will need to adjust going forward). It's also a huge bummer, as the injured player is a really talented kid who was a starter on the 2011 national championship team and has been snakebitten by injuries every season since, including this year as a redshirt senior. I really hope tonight wasn't his last time on the field.
Not pretty at all, but big win for Kenyon....almost a must win, although I did like RH's scenario for Kenyon upping the SOS if they lost or drew because of getting another likely away game with OWU. Also important that all of the young guys for Kenyon got the jitters out and managed to get through their first true test on a big stage. Only one good goal in the game. Kenyon with probably same number of yellows as Amherst today so might have to eat my words on that but thought the ref got a little crazy. Brown did a good job getting Amolo on the ball early and into the game by playing him a little deeper than usual and I thought Carmona played a really strong game. The Kenyon CBs were good and the defense overall very solid except for the 1st half miscue. Seemed like Kenyon and maybe both teams had a hard time figuring out what pace to play the ball on a slowed surface, as Kenyon left passes short in the 1st half and then overplayed them quite a bit in 2nd half. Kenyon almost scored a couple of times on the counter in the 2nd half to get an insurance goal but OWU GK made big saves, one in particular at point blank range.
Feel really, really bad for OWU's Hoge. Seems like he's been at OWU forever but that's because of prior serious injuries. Not the way you want to see a player like that who has worked so hard go out assuming he can't return. And hurts OWU somewhat going forward as Hoge gave them flexibility to keep Lee up top.
Quote from: TennesseeJed on October 28, 2015, 07:27:48 PM
Sorry to see a player injured and down early in the game. Hopefully, it won't be as serious as it appears it may be on the video feed.
Hats off to Mason Hoge of OWU and best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery.
Very happy Oberlin is getting a shot on Saturday. Denison has home field but barely got by Wittenberg while Oberlin romped. That will be a fascinating game. Hopefully Kenyon will not let down against Wabash especially Wabash handed them their only loss until the 3rd OWU game last year.
And Capital just keeps on winning.
Juniet for TMC pads his stats with 2 more goals and 2 more assists in rout of Bethany.
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 28, 2015, 10:15:41 PM
And Capital just keeps on winning.
Juniet for TMC pads his stats with 2 more goals and 2 more assists in rout of Bethany.
Not a thing of beauty for sure. Two set pieces - two header goals. Heidelberg started 5,6 freshmen? Tenacious pursuit of the ball - pressured and caused turnovers the entire game. I can see how they beat ONU.
Capital has done a good job limiting quality looks at goal these last two games. Shots conceded have been from long range and from the flanks. Lost a key starter to a season ending injury (stress fracture - not from this evening) and another who played sparingly tonight. But win on Sat and they'll finish no worse than second.
The change in SOS was interesting to me as I was looking for the impact from teams who dropped points and saw their SOS drop as well as those they played. Example - Otterbein and their impact on teams like Kenyon. Kenyon takes care of business but feels the impact of previously beaten opponents like Otterbein (who very surprisingly lost at home to Marietta tonight)
The Kenyon Lords left Delaware, OH with a big W vs. OWU on OWU's home turf. It was, as expected, a hard fought game on both sides. I thought OWU stuck to their passing game a bit better in 1H and really struggled to find their mojo in 2H, as Kenyon continued to find effective ways to thwart most of their offensive attacking opportunities. Kenyon, who has many times this year been back on their heels and down a goal before they found their stride, got the early scoring lead on OWU in both halves. Kenyon had a few decent scoring opportunities in 2H, and could have arguably made it a 3-1 game, had they been a bit more composed near the OWU box, but they weren't able to convert more than 1 in 2H, winning by a one goal margin.
The very unfortunate injury to OWU senior starter Mason Hoge aside, I thought the game had all the qualities of a conference championship game. It wasn't as exciting as the tournament final in Delaware last year IMO, but nevertheless it was still a battle from minute 0 through 90, and I fully expected it to go into OT. I don't think I've seen a much closer, more evenly matched game in the NCAC (including out of conf games by both teams) this year.
Hope that someone in the NCAA regional committee was watching the game and taking note. I don't think hardly any observer could walk away from that game and conclude that the NCAA's current process is effectively capturing regional ranks, at least in the GL region... This was definitely more like a regional semi-final match, with 2 teams in the top 3 duking it out for top dog, IMO... Hope that the NCAA is open minded enough that its regional ranking process will continue to evolve. This was just one great example--but by no means the only one we'll see in D3 soccer over the next week--that SoS, as currently calculated, isn't sufficiently informative to be so heavily weighted in regional rankings.
Interesting match-ups on the final regular season day for the OAC:
- John Carroll at Muskingum. JC has sealed 3rd place - win or lose Saturday does not impact either JC or Muskingum's postseason placement
- Otterbein and Mt Union play at Otterbein for the 6th and final tournament spot - winner takes it. Otterbein could have clinched a spot last night but lost at home to Marietta 2-0. Actually, an Otterbein win and losses by Marietta and Heidelberg would give them 4th place, so they have a lot to play for!
- Marietta hosts ONU. An ONU victory and first place is theirs. A Marietta victory would give them 4th place and home field advantage for their tourney game next week
- Capital hosts Baldwin Wallace. A win secures second place and a first round bye; a win and a ONU loss puts them in first
- Heidelberg visits Wilmington. A Heidelberg win and and Marietta loss gives Heidelberg 4th spot in the tournament.
You make it sound like John Carroll couldn't move up to second. Why can't they? If they win, they are 7-2-0. If Capital losses, they are 6-2-1.
Quote from: Flying Weasel on October 29, 2015, 01:31:04 PM
You make it sound like John Carroll couldn't move up to second. Why can't they? If they win, they are 7-2-0. If Capital losses, they are 6-2-1.
Yes - an error. Counting chickens perhaps??????
With the passage of time, a bit of embarrassment at my initial wild reactions because of being caught so off guard in week # 1 of the rankings, and the medicinal effects of a critical win, I think I'm now able to consider Kenyon's SoS situation with a modicum of rationality.
First, this had never been a problem for Kenyon before, at least in the most recent years. If memory serves the Lords since I've been following have been in the .550 to .570 or so range. Nothing stood out to me at the beginning of this year about their schedule that looked significantly different than any other year. I was glad they were playing CMU after playing in Pittsburgh the year before, and I was pleased to see them playing Case Western, a new opponent for them from an excellent conference who was supposed to have a good year. What I did not know, or had never really paid attention to, were the costs of home games, because, as a parent, I actually had silently cursed the coach for so few home games in the preceding 2 years. My first reaction as a parent would be excitement about having more home games than usual. Now of course I see that completely differently, but that also is part of why I don't like that multiplier, which I've expressed previously, as there are several reasons why all of us (players, coaches, parents, fans, etc) want our teams to have a fair share of home games.
I also knew that Coach Brown had just been the cmte chair for several years and so I could not imagine him being caught in the predicament that unfolded. I think he did have bad luck and a few impossible-to-account-for eventualities conspiring together to deflate the SoS, but certainly Kenyon has some responsibility. I can't lie. It was embarrassing both of the last two weeks, and especially yesterday when the Lords clearly had the lowest SoS out of all ranked teams. Geez, even my boys out at Whitworth got over .500. That said, I think there was indeed some element of bad luck and which leaves an impression that is deceptive and probably distorted.
Not only did Kenyon have fewer away games this year, but the records of those away teams (until last night) generally have been just abysmal and at least some would not have been anticipated (at least to the degree) -- Waynesburg at 2-14-1, Centre at 7-8-1, Muskingum at 4-13, Wittenberg at 3-12-3, Wooster at 3-12-2, Hiram at 6-8-3, and Allegheny at 4-10-2. The teams with better records all ended up being home games -- Otterbein at 8-6-3, Heidelberg at 6-8-4 (lower than expected), CMU at 9-2-3 (good record but UAA schools play less games so not 11 or 12 wins), DePauw at 10-2-4, Denison at 11-2-3, and yet to play Wabash at 11-4-2. So certainly not-so-great records could have been expected for some of those away and home games, but how bad some of them turned out at the extreme end would not have been expected. Also, and this isn't Kenyon's fault, it turned out that all of the in-conference NCAC teams with good records were home games (DePauw, Denison, Oberlin, Wabash) with the single exception of OWU. So while it's a bonus to play better teams at home (in terms of advantage to win) there is the high cost of how the multipliers work.
I know there has been discussion of what is the lowest SoS for Pool C's that have gotten in before, and we've discussed the situations of John Carroll last year and maybe Luther, but I don't know how many times we've had a situation where really deserving (by general consensus) teams didn't get in by virtue of the SoS alone (as I think JCU's situation was different as to why they got snubbed). In other words, yes, the lowest team to get in last year might have been at .515 or whatever, but were there teams that didn't get in due to SoS that almost everyone thought should get in? That's a little bit different question, and I'd be interested in whether this year is a little unique in this way. I think FW may have mentioned a team like Swat a number of years ago being ranked #1 nationally but being at risk. Amherst likely will hold on to their #1 spot, but at least in theory we could see a team ranked #1 in the country by one of the major polls while still being ranked #7 in their own region.
A few related odds and ends. 1) As I noted in the UAA thread, in regard to how much teams should have accounted for SoS, the two teams with a real predicament in terms of SoS in Great Lakes have been Kenyon and Case. Let's think about that. The exiting regional cmte chair was Brown, the Kenyon coach. The current chair is Bianco, the Case coach. You would think those two guys are pretty clued in, and that maybe the method of calculation is questionable. 2) Is home field advantage that big of deal in D3, aside from Messiah, OWU, and maybe Loras and a few others? I mean, it's not like going into Rupp Arena and trying to knock off the Wildcats. 3) Kenyon, OWU and DePauw all have only lost one game in conference -- ALL AT HOME.
And, btw, I can also better see now how the criteria, as they are, really do put the cmtes in a bind. And as I suggested in the UAA thread, even two games can really swing the SoS. For Case, take away Waynesburg and add Kenyon and you get a huge 25 games swing without even counting the away multiplier.
RH, do you know who would have tie-breaker in Den-Obe draw?
Kenyon barely survives against Wabash AT HOME in just a very poor, immature performance. Needed a 2nd PK awarded to win in 2nd OT 2-1. Amolo missed a PK in 1st half on a very soft call. Then Carmona, who I have praised all year and should be a top candidate for NCAC ROY with teammate Lowry, seemingly tried to gift a goal by shielding a ball out that was never going out while Clougher was way out of the net and Wabash hit the post. Literally within 5 minutes Carmona played a ball back very high in the air to Clougher who again was caught unawares and that one Wabash put in to go up 1-0. The last two goals Kenyon has given up have been assisted by Kenyon. Thought they would have learned from the OWU game. Playing the ball back and using the GK is fine but you can't be sloppy, leave ball well short, or hit balls back to the GK that are too difficult to handle. Passes throughout the game were sloppy and inaccurate by MANY players with frequent poor decisions and loss of the ball in bad spots. Thank goodness Barnes scored on the 2nd PK. I think that's his first goal of the year, which is astounding and he obviously is playing hard but seems just a bit out of rhythm or looking to make some spectacular play instead of just shooting when he right around or inside the box. I could go on but I won't. They end up winning the NCAC outright but if they play anywhere close to how they played today Oberlin will beat them 3-1. This is a young team, with only one senior, but the junior class has been through the wars and should know the level of performance needed. Just not sure they can rise to and sustain the levels of urgency and sharpness to win 3-4 NCAA games in a row or even 2 straight NCAC playoff games.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention Wabash's junior GK, Dayton Jennings, out of Noblesville, IN, who kept Wabash in the game with some nice saves and plays cutting out balls coming through the box. He comfortably saved the 1st PK and nearly made a play on the 2nd one as he guessed correctly but the ball was blasted into the corner. Definitely one of the better GKs in the NCAC.
Ohio Northern crushed Marietta 6-0 and is 16-4. Hard to imagine they won't be ranked. That would help Case Western (and Brockport St) and hurt OWU. Also will have to see what happens with Denison in terms of rankings. Their situation now virtually identical to that of RPI.
Where are we at in Great Lakes? These are the teams as best I can figure that still have life (even if that life may be short-lived). Teams in bold are ones in my estimation that have at least a pulse for a Pool C. Others must win AQ.
Kenyon
OWU
DePauw
Oberlin
Carnegie Mellon
Case Western
Thomas More
Geneva
Grove City
Westminster (PA)
Ohio Northern
Capital
John Carroll
Heidelberg
Marietta
Mt Union
Rose-Hulman
Hanover
Earlham
Transy
Mt Aloysius
PS-Behrend
Still ranked -- Denison???
So that's 8 teams in bold, which matches the number of regional ranking slots. Only question would seem to be whether Denison remains ranked and keeps one of those 8 out. Whether Denison and Case Western remain ranked, and whether Ohio Northern gains a ranking, will also impact at least a few of the other ranked/bolded teams on RvR. We'll know more after tomorrow's results for CMU and Case. Any combination of Oberlin winning AQ and TMC, RHIT, and ONU not winning AQs would really make the picture chaotic and (and really depressing for at least a couple of teams).
Can we get the conference playoff homepage to reflect the fact that NCAC AQ goes to the team winning the tournament and not the regular season?
Quote from: wingtips2 on November 01, 2015, 08:02:00 AM
Can we get the conference playoff homepage to reflect the fact that NCAC AQ goes to the team winning the tournament and not the regular season?
The NCAC Champion is crowned based on regular season and that is what the "Conference
Champions" table at the top of the Conference
Championship Central web page is listing: the conference
champions. At the bottom of the page we have a second table, "NCAA Tournament Automatic Berths" which lists the AQ's. We have an italicized note right above the Conference Champions list at the top which mentions that the championship and the AQ aren't always one and the same, and that there's a second table at the bottom for the AQ's.
Quote from: NCAC New England on October 31, 2015, 10:08:42 PM
Any combination of Oberlin winning AQ and TMC, RHIT, and ONU not winning AQs would really make the picture chaotic and (and really depressing for at least a couple of teams).
Here' hoping!
I think Denison lost their chance yesterday. Their theme song for the past two weeks seems to have been "Flirtin' with Disaster" - luck ran out yesterday.
I think SOS for teams that played Otterbein, for example, will be impacted negatively. I thought Mt. Union would give them a game yesterday. They started 10 sophomores earlier in the year - and they could be a pain for John Carroll on Tuesday (it took JCU 75 minutes to get the goal in their 1-0 win over Mt. Union last week). Otterbein had some key injuries - two starting defenders missed the last couple of games.
Cap gets a first round bye for only the fourth time in school history. Not scoring a lot but much improved defensively. ONU and JCU had "statement" games yesterday - ONU by three barely 20 minutes in. Let the third season begin . . .
My thoughts/predictions:
-Ohio Northern will not be ranked. Their SoS was only 0.502 last week, and they played Baldwin Wallace (4-13-3) at home and Marietta (9-9-1) on the road. That's going to put their SoS below 0.500, and they don't have anything resembling Kenyon's win% or RvR to deserve a ranking. On that note, the OAC is a one-bid league IMO.
-I don't think Rose-Hulman can get an at-large bid. Kenyon is going to jump them, DePauw probably will too, if Carnegie Mellon wins today they will as well, and Rose-Hulman's SoS is going to tank because they just played Anderson (3-11-4) and Bluffton (0-15-2).
-Carnegie Mellon has a chance to jump big time if they win today. That would give them three ranked wins, and games at Wash U. and at Chicago will give the SoS a big boost. Case is probably done, unless they win both remaining games and get some help elsewhere I don't think they can jump enough.
-In the NCAC, I think Denison is done. Having said that, I'm guessing they remain ranked - I just don't know who's going to pass them. If they drop out, the team that hurts the most is Kenyon from a RvR perspective.
-Kenyon will jump, and although a conference semis loss would hurt because it would keep the SoS pretty low, the wins versus ranked, win% and winning the NCAC should mean they're probably already guaranteed a spot.
-The winner of DePauw-OWU on Wednesday should be sitting pretty for Pool C, as that's another win versus a ranked team and a (probable) trip to Kenyon to boost the SoS even further. The loser will be firmly on the bubble, especially because Carnegie is playing their way up the rankings. If you're the NCAC, Carnegie is your biggest worry.
-Everyone in the Great Lakes wants/needs Thomas More to win the AQ, otherwise that's taking an at-large bid away from the other teams in the region.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on November 01, 2015, 11:00:11 AM
My thoughts/predictions:
-Ohio Northern will not be ranked. Their SoS was only 0.502 last week, and they played Baldwin Wallace (4-13-3) at home and Marietta (9-9-1) on the road. That's going to put their SoS below 0.500, and they don't have anything resembling Kenyon's win% or RvR to deserve a ranking. On that note, the OAC is a one-bid league IMO.
-I don't think Rose-Hulman can get an at-large bid. Kenyon is going to jump them, DePauw probably will too, if Carnegie Mellon wins today they will as well, and Rose-Hulman's SoS is going to tank because they just played Anderson (3-11-4) and Bluffton (0-15-2).
-Carnegie Mellon has a chance to jump big time if they win today. That would give them three ranked wins, and games at Wash U. and at Chicago will give the SoS a big boost. Case is probably done, unless they win both remaining games and get some help elsewhere I don't think they can jump enough.
-In the NCAC, I think Denison is done. Having said that, I'm guessing they remain ranked - I just don't know who's going to pass them. If they drop out, the team that hurts the most is Kenyon from a RvR perspective.
-Kenyon will jump, and although a conference semis loss would hurt because it would keep the SoS pretty low, the wins versus ranked, win% and winning the NCAC should mean they're probably already guaranteed a spot.
-The winner of DePauw-OWU on Wednesday should be sitting pretty for Pool C, as that's another win versus a ranked team and a (probable) trip to Kenyon to boost the SoS even further. The loser will be firmly on the bubble, especially because Carnegie is playing their way up the rankings. If you're the NCAC, Carnegie is your biggest worry.
-Everyone in the Great Lakes wants/needs Thomas More to win the AQ, otherwise that's taking an at-large bid away from the other teams in the region.
RH, agree with your analysis overall. RE: ONU.... I hadn't checked their SoS (assumed it would be decent because of OWU, Case, the New England trip, etc). So I agree about actually getting a Pool C, but I'm less sure about whether they won't be ranked because there are 8 slots and
somebody has got to fill them. If either Denison or Case drops out, or both, then who would you seeing filling a spot other than ONU? PS-Behrend? Oberlin?
I doubt Denison drops out, but good point on the possibility of Case, especially if they lose today. Hmmmm, maybe ONU gets a spot then? PSU-Behrend isn't making it with zero games versus ranked teams and an SoS below .475. So I guess if somebody drops ONU is the only logical team to replace them. Let's compare profiles assuming Case loses today, because if they win they're staying in over ONU:
Case (loss today): 12-4-1 (0.735), SoS 0.525 (bump from last week), RvR 1-4-0, head-to-head win over ONU.
Denison: 11-3-3 (0.735), SoS 0.565 (slight drop from last week), RvR 1-1-2, head-to-head loss versus Oberlin.
ONU: 16-4-0 (0.800), SoS 0.490 (drop from last week), RvR 1-1-0, head-to-head loss versus Case.
Oberlin: 11-6-1 (0.639), SoS 0.550 (about the same), RvR 1-4-1, head-to-head win over Denison, draw versus case.
I don't see how Denison drops below ONU because of the enormous SoS gap. I also think Oberlin's win% is too low to get it into the conversation for this week's rankings. That really brings us to Case versus ONU. ONU has a slight win% edge. Case has a slight SoS edge, but it's made greater because ONU's SoS is below the dreaded 0.500 mark. Both teams have one win versus ranked opponents - my understanding is they only really look at wins - although ONU maybe has a slight edge because they've only lost once to a ranked opponent. Then again, Case's only losses would be to ranked teams, whereas ONU has lost to three unranked teams, so let's say that's a wash. Case has the head-to-head, which settles it IMO.
That's really just a long-winded way to say that you're probably right that ONU (or possibly longshot Oberlin) are the only real options to replace Case or Denison, but I doubt it happens.
The Kenyon Review (get it?)
I stand by the critique of yesterday's performance, but now a few words on the bigger picture.
I expected Kenyon to have another strong season but so far (the hullabaloo with the SoS notwithstanding), the Lords have exceeded expectations. Or rather, perhaps better put, the way they have done it this year is a real surprise. The huge question coming into the year was how Kenyon would or could replace their entire back four, or, as the players have suggested, the back five (inclusive of the holding mid), that was one of the best back lines in the country a year ago. As it happens, Kenyon's back line probably has performed better and certainly more consistently than any group on the team. Brown converted two sophomore attacking mids, Myers and Wynn, to the back line, added a frosh, Lowry, at CB who has had a remarkably outstanding season, and had returning junior and sophomore natural left and right backs, Resnekov and O'Neill, who were regular subs a year ago. Even with the junior left back out with illness the back line has had hardly a stumble all season. Clougher, the D3soccer.com GK of the year a year ago, has been good but not as great as last year. He may have been the player most impacted by an entirely new back line early in the season, but lately its really been misplays between him and the midfield that have led to occasional blips. The strength of the team coming into this year was supposed to be the returning front five. The forwards generally have been very good, with Amolo having another strong campaign and Glassman and Jeon combining to produce good numbers at the other forward slot. The midfield, which I expected to be one of the top midfields on the country, has been the most inconsistent part of the team. There certainly have been moments of brilliance, but from my vantage point they have yet to play their best all at the same time. Carmona, the young frosh star, consistently has been very good, although I'd love to see him more consistently involved and creating in attack with less reliance on playing balls back to the back line and GK. Early in the season Lee seemed complacent to me, but in the last handful of games he has really come on and become a top performer. He is a key player for Kenyon who needs to play well and with high intensity (but with focus and under control). Eudy, a D1 transfer who had a pretty good year last year, I think has struggled a bit finding where in the midfield he can be most effective. He has a high soccer IQ/vision with excellent distribution skills but his overall impact at times seems to wax and wane. I am sure Barnes has been exceptional in his roles as the lone senior and leader of the squad, but perhaps those duties have been a drag on his end product on the field. He is for my money one of the top players in the NCAC and a player I expected to have an AA-worthy type of season. Bottom line is that how far Kenyon goes will ride heavily on whether the midfielders can get fully in sync and raise their level, and then sustain that over a number of games in a row. Carmona needs to be outstanding and clean in his play with no lapses (i.e. not play like a frosh), Lee needs to continue playing well with high intensity and smart decisions, and Eudy and Barnes need their play to reflect their talents. One plus from the Wabash game is that frosh Anderson played very well in the midfield, and Kenyon has been needing a reliable and effective sub in an attacking mid role. The good news is that so far no team has made Kenyon look like the inferior team on the field. Aside from OWU, which I would characterize as within the range of "even," Kenyon has significantly outplayed every opponent including in the OT loss to DePauw.
Two wild card players for other teams in my scouting report. I'll credit myself for highlighting Oberlin's Chazin-Gray after the OWU game, as he made the play to create the header for Wertman in OT at Denison. Really good player that a team might not fully account for because he's at right back. His service from the right side after deep runs is outstanding. And for OWU, among several others more expected, the player who always scares me and is a risk to create something really dangerous is Nick Norman. He did it last night, with a "marauding run" into the box (as the announcer termed it) to draw a PK against Hiram. He seems to float between left back and left mid, but if you don't cut him off early he's going to penetrate very deep and put you under heavy pressure. And then there is Gonzalez for DePauw who can win a game by himself with a sudden strike.
Juniet now sitting on 16 G and 22 A. Teammate Runyon on 17 G and 10 A.
Rose Hulman and Hanover are tied for 1st in the HCAC at 7-0-2 each in conf records and they tied in their season head-to-head match up. 2015 Champ. Central lists both as regular season champs. I went and looked on the HCAC site and can't find any info about the awarding of conf champs. Are there no secondary criteria for determining the season champ outside of conf record? RH has a stronger overall season record. Just curious if the listing on conf central is definitive or not. Peculiar to me too that Hanover is listed as the #1 seed for the HCAC tourney, given the same info above and their lower overall record, but perhaps that doesn't matter?
Sometimes it is very difficult to tell who is considered a conference's champion. And it almost seems like some conferences allow for two teams to call themselves champions in the same year: one a regular season champion, one a tournament champion. However, for the HCAC, we at D3soccer.com have been under the impression that the conference champion is the highest regular season team. Look at the program for the 2014 tournament final: http://static.psbin.com/l/o/4tfkq0d9fidloi/14_msoccer_program_2.pdf Note the list of Annual Conference Champions. If you look through the archives, that matches with the top regular season finishers, NOT with the tournament winners. And note occurrences of co-champions as we have again this year (ref. https://www.hanover.edu/athletics/news?article=6078 and http://athletics.rose-hulman.edu/sports/msoc/2015-16/releases/20151031qbywuw). Here's the comparison for the years 2019 - 2013 just to illustrate.
| Year | Annual Champion | 1st Reg. Season | Tourn. Winner/AQ |
| 2014 | Earlham | Earlham | Rose-Hulman |
| 2013 | Earlham | Earlham | Rose-Hulman |
| 2012 | Transy./RHIT | Transy./RHIT | Transylvania |
| 2011 | Transylvania | Transylvania | Rose-Hulman |
| 2010 | Transylvania | Transylvania | Transylvania |
| 2009 | Rose-Hulman | Rose-Hulman | Transylvania |
We at D3soccer.com certainly try our best to be as accurate as possible and try to do our due diligence on issues like this. But we are far from infallible and we welcome (encourage, really) your corrections when we have an error. In this case I think we have it right, but I can't be 100% sure give some conflicting language/terminology used the HCAC). And we are far from certain about the NEAC, for example. Is their champion the top regular season team or the tournament winner? Very hard to tell from their website.
Thanks Christian. I think we're in total agreement that their Conf champ is the regular season winner and that their AQ is based on the HCAC tournament champion, similar to the NCAC and others who split Conf champ and Aq to Conf tournament champ.
My question was more about whether there were definitely two HCAC men's regular season Conf champs this year or just one. I wasn't sure if both were listed because they were tied and it wasn't clear who won yet or because they both won and are sharing the title. I was also just asking whether anyone had any info on how the HCAC handles ties because I couldn't find it on their site. I was just a little surprised that they would tie and thought that the HCAC must have some secondary criteria used for tie breaking purposes. Then, I thought it was even more curious that Hanover was listed as the higher seed, given RH's stronger overall record. I do see in your reply the Transylvania and RH shared the reg season title in '12 so maybe they do allow ties and title sharing.
Honestly, the whole HCAC Conf awards process seemed tough to figure out. (The NCAA pre-Championship manual was wrong about the HCAC AQ process too.)
FYI: There is a revised Pre-Championships Manual out. We at D3soccer.com found numerous inaccuracies in the manual, most regarding school's conference affiliation but also things like how the HCAC AQ is awarded. We contacted the NCAA we out list of suspected error and they issued a revised manual on October 21. We have the revised version up on our website under the NCAA Tourney drop-down menu.
The first HCAC tie-breaker is head-to-head. Going off of that, I believe it is set up so that if the regular season meeting between those two programs ended in a draw (2-2)...then the away team (Hanover) will receive the #1 seed come conference tourney time. I would assume they will be named Regular Season Co-Champions.
Quote from: Footy23 on November 01, 2015, 11:16:22 PM
The first HCAC tie-breaker is head-to-head. Going off of that, I believe it is set up so that if the regular season meeting between those two programs ended in a draw (2-2)...then the away team (Hanover) will receive the #1 seed come conference tourney time. I would assume they will be named Regular Season Co-Champions.
Thanks Footy! Very helpful.
Following the links in the post above, both schools report as having won a share of the league title/championship. Why would they do that if there is a tie-breaker that would have resulted in a single champion? You'd say a share of first place, not a share of the title or a share of the championship, if a tie-breaker would produce a single winner of the title/championship.
https://www.hanover.edu/athletics/news?article=6078: The Panthers finish 7-0-2 in Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference play and have clinched a share of the program's first league title.
http://athletics.rose-hulman.edu/sports/msoc/2015-16/releases/20151031qbywuw: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology won a share of the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference men's soccer regular season championship with a 2-0 victory at Bluffton University on Saturday.
Quote from: Flying Weasel on November 02, 2015, 05:56:34 AM
Following the links in the post above, both schools report as having won a share of the league title/championship. Why would they do that if there is a tie-breaker that would have resulted in a single champion? You'd say a share of first place, not a share of the title or a share of the championship, if a tie-breaker would produce a single winner of the title/championship.
Some conferences award "bling" - which can be as important/prestigious to the student athletes as their placement in the post season tournament. In the case of of a tie players from both teams would receive championship rings.
Checking Massey's SOS changes from this past week - in the OAC - 7 of the 9 teams saw their SOS drop - exceptions Heidelberg and Capital. In NCAC only two teams saw their SOS drop - Wooster (-.10) and Wabash -(0.02) - while many increased .5 or better. Per the previous discussion, ONU versus Denison, I would expect Denison to remain seeded over ONU.
Copying a picture of an Excel table with some analysis on top 10 teams in GL region, all of whom have been ranked by NCAA, or could possibly be, based on last week's matches. Data ranked from highest to lowest based on Week 2 NCAA regional SoS figures. Numbers shaded in green are highest in column. Numbers shaded in yellow are lowest in column. Possible that there are some small mathematical errors--I checked this several times but there's a lot going on in the calcs...
If you click on the table, it will zoom in and expand so you can see the detail much more easily.
(https://www.d3boards.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1163.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fq558%2FJackBlack17%2FGL%2520Data%2520110215_zpsw82xhw3b.png&hash=265fc7ed662eeda2cb66f6832bfe69fd24729342)
Some quick observations:
OWU: Week 2 Rank #2: Loss to Kenyon at home hurts Win% and RvR but still boosts region's already highest SoS of .580; Hiram at home hurts SoS, but not enough to matter. Avg. Win% of .789 and 4th lowest RvR at .375 are biggest issues for OWU, who should and will stay ranked, likely remaining in top 4. #2 seed in NCAC tourney, always with legit shot at AQ and deep run in NCAA tourney. Best odds for a Pool C bid in GL region if they don't win AQ in NCAC tourney.
Denison: Week 2 Rank #3: Denison's loss to Oberlin takes them out of the NCAC tourney, but they still retain the 2nd highest SoS and a .500 RvR. Last 2 games will marginally drag on SoS. Denison likely to lose more ground in region than any other team, if they retain a rank. If SoS, RvR and Win % are top 3 criteria, Denison still may be ranked. Win % just below average for region at .735. Expect Denison to duke it out with CWRU, Oberlin and ONU for bottom spots in GL rankings, if they retain a rank after poor recent conf. record.
DePauw: Week 2 Rank #5: 3rd highest SoS in region will be slightly weighed down by Allegheny game, but will still be above average for region. RvR at .500 and .765 Win % both middle of the pack for region. Expect DePauw to hold current rank or even notch up to 4. #3 seed in NCAC tourney with potential to win AQ. Not a lock for Pool C, but a legit contender, likely depending on how they play in post-season games.
RH: Week 2 Rank #4: RH is just about exactly average for the region on almost all metrics. Their respectable .552 SoS will be weighed upon heavily this week by games at Anderson and Bluffton which produced OWP's of .368 and .079, resp. even as away games due to their extremely low win%'s. RH is favored to win HCAC, so they may be taken out of Pool C if they win AQ in their own conf. tourney.
CMU: Week 2 #6: Huge weekend for CMU, with away wins at Chicago and WashU, significantly helping their SoS and RvR. CMU is strong candidate for positive movement in rankings this week. RvR's could be affected by rankings for other UAA teams in other regions. CMU not eligible for an AQ bid in the UAA so CMU will be holding out strongly for a GL region Pool C bid.
Oberlin: Week 2 NR: Oberlin's strong recent play, great frosh GK and tenacity keep them in at #4th seed in NCAC tourney. Weak Win % and RvR not enough last week to get them an NCAA rank, even with a higher than average region SoS of .546. Hiram will weigh on SoS but Denison away game will more than offset it and will likely put slight upward pressure on SoS. Good enough to knock off CWRU? Hard to say--they'll be in a 4 way battle with CWRU, Denison and ONU for the bottom few spots.
TMC: Week 2 Rank #1: Just below region avg (.540) SoS, at a still respectable .537, and 2nd highest Win% and RvR keep TMC towards the top of GL region. Bethany and W&J games pull SoS down slightly but still likely respectable. TMC odds on favorite for AQ in PrAC, with virtually no other team even close on conf or overall record. Could easily drop out of Pool C contention w/ a Pool A bid. A loss in the PrAC tourney would be bad for others in the GL region counting on a Pool C bid. CWRU dropping out would hurt their RvR and Denison dropping out would help.
CWRU: Week 2 #8: Tragic losses for CWRU @Chicago and @WashU tank Win% and RvR. Both games will be very positive for CW's currently weak .503 SoS, but the Spartans are tied w/ Denison for 2nd lowest Win% of all 10 teams and CW has the lowest RvR of all 10 teams with a current 1-4-0 record against ranked teams. Doubt that CW will hold on to it's current #8 spot, but anything's possible.
ONU: Week 2 NR: ONU has the 2nd lowest SoS of all 10 teams and the 2nd highest Win%. Their current RvR of 1-2-0 (.333) is uninspiring and their game at Baldwin Wallace is going to drag on their already weak SoS more than an away game at Marietta is likely to help. ONU could be the beneficiary of CW's trouble, or they could lose out to Oberlin, who has significantly stronger SoS and comparable RvR. ONU remaining out is a positive for OWU and a negative for CWRU and Brockport St. ONU is far and away the favorite in the relatively weak OAC, with only John Carroll likely to put up much resistance to ONU's AQ bid, if any.
Kenyon: Week 2 #7: NCAC regular season champ Kenyon sports the lowest SoS in the region of any ranked team, currently. Their recent away game at OWU and home game at Wabash will both give Kenyon's lagging SoS a much needed boost and should get it comfortably above .500 this week. Kenyon currently has the highest Win% of all 10 teams (.938) and highest RvR in the region (.750). Oberlin coming into the rankings would help Kenyon. CMU staying in also helps. The only negative RvR stat Kenyon has is the loss to DePauw, which is very unlikely to go away at this point, even if they lose to OWU in the NCAC semi's or lose in the NCAC final. Their stats are too good. Kenyon is poised, with improvement in their SoS, to be the biggest potential gainer in the region this week. Kenyon and OWU are the favorites to battle for the NCAC's AQ spot next Saturday in the finals, but Oberlin and DePauw are both capable of upsets with either of the top two seeds.
PREDICTION
1) Thomas More
2) OWU
3) CMU
4) Kenyon
5) Rose-Hulman
6) DePauw
7) Denison
Quote from: lastguyoffthebench on November 04, 2015, 11:39:42 AM
PREDICTION
1) Thomas More
2) OWU
3) CMU
4) Kenyon
5) Rose-Hulman
6) DePauw
7) Denison
Who do you give #8?
Wild card in Geneva. Perhaps John Carroll, Oberlin, ONU in the mix? Does CWRU stay in? I'd still lean Geneva
Quote from: lastguyoffthebench on November 04, 2015, 12:42:54 PM
Wild card in Geneva. Perhaps John Carroll, Oberlin, ONU in the mix? Does CWRU stay in? I'd still lean Geneva
Problems, as I see it, for Geneva are: horrible incremental impact to SoS from last 2 games (Thiel 3-14-1 and St. Vincent 2-15-2), both at HOME, 0-2-0 RvR and .676 Win %. Only redeeming factor is a SoS of .541 last week, but it's definitely gonna come down this week.
JC's SoS, while higher last week than some of the lower ranked teams, has a 0-2 RvR and played relatively weak teams for their past 3 games since the last ranking, so they're not going to get much of a boost--if anything, it might come down because of Muskingum, as the Mt. Unions will pretty much offset one another (one home and one away and close to .500 record). Don't see them breaking in above CW.
CW's SoS is going to have a big jump since they played both Chicago and WashU away. Their RvR is going to tank however and even if they stay in the rankings at #8, I don't see any way for them to remain in contention for a Pool C bid.
Oberlin and ONU make the most sense to me for potential entrants at the low end of the region and Denison may drop lower than your original prediction, in spite of their very strong SoS, by missing the NCAC tourney and a middling .500 RvR.
We'll know soon enough!
I may end up being wrong, but I see no way ONU is ranked. I'd project their SoS to fall below 0.490, and they don't have anything resembling Kenyon's profile when they barely snuck in the lower portion of the rankings with below-0.500 SoS.
We now have our answer! New data sheets are not up yet, so can't see the revised stats yet.
Great Lakes In-Division Record Overall Record
1. Carnegie Mellon 11-2-3 11-2-3
2. DePauw 11-2-4 11-2-4
3. Thomas More 16-1-1 16-1-1
4. Kenyon 15-1-0 15-1-0
5. Ohio Wesleyan 14-3-2 14-3-2
6. Denison 11-3-3 11-3-3
7. Rose-Hulman 12-2-4 12-2-4
8. Oberlin 11-6-1 11-6-1
Kenyon video not available today?!?!?
Quote from: Domino1195 on November 04, 2015, 02:12:39 PM
Kenyon video not available today?!?!?
I've already sent 2 support requests to Stretch Internet. No word back yet...
Update: working now!
Amolo just scores at '15. 1-0 Kenyon.
Quote from: TennesseeJed on November 04, 2015, 02:13:43 PM
Quote from: Domino1195 on November 04, 2015, 02:12:39 PM
Kenyon video not available today?!?!?
I've already sent 2 support requests to Stretch Internet. No word back yet...
Update: apparently technical issues with equipment at Kenyon. No estimate given...
This blows.
I was "this" close to taking the day off to go to both games - said Nah - I watch the first and go to OWU tonight. The OWU thing I can control . . .
Quote from: Domino1195 on November 04, 2015, 02:20:42 PM
Quote from: TennesseeJed on November 04, 2015, 02:13:43 PM
Quote from: Domino1195 on November 04, 2015, 02:12:39 PM
Kenyon video not available today?!?!?
I've already sent 2 support requests to Stretch Internet. No word back yet...
Update: apparently technical issues with equipment at Kenyon. No estimate given...
This blows.
I was "this" close to taking the day off to go to both games - said Nah - I watch the first and go to OWU tonight. The OWU thing I can control . . .
I'm envious! I'm 750-800 miles away from Gambier... I was there for CMU, which was a great game to see, and Marietta for their double header weekend. I'd love to see the DPU/OWU game in Delaware too. Will be a great game to watch.
Thomas More up to their ol' shenanigans! Losing with 4 to go, red card and 2 yellows given to Westminster players. Why is it their opposition gets the cards??????
And as I type this they tie it up off a corner.
And I try to do a little work this afternoon and miss Westminster stealing it at the death. A bid is stolen . . .
>>Post game box score does not show a red card given - only 2 yellows to TM and 3 yellows to W'minster. Watching it as it occurred a red card was posted in the play by play.
Kenyon beats Oberlin 1-0, outshooting the Yeomen 16-8, with Amolo scoring the only goal of the game in the 14th minute. The Lords host the winner of tonight's other NCAC semi: DPU and OWU on Saturday afternoon.
Thoughts on the regional rankings, prior to TMC losing today (which gets its own post):
(1) Somewhat surprised Carnegie Mellon jumps to #1, but in context I guess not that surprising. My guess would be that if DePauw, Kenyon, or OWU win the NCAC tournament they'll jump to number one given SOS boosts and additional ranked wins. That'll be especially true if CMU loses or draws with Case this weekend.
(2) The ordering of the NCAC teams is slightly surprising but will sort itself out via the conference tournament.
(3) Kenyon should be a lock despite the very low SOS after today's win. That gives the Lords five ranked wins (Oberlin x2, OWU, Denison, Carnegie Mellon). A loss to either DePauw or OWU shouldn't change anything, and the SoS should stay above 0.510 or so, so that's not a concern.
(4) If DePauw beats OWU tonight they're a lock. The SOS will be back up to 0.575 or higher after games at OWU and at Kenyon, and that would give DePauw four ranked wins (OWU, Kenyon, Loras, Oberlin).
(5) If OWU wins tonight they should be a lock. That would give OWU three ranked wins (DePauw x2, Oberlin), plus a trip to Kenyon should bump OWU's SoS up to 0.590-0.600 - easily the strongest in the region. That should push OWU above DePauw and TMC, and probably above Carnegie Mellon as well, especially if they lose to Case.
(6) Denison and Oberlin are done.
(7) AQ or bust for Rose-Hulman.
Okay, Thomas More. I think TMC is in big, big trouble. The Great Lakes regional rankings looked like this as of this morning:
(1) Carnegie Mellon
(2) DePauw
(3) Thomas More
(4) Kenyon
(5) OWU
(6) Denison
(7) Rose-Hulman
(8) Oberlin
Here's TMC's profile: 16-2-1 (0.868), RvR 1-1-1, SoS 0.526 (shouldn't change much after today). First, let's accept that TMC will not jump Carnegie Mellon if they beat Case or DePauw if they beat OWU - that's an easy assumption as those two teams were already ahead of TMC. Second, let's assume Kenyon jumps TMC with five ranked wins (to TMC's one), a higher winning percentage (worst-case scenario it's 0.889), and comparable SoS (both pretty low).
So here's TMC's problem - I don't think they can jump Carnegie Mellon or DePauw, even if CMU loses to Case and DePauw loses to OWU. Let's compare profiles:
TMC: 16-2-1 (0.868), RvR 1-1-1, SoS 0.526
DePauw (loss to OWU): 11-3-4 (0.722), RvR 3-3-2, SoS 0.570 (bump from game @ OWU)
CMU (loss to Case): 11-3-3 (0.735), RvR 3-2-0, SoS 0.575 (bump from game @ Case)
With those profiles, I think TMC is objectively third. Plus, the committee already said as much by having CMU and DePauw above TMC. If TMC was behind them today, how could losses by all three teams - with TMC's coming to the weakest team and at home - allow TMC to jump the others? So that means TMC is already in fourth in the Great Lakes, and third behind Carnegie Mellon and at least one NCAC team in the at-large line.
Then there's OWU. If OWU wins the AQ, TMC is probably done, because that would make TMC fourth in the Great Lakes pecking order for at-large bids behind CMU, DePauw, and Kenyon. It's possible - TMC's profile would be comparable to the last teams in from previous years - but really, really difficult to pull off, as the GL only got one at-large last year. If OWU needs an at-large, then fourth in the GL comes down to OWU versus TMC. Let's compare using the NCAA's criteria. There are two versions of OWU for this exercise, and note that Oberlin making the rankings gives OWU an additional win versus a ranked team for next week:
If OWU beats DePauw but loses to Kenyon
Head-to-Head: TMC wins (decent edge)
Win%: TMC 0.868, OWU 0.761. TMC wins (slight edge)
RvR: TMC 1-1-1, OWU 3-3-1. OWU wins (decent edge for two extra ranked wins)
SoS: TMC 0.526, OWU 0.590+ (bump from DePauw and @Kenyon, by far highest in region). OWU (huge edge)
Common Opponents (Wittenberg, Capital, Denison, Centre, DePauw): TMC 3-1-1, OWU 4-0-2. OWU wins (slight edge).
Conclusion: If OWU beats DePauw tonight, they're jumping TMC, and probably jumping Carnegie Mellon and DePauw as well. That leaves TMC at 5th in the Great Lakes, and fourth in line for an at-large bid. Unlikely to get a bid, but not out of the realm of possibility (would have to compare other regions).
If OWU loses to DePauw
Head-to-Head: TMC wins (edge)
Win%: TMC 0.868, OWU 0.750. TMC wins (slight edge)
RvR: TMC 1-1-1, OWU 2-3-1. Even or slight edge to OWU (NCAA usually cares about ranked wins more than losses)
SoS: TMC 0.526, OWU 0.580 (highest in region). OWU wins (huge edge)
Common Opponents (Wittenberg, Capital, Denison, Centre, DePauw): TMC 3-1-1, OWU 3-1-2. Even (0.700 vs 0.667).
Conclusion: It's close. Very, very close. I would probably have TMC slightly above OWU on the basis of head-to-head, and the committee already has TMC above OWU. But I'm not sure what the committee does here, because everything is basically even with the exception of head-to-head and strength-of-schedule. That leaves two outcomes: (1) put TMC ahead because of head-to-head; (2) put OWU ahead because of SOS. The national committee might put OWU ahead simply because OWU's profile is more competitive nationally, where head-to-head won't come into play. But I'd call it either a toss-up or a 55-45 edge to TMC.
Bottom line - if you're TMC, you're really, really rooting for DePauw tonight. And if you're OWU, you either sleep easy tonight and take your shot at Kenyon, probably for first in the GL, or else you have a very nervous rest of the week.
OWU-DePauw underway. Game has started at a really, really high tempo, high pressure from both teams. Also looks like the videographer has sobered up since the Kenyon game (**disclaimer, this is a joke**).
OWU has been dominant in the early stages, but has yet to make DePauw pay. Already 12 shots in the first 20 minutes, including a 1v1 save by DePauw's keeper and a shot off the post.
First 20 minutes DPU looked like they needed to call a timeout. Settled down a little but OWU still dominant.
Announcer might want to take it easy on the Neuer GK references lol.
Quote from: NCAC New England on November 04, 2015, 07:35:26 PM
Announcer might want to take it easy on the Neuer GK references lol.
He's been comparing OWU's style to the German national team all year, not sure how I feel about it. I think he's pretty decent for a freshman announcing by himself, all things considered, but yea, Neuer is not the comparison I'd be making.
1-0 OWU at half, great through ball, inch-perfect cross and a simple header. If you're OWU, I think you're a little concerned that you should be at least two goals up - Shots 17-3, SOG 5-0 (plus one off the post), corners 4-2. DePauw has yet to get a breakthrough, but they've only been shut out once this year, so they have goals in them.
No, you're right, I'm kidding. He has done a good job and he's subdued enough that he doesn't really get in the way. I was mostly laughing because I've noticed he always mentions the German NT and I he think knows Martin has or had some ties to Germany.
DPU doesn't look they are going to put up much of a fight in this one. Also looks like OWU got Hoge back if I read the # correctly. And that's great news if that's true.
Wonder if DPU thinks they are safe, and if that plays any role at all in how they look tonight.
Quote from: NCAC New England on November 04, 2015, 07:53:21 PM
DPU doesn't look they are going to put up much of a fight in this one. Also looks like OWU got Hoge back if I read the # correctly. And that's great news if that's true.
Unfortunately no - season-ending shoulder surgery. And yea, I laugh when he does it too, and assume he's done some research or something to know the OWU-Germany connection.
Oh, I'm sorry, I saw a #18 come in and thought that was him but now I'm remembering he was #16 (I think).
Wow. OWU looks to have gone up 2-0 off a pair of headers, but the ref calls it back. The announcer seemed to think it was offsides, but the stats (and the ref's hand signal) showed a foul. I couldn't see anything there, but a big, big letoff for DePauw.
Game has devolved, haven't seen a shot in ages. OWU is obviously fine with 1-0, but you don't like to leave the game in the balance. Ref is also letting things get a little chippy, something to keep an eye on. 15 minutes left.
2-0 OWU. In the last five minutes DePauw was committing extra men forward, leaving OWU's attacking players 1v1, and in the end it cost them. A comeback isn't impossible, but DePauw has yet to carve out a good attacking opportunity all game.
Ohio Wesleyan wins 2-0. Shots 25-7, SOG 8-2 (plus a post and a goal called back), corners 8-2. Game was always on edge because DePauw counters so well, but the Tigers failed to create anything dangerous. Really good performance from OWU with their backs to the wall.
This should take pressure off the NCAC title game as both teams should be safely into the NCAA tournament and can just play.
Quote from: NCAC New England on November 04, 2015, 07:35:26 PM
First 20 minutes DPU looked like they needed to call a timeout. Settled down a little but OWU still dominant.
Announcer might want to take it easy on the Neuer GK references lol.
Too funny - I was sitting directly beneath the press box and said the same thing to a couple OWU fans midway through the first. This is the second time I've seen DePauw and I still don't get want they're trying to do on offense. Second half they came out with energy but that was done within 15 minutes. I commented that once we see the separation from the top three and the rest of the team they would be done. At about 20 minutes in the keeper gained possession and rolled it quickly to the right back. He immediately pushed it forward and got it midfield. By the time they crossed midfield DePauw still had 6 players in their defensive third. Stick the fork in . . .
DePauw is very much a defend-and-counter team as far as I can tell. And that's been very, very effective in the past against OWU, and against other teams this year. They did beat both Kenyon and Loras.
OWU made a few adjustments to their normal style of play in both games that made DePauw's strategy ineffective. So unless OWU made a defensive mistake or DePauw had a piece of great individual skill - not coincidentally that's how they scored their goals in the first matchup - DePauw wasn't going to create much going forward.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on November 05, 2015, 08:53:24 AM
DePauw is very much a defend-and-counter team as far as I can tell. And that's been very, very effective in the past against OWU, and against other teams this year. They did beat both Kenyon and Loras.
OWU made a few adjustments to their normal style of play in both games that made DePauw's strategy ineffective. So unless OWU made a defensive mistake or DePauw had a piece of great individual skill - not coincidentally that's how they scored their goals in the first matchup - DePauw wasn't going to create much going forward.
"Stay Connected" - if I had a nickel for every time I heard a coach yell this I'd have a lot of nickels. Staying connected is a shared responsibility. What I've seen too many times at the collegiate level is the ball getting pushed to the front line and they "take off" - heads down - no awareness of their team shape or support. Gonzalez did that a few times last night. I know he's a bright kid - very skillful - but 1 v 4 are really bad odds, especially against a team like OWU. Compare to Shaefer, who received the ball - pushed forward - saw poor numbers: waits. Step on the ball and wait. It takes less than 3-4 seconds for the lines to reconnect.
Kids are still learning how to see the field at this age, and what I've heard from many coaches is that "vision" - seeing the game - isn't necessarily a gift every player has. Coaching can help - you limit player options when they find themselves in particular game situations - and you practice "decision making". I also am surprised at how little film study goes on. The best teacher is watching your performance - seeing what you did well and what needs improvement.
Stepping on the ball and waiting is NOT the ANSWER. That is ruining your own counter attack by letting the defense get back and set up. The issue is not that he is 1v 4 the issue is he does not have enough guys working hard to push forward to help him on the counter.
Alot of film study goes on. Some kids just do not respond to visual learning. Some kids do not want to be told they are not doing something right. Kids these days need constant pampering, attention and coddling. Think of a coach as a decently paid baby sitter for 2 hours a day.
Quote from: Mr.Right on November 05, 2015, 09:25:54 AM
Stepping on the ball and waiting is NOT the ANSWER. That is ruining your own counter attack by letting the defense get back and set up. The issue is not that he is 1v 4 the issue is he does not have enough guys working hard to push forward to help him on the counter.
Keep the counter going when you have equivalent/decent numbers: 2v3, 3v3, 3v4. But the ball carrier has to have the awareness to know when the counter is running into numbers. Yes you can fault the middies for not keeping up on a single play, but when this pattern repeats intself throughout the game - somebody has to adjust.
OWU started the second half with 7 men back. They let DPU have a little of the ball in their half and dared them to break OWU down. They did well for 15 minutes but didn't get off any dangerous chances. DPU tired or lost the will - not sure which - maybe both? But OWU was back, with numbers, all second half. Then they dropped Lee along side Barnes (interesting to see Barnes at CB) with 15 minutes (or so) to go. Credit OWU for showing how to protect a lead. Maybe they can teach Mourinho??
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on November 05, 2015, 08:53:24 AM
DePauw is very much a defend-and-counter team as far as I can tell. And that's been very, very effective in the past against OWU, and against other teams this year. They did beat both Kenyon and Loras.
OWU made a few adjustments to their normal style of play in both games that made DePauw's strategy ineffective. So unless OWU made a defensive mistake or DePauw had a piece of great individual skill - not coincidentally that's how they scored their goals in the first matchup - DePauw wasn't going to create much going forward.
I know how DePauw beat Kenyon. They were extremely fortunate on a bounce on an OT corner in a game they were dominated, albeit with fairly poor field conditions. The win over Loras is more impressive to me and more of a head-scratcher. I'm guessing they got an early goal off a counter and then Loras pressed the rest of the game and finally gave up another one late.
I am very impressed with Martin's adjustments and how he moved players both in and out of the line-up but even more so positionally. He has every reason to have a more than healthy ego and a very stubborn "we are OWU, we don't adjust for anyone, make them adjust to us" framework, but he is smart enough
and competitive enough" to not do that. You can tell observing him on the sidelines and engaging his players that he is about winning and is going to do whatever he can tactically and with adjustments to do so. It's easy to take him for granted, but after all he is the winningest coach in ALL divisions of NCAA soccer.
Great Lakes SOS
578 OWU
569 Allegheny
566 CMU
562 Wittenberg
557 DePauw
550 Denison
550 Hiram
545 Oberlin
527 Marietta
526 CWRU
526 Thomas More
526 Wilmington (OH)
522 Heidelberg
521 Capital
518 Wabash
514 Geneva
511 Rose-Hulman
510 Kenyon
509 Anderson (IN)
508 John Carroll
506 Hanover
505 Grove City
504 Waynesburg
502 Bethany (WV)
502 Wooster
498 D'Youville
495 Otterbein
494 Westminster (PA)
490 ONU
490 Wash&Jeff
489 Franklin
479 Earlham
478 Medialle
475 Manchester
474 Muskingkum
472 Baldwin Wallace
472 Berea
472 Transylvania
471 Saint Vincent
466 Mount Aloysius
463 Mt. St. Joseph
462 La Roche
461 Thiel
451 Mount Union
451 PSU-Behrend
451 Pitt-Greensburg
449 Fransican
448 Pitt-Bradford
443 Hilbert
435 Defiance
426 Bluffton
426 PSU-Altoona
Also note that, for the "secret" rankings, CMU (Case), DePauw (OWU), and especially OWU (Kenyon) will get bumps on that SOS metric because of away games against good teams.
Last I checked Ohio Northern up 1-0 on Heidelberg and Cap and JCU tied.
I don't spend a lot of time fretting over other team's misfortunes (just being honest), but if ONU wins they'll be 17-4. I really like Oberlin and for me Oberlin was/is the 3rd best team in the NCAC, but (and Kenyon benefited A LOT from Oberlin getting ranked) I really have to question ONU not getting that 8th spot. I know the answer....the SoS, stupid....but still. ONU is a serious program, only 3 years removed from a championship final appearance, with another coach who knows what he's doing. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but they went to the trouble of making a trip to New England (no other GL team has gone to NE as far as I know at least in recent years), and in addition to Wheaton and Babson (two NCAA teams last year), they scheduled OWU, Case, and Brockport (Brockport was another interesting choice). That's FIVE very legit out-of-conference teams. They somehow are stuck with a SoS of .490. Just doesn't look or smell like a .490 schedule to me. I know the OAC is usually a 1 bid conference, but the OAC isn't a joke. It has a long history and there are some competitive teams.
I don't expect any changes as I presume D3 soccer is pretty low on the NCAA's list of concerns.
OAC final is ONU vs JCU. Should be a good one. JCU now 14-4-1 with a .508 SoS earlier this week. They played these 6 out-of-conference games all AWAY, and look where it got them -- Puget Sound ($$$), Elmhurst, NC Wesleyan, Methodist, Case, and Geneva.
Quote from: NCAC New England on November 05, 2015, 08:41:02 PM
Last I checked Ohio Northern up 1-0 on Heidelberg and Cap and JCU tied.
I don't spend a lot of time fretting over other team's misfortunes (just being honest), but if ONU wins they'll be 17-4. I really like Oberlin and for me Oberlin was/is the 3rd best team in the NCAC, but (and Kenyon benefited A LOT from Oberlin getting ranked) I really have to question ONU not getting that 8th spot. I know the answer....the SoS, stupid....but still. ONU is a serious program, only 3 years removed from a championship final appearance, with another coach who knows what he's doing. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but they went to the trouble of making a trip to New England (no other GL team has gone to NE as far as I know at least in recent years), and in addition to Wheaton and Babson (two NCAA teams last year), they scheduled OWU, Case, and Brockport (Brockport was another interesting choice). That's FIVE very legit out-of-conference teams. They somehow are stuck with a SoS of .490. Just doesn't look or smell like a .490 schedule to me. I know the OAC is usually a 1 bid conference, but the OAC isn't a joke. It has a long history and there are some competitive teams.
I don't expect any changes as I presume D3 soccer is pretty low on the NCAA's list of concerns.
OAC final is ONU vs JCU. Should be a good one. JCU now 14-4-1 with a .508 SoS earlier this week. They played these 6 out-of-conference games all AWAY, and look where it got them -- Puget Sound ($$$), Elmhurst, NC Wesleyan, Methodist, Case, and Geneva.
ONU plays more like a NCAC team when they are in control of the game and dictating the tempo and style of game. Their back two lines are a fortress, lots of pressure on the ball when it gets into their defensive third.
JCU pressures the ball very well also. JCU prefers to get the ball wide, push it to the corner and whip in crosses. They have some BIG, solid kids who are excellent at getting on the end of these crosses. ONU comes at you in more ways - and Horton has the ability to go at defenders and create chances down the middle. Slight edge to ONU with more options on the attacking side.
This final is decided by which team exerts their will on the game. JCU did that last night at Capital from the opening whistle. Credit to Cap to fight back to level the game twice, especially when they were reacting to JCU for much of the evening.
Quote from: NCAC New England on November 05, 2015, 08:41:02 PM
I don't spend a lot of time fretting over other team's misfortunes (just being honest), but if ONU wins they'll be 17-4. I really like Oberlin and for me Oberlin was/is the 3rd best team in the NCAC, but (and Kenyon benefited A LOT from Oberlin getting ranked) I really have to question ONU not getting that 8th spot. I know the answer....the SoS, stupid....but still. ONU is a serious program, only 3 years removed from a championship final appearance, with another coach who knows what he's doing. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but they went to the trouble of making a trip to New England (no other GL team has gone to NE as far as I know at least in recent years), and in addition to Wheaton and Babson (two NCAA teams last year), they scheduled OWU, Case, and Brockport (Brockport was another interesting choice). That's FIVE very legit out-of-conference teams. They somehow are stuck with a SoS of .490. Just doesn't look or smell like a .490 schedule to me. I know the OAC is usually a 1 bid conference, but the OAC isn't a joke. It has a long history and there are some competitive teams.
I don't expect any changes as I presume D3 soccer is pretty low on the NCAA's list of concerns.
OAC final is ONU vs JCU. Should be a good one. JCU now 14-4-1 with a .508 SoS earlier this week. They played these 6 out-of-conference games all AWAY, and look where it got them -- Puget Sound ($$$), Elmhurst, NC Wesleyan, Methodist, Case, and Geneva.
One final point about how arbitrariness (and luck) can figure into SoS, which, along with teams earning home field for conference tournaments being penalized for that, I think is a problem.
Schools have no control over their conference schedules and how fortunately or unfortunately they fall. Consider that (and despite that we're trained to think of big games at home as a good thing) OWU this year got to play DePauw, Denison, Wabash, and Oberlin AWAY, with only Kenyon at home (which even at home was a big net plus playing what is now a 16 win team), and now getting that same 16 win team again with an even bigger bump AWAY tomorrow. Kenyon had those same four teams at HOME, and only had OWU away, and now a penalized benefit for playing OWU again at home. Switch those four teams (the other four best records in the conference by far) for OWU and Kenyon, and consider the extra bonus bump OWU is getting for playing Kenyon twice, and my guess is that their relative SoS's come out almost even, or at least much, much closer.
PK by Kenyon saved by OWU keeper. Still 0-0. 42'
Amolo puts Kenyon up 1-0 early in the second half.
And shortly thereafter, Kenyon header goal puts them up 2-0.
OWU pulls one back with a minute to play. Kenyon 2-1
And 30 seconds later OWU equalizes!
WOW..What happened?
PK attempt by Kenyon with 2 seconds left!
PK converted by Barnes! 3-2 Kenyon
3-2 final. Amazing last minute of the match. Do TennesseeJed and NCAC NE need resuscitation?
was it a legit PK given with 2 seconds left? I know Kenyon had one earlier. Sounds like a great game
It was legit and the defender was red carded.
Thrilled but sick to my stomach. Horrible mismanagement of last 2 minutes. Cannot lose a 2 goal lead with under 90 secs to play! Never put Amolo back in to have someone to really hold the ball for last 20+ minutes of the game. Incomprehensible. How are you taking the ball to the corner and not have numbers back in last 90 secs? Barnes was free on that play under 5 secs and OWU kid got a red card so must have looked legit. OMG. Cannot take this.
Wait OWU scored 2 goals in the last 2 minutes to tie it?
Wow...and then the PK with 2 secnds left?
Sounds like it was one of the more entertaining matches of the year.
Quote from: Mr.Right on November 07, 2015, 03:16:02 PM
Wait OWU scored 2 goals in the last 2 minutes to tie it?
Wow...and then the PK with 2 secnds left?
Sounds like it was one of the more entertaining matches of the year.
In last 90 secs....and looked like OWU magic on Kenyon again....OWU really had never threatened the whole game despite having some periods of possession....and somehow OWU lets Barnes free in the box under 5 secs. No way Kenyon recovers from that and wins in OT.... PKs at best....UNREAL.
Quote from: Mr.Right on November 07, 2015, 03:16:02 PM
Wait OWU scored 2 goals in the last 2 minutes to tie it?
Wow...and then the PK with 2 secnds left?
Sounds like it was one of the more entertaining matches of the year.
The last 2-3 minutes were definitely some of the most entertaining minutes of the year! No desire to repeat them--ever...
Just walked my dog and trying to explain to her what happened. Don't think I've ever seen anything like that, at least something I cared about. And, no joking, in full disclosure, I have a defibrillator in my chest. Not good.
Kenyon played an excellent game for 88+ minutes, and given the stage, was comfortably completing a workmanlike and very solid win. I can't recall a really dangerous chance that OWU had before the last 2 minutes. Two chances and two clinical finishes, especially the first one by Lonnie Barnes. From comfortable win to pure doom in 90 secs and then saved at the bell.
And they'll probably play again next weekend.
Amolo comes through again....a beautiful strike to give Kenyon the initial 1-0 lead just as he did against Oberlin. And just like in the Oberlin game, does not return for last 20+ minutes of 2nd half.
Anyway we could get a video link to rewatch that game!?!? I tried but it requires a password 😢
Quote from: dontshootthegoose on November 07, 2015, 04:17:19 PM
Anyway we could get a video link to rewatch that game!?!? I tried but it requires a password 😢
You should see Amolo's goal but then only need the last 2 minutes.
Box score says OWU scored first goal with only 59 secs remaining. Scored 2nd goal with 30 secs left. Kenyon draws PK with 2.3 secs left. Still don't comprehend what was happening. Kenyon seemed to be doing the right thing and had possession seemingly before both goals taking the ball into the OWU corner and somehow still got caught twice with OWU getting wide open clean looks when they had not gotten that the whole game.
Rose-Hulman survives in PKs at Hanover for the AQ.
Quick thoughts from seeing the game live. That was wild.
-Thought OWU controlled the majority of the first half without creating great chances. They were winning field position and getting the ball deep, but failed to put many real good chances on target.
-Kenyon's first PK came off a defensive mistake, let the ball bounce and player ran in. I thought it looked legit but had an awful angle (opposite corner of field) and that if it was a foul, a yellow was the right call as there were 2-3 defenders back.
-Kenyon came out gangbusters in the second half. Really nice goal by Amolo, then Kenyon caught OWU napping with two open guys on the back post for the second two minutes later.
-Kenyon proceeded to do a nice job of killing off the game. Smart fouls, solid defense, possession when necessary, annoying (as an opposition fan) but intelligent time-wasting. Looked like the second half of the first matchup, with Kenyon exerting their will on the game.
-OWU had one really great chance to cut it in half with about 18 to go, two shots and a sitter from the 6 yard box, but Kenyon GK made a save and another Kenyon player blocked the shot off the line. The rebound literally fell into Clougher's lap as he turned around to face his own goal. That looked to be it, but...
-OWU scores with 1 minute left off a really nice goal, worked the ball up and outside, cutback and a great finish. Then OWU equalizes with 30 seconds left after a knockdown falls to a CM who blasts a left-footed volley. Game looks like it's headed to overtime, but...
-OWU's GK gets the ball, they try to play on the floor out of the back, ball deflected and falls into a Kenyon forward who races into the box and draws a penalty kick with 2.3 seconds left. Ballgame. Poor game management by OWU, frankly, as at that point you have all the momentum in the world and you just go to OT. Even if they wanted to try and win it there were only 15 seconds left so you launch the ball down the field and see what happens. But you live and learn, and I think OWU is definitely safe for Pool Cbarring some weird stuff happening.
-As for the second PK, I confirmed that the red card was not for the foul, but rather was given to another player for dissent following the call. The story from OWU - unconfirmed if and until I see the video - is that there was no contact on the PK. Regardless, you don't put yourself in that position. And if the red was for dissent, I'm not too surprised because I've had that particular referee several times and he's extremely emotional - doesn't react well to players challenging him.
-Congrats to Kenyon, I'd assume they will host and they have a decent shot at a bye, with the only considerations geography and perhaps that low SOS giving it to someone else. This game only confirmed that it will be very, very difficult to come from behind against them. I wonder if that's why Amolo doesn't play as much in the second half - maybe they want a more defensive player in that position? Regardless, I think this Kenyon team offers more going forward than last year and as I've maintained all year when Amolo is producing they're very, very good.
-I think OWU is very safe, but they need to be more clinical, especially in periods of possession like they had the first 20-30 minutes. They did the same thing against DePauw and only scored once when it should have been three or four. Hopefully they get another shot at things.
I did forget about that one sequence when Kenyon got lucky that OWU didn't score with about 18 min, although the initial play that created the chance(s) came out of nothing really and/or a defensive error. Agree that OWU controlled possession first 15-20 minutes but in my view Kenyon survived that period much better with no real threats as compared to last game last year and last 20 minutes of 1st half more even with even some tilting to Kenyon. The word about the 2nd PK is interesting. Seemed like a yellow would have been the most a player could get for dissent and the ref had handed out some yellows, and seemed like this was a straight red. The straight red fits with an obvious and clear takedown in the box. At any rate, it was completely improbable that OWU was going to score twice in the last minute as Kenyon looked to be very much seeing the game out with little threat after the play noted above with 18 min left, and then even more improbable for Kenyon to get a PK with 2 secs left. Those things happening in the same game in the same minute seems as likely as a solar eclipse. I thought the OWU was GK WAS just letting the clock run for OT and threw the ball or punted out (I thought he punted but now I'm not even sure which Kenyon player drew the foul), and with 12 or so secs left the game would have run out and OWU would have had massive momentum in OT with Kenyon still absolutely dazed and gutted by what had just transpired.
BTW, on the 1st PK, it looked like the GK made a decent play on the Kenyon player initially but the ball was loose and GK prevented player from getting up off the ground. I thought that was the call.
Yea I have actual confirmation the red was not given to the player who committed the foul. The red was for dissent, and I do have some personal knowledge of that ref and he does sometimes lose his cool completely, so I'm not surprised.
Pretty much agree with everything else you said. I'm a little nervous about OWU getting in, but I refuse to believe the NCAC could be a one-bid league and OWU's at-large profile is above-average compared to the Pool C teams from 2014 and 2013.
Fascinating about the ref, because I just checked and that's same ref that TennesseeJed and I complained about so much in the Kenyon-DePauw game when seemed clear that he turned on Amolo after Tony complained, and called a foul on him basically every time he moved. If your info is correct, then that's a bad call, although still leaves the question about whether or how much a foul there was. Can't give a straight red to a kid just for dissent especially at that very bizarre and emotional moment in the game. Hopefully we'll all get a chance to see the play on video.
Amolo was out last 22+ min of Oberlin and last 26 min today. Would make sense to me if he was a lone striker or going from 2 forwards to 1, but he's been playing much deeper recently apparently to get more of the ball and he's one of if not the best player they have on the ball. And coincidence or not Oberlin ALMOST (and probably should have) tied that game, ironically in the last 30 secs of that one as Ingham barely missed on a chip wide.
I'm being told this is first time Kenyon has beaten OWU twice since 1956....so about 59 years.
I have to believe OWU is safe, especially if other teams with as many and even more blemishes get in given the very high SoS. That said, I think DePauw and TMC are in serious jeopardy. Very possible CMU and OWU will be the only 2 at-large teams and we'll never know if that last minute might have even cost Kenyon a bid had they gone on to lose in OT. And you'll feel even safer if Case knocks off CMU. Chicago coming back from a 0-2 deficit really shakes things up as well.
Must be something in the air in Ohio today. ONU scores twice in the last ten minutes, the tying goal goal with 50 seconds left, to send the game into OT.
Quote from: Domino1195 on November 07, 2015, 09:07:49 PM
Must be something in the air in Ohio today. ONU scores twice in the last ten minutes, the tying goal goal with 50 seconds left, to send the game into OT.
Wow, cannot believe that and had just crossed off ONU on my master list!
Going to a shoot out at ONU
ONU 4-3 in the shoot out. Tied through 4 kicks ONU converts the first of the fifth round - JCU had their last effort saved
Another brutal end of the season for JCU. Up 2-0 under 10 to go and lose PKs. Ohio Northern on the other hand came back with their backs against the wall and now at 17-4-1 probably deserved to be in the tournament.
Also, how about Westminster (PA), knocking off TMC away and then prevailing in PKs away at Geneva?
FYI, I posted link to highlights of Kenyon-OWU on national thread. Also on Kenyon website.
Thank you schedule maker. Getting to ONU on Thursday will be tricky, but doable. 2 games on Friday at OWU. Pick up my college roommate at 10 am Sat - straight to Kenyon for 2, with no OT's we can get to OWU for the 5 pm start
Will be interesting to see how Great Lakes fares especially with the 4 Pool Cs. I'm sure our friends in other regions will be interested as well. I think a couple of teams can make deep runs, but we also could be wiped out in the first weekend (Pool Cs and AQs).
True, but I'm glad to see the committee rewarded the teams with good profiles. Four Pool Cs is definitely high for the Great Lakes, but by the end of the season the Top 5 in the region (including Kenyon with the AQ) had created serious separation. And I think OWU and CMU were in comfortably. DePauw and TMC were closer, but when you compared them to teams from other regions - Tufts, everyone from the East, UW-Oshkosh, everyone from the West, and frankly even Wheaton and Wash U. from the Central, it's probably a fair outcome.
I question TMC over ETown only because the profiles are so similar, but perhaps TMC's win @OWU carried more weight? DePauw I thought was getting in, as they have such a great pair of wins (Loras + Kenyon) and the bubble itself, while crowded, was not particularly strong.
The Middlebury thing is a head scratcher, but DePauw had the three ranked wins (Middlebury just the one), and Middlebury and TMC are actually kinda close in other regards. I just assumed the committee wouldn't bump Tufts above Middlebury after a draw with Tufts not playing this week.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on November 10, 2015, 06:33:36 PM
True, but I'm glad to see the committee rewarded the teams with good profiles. Four Pool Cs is definitely high for the Great Lakes, but by the end of the season the Top 5 in the region (including Kenyon with the AQ) had created serious separation. And I think OWU and CMU were in comfortably. DePauw and TMC were closer, but when you compared them to teams from other regions - Tufts, everyone from the East, UW-Oshkosh, everyone from the West, and frankly even Wheaton and Wash U. from the Central, it's probably a fair outcome.
I question TMC over ETown only because the profiles are so similar, but perhaps TMC's win @OWU carried more weight? DePauw I thought was getting in, as they have such a great pair of wins (Loras + Kenyon) and the bubble itself, while crowded, was not particularly strong.
The Middlebury thing is a head scratcher, but DePauw had the three ranked wins (Middlebury just the one), and Middlebury and TMC are actually kinda close in other regards. I just assumed the committee wouldn't bump Tufts above Middlebury after a draw with Tufts not playing this week.
Yep, I think I actually predicted four. Definitely was a good year for GL, and that's not even including Case (who I think you and I both had as part of the GL top 4 just 2-3 weeks ago) and Denison. A lot of good to very good teams. We'll have to see if any of them are great. Not sure any of them will strike fear in the hearts of other heavyweights. I could see CMU and DPU exiting early, but hopefully they will surprise me. TMC if they survive Chicago will then likely play Kenyon so at least one GL team will exit there. And then OWU has two very good (but in my opinion winnable) games including with a traditional foe/rival. ONU with a win will be confronted by Loras.
Interesting finish in the NSCAA final Great Lakes poll, with Ohio Northern coming in at #3 (after Kenyon and TMC), and Case Western ahead of both CMU and DePauw.
Weather report for this weekend could make for some interesting games in Ohio. Rain moves through tonight followed by high wind advisories for Thursday and Friday. Tomorrow's ONU game may have the worst of it (gusts up to 50 mph), but forecasts are still calling for 20+ mph winds on Friday - temps dipping into the 40's and 30's.
ONU concedes an own goal within the first minute of the game and has been totally outplayed at home. They are playing with the speed of molasses and the strength of a team of first graders. Carthage very organized in the back - taking the ball away from ONU with ease and off on counters. Carthage hits the post off a set piece. Wind blowing directly across the field from the players bench to the camera
ONU ties it off a long cross into the box and headed home. Carthage players argue for an OS - not uncommon on long balls when defenders lose track of their marks. Goal came within minutes of the half. 1-1
Carthage up 2-1 - nice work inside the box - winger cuts across the by-line and serves a perfect ball into the 6 for an easy tap in.
3-1 - great individual effort - 1vs 3 in the box - dribbler keeps possession and finds the back post. Men against boys.
And ONU gets one back - nice cross from the left, on the ground for a sweet one touch inside the far post . 3-2
Congratulations Carthage, beat Loras!
NCAC Awards
Chris Brown takes COY.
Brian Schaefer Offensive POY and Evan Lee Defensive POY. Kenyon's Carmona takes Newcomer of Year, which I might have given to Kenyon's Lowry.
I don't feel nearly as strongly as the Amherst crowd does about NPL not being chosen but at a minimum Amolo not being a co-player of the year with Schaefer is a bit of a snub, especially given that Kenyon won the league and tournament and Amolo scored in both of the critical games with OWU. Lee is an interesting choice since he often plays up front.
You sometimes see weird results with these awards. In 2009 OWU only gave up two (own) goals all regular season, and DPOY went to a Kenyon defender - even though OWU scored more goals on Kenyon in a single game (3) than they conceded all year. (Not saying the guy wasn't deserving, just that it was odd). I expected Amolo to get OPOY, but that was perhaps at least a relatively close call. You're right, it seems strange that Lee got DPOY considering he basically played forward for the entire NCAC slate. Go figure.
Quote from: Ryan Harmanis on November 13, 2015, 02:08:00 PM
You sometimes see weird results with these awards. In 2010 OWU only gave up two (own) goals all regular season, and DPOY went to a Kenyon defender - even though OWU scored more goals on Kenyon in a single game (3) than they conceded all year. (Not saying the guy wasn't deserving, just that it was odd). I expected Amolo to get OPOY, but that was perhaps at least a relatively close call. You're right, it seems strange that Lee got DPOY considering he basically played forward for the entire NCAC slate. Go figure.
Yeah, Schaefer's a great player and certainly he and Amolo had to be the two primary candidates. A Co-deal I think would have been right on the money. And I personally would have picked OWU's Barnes for DPOY. Spent most of the time in midfield but as a defensive midfielder and then has converted seamlessly to CB when asked.
Marshall Hollingsworth of Wheaton for national poy.
Quote from: d3fan1 on November 13, 2015, 11:08:46 PM
Marshall Hollingsworth of Wheaton for national poy.
This is Great Lakes, Padman.
Quote from: d3fan1 on November 12, 2015, 09:44:02 PM
Congratulations Carthage, beat Loras!
I'd call you a d*&k, but that wouldn't be very nice of me! Let me know what you are wearing to the match on Sunday so I can throw stuff at you (probably just popcorn and old chewing gum, batteries are for the Hooligans).
I am cheating for Carthage for two reasons, I coached 3 players on the team and they are the underdogs. I am cheering for Loras for two reasons. I coached 1 player on the team and they are in the Iowa conference where my loyalties lie. So, the balance goes to Carthage, but I have some mixed emotions. PS I like my popcorn buttered. 😉