Some quick thoughts on my experience attending yesterday's Brandeis at Suffolk game in person--

(1) How many D3 teams do you know play their home soccer games literally next door to a major international airport?   While the University Athletic Association is sometimes known in D3 circles as the "Airplane" Conference due to UAA teams flying out for away games, the on campus fields at UAA schools are not literally within walking distance of the airport terminals-- they are usually a few miles out.   Suffolk University, on the other hand, has been playing their home soccer games since 2015 in East Boston Memorial Park, which is literally next door to Logan Airport.  Thank goodness the flight patterns do not have the planes travelling over the stadium, but you can see the control tower from the field.   When I got to Boston's South Station yesterday, I took the MBTA's Silver Line Bus 3 to the Blue Line's MBTA Airport Station, and the park entrance is right there at the Airport subway stop in Boston.  From the entrance, it is about a 5 minute walk to the stadium.  The Brandeis team arrived from campus using 5 rental vans to travel all of the players, but the Suffolk players regularly travel on the MBTA from campus to go to practice and to leave the field after the games-- when the game was over and Brandeis won, I saw some of the Suffolk men's soccer players at the Airport station around 3:30 PM when I decided to take the "T" over to Charlestown, MA to go to the 99 Restaurant for my dinner.   Unfortunately, my ride home on the 5:50 PM commuter train from Back Bay Station back to Canton Junction was packed with Red Sox fans coming home from the ball game, so I was barely able to get a seat.

(2) I watched the game next to the father of Brandeis's #9 Elan Romo.  Elan's dad flew in from Florida for the first 2 Brandeis games, and recognized some of the Suffolk players as well, as a few of the Suffolk players were Elan's old high school teammates from Cypress Bay School back in Florida.

(3)  This was the first time that Brandeis soccer (men or women) played a soccer match in East Boston, and the 2nd meeting all-time between Brandeis and Suffolk-- the first meeting last year ended in a 0-0 tie, so yesterday was the first time both teams scored against the other side in a regular season match.  Elan Romo scored Brandeis's first ever goal in the very short Suffolk series so far, while Suffolk's first goal scored against Brandeis came from a low major d1 transfer from Merrimack who did not score any goals in his previous 2 seasons with the Merrimack Warriors.  The match was a hard fought contest, and I was fortunate to see Brandeis beat Suffolk for the first time in program history on the first trip for the Judges to East Boston to play a college match rather than just passing through on the way to the airport gate to take off for another UAA city.

(4) It seems that Brandeis #99 Tyler Correnti is ready to step in as the #1 keeper for the Judges this season based on his performance in playing all of the minutes the first 2 games this season. 

Unfortunately soccer is not one of the sports where an unofficial season long NPI daily ranking is currently being done by a service like D3DataCast, so I will have to wait until October when the official NPI summary reports for soccer start coming out, but it would not be surprising if the UAA ends up as a one bid league on the men's side again.   The UAA on the women's side more than makes up for multiple at-large bids for soccer in that respect.    For the men's side in soccer, it seems like NESCAC is first among leagues when it comes to at-large bids, and then comes everyone else.  We will see if that remains the case this season. 

Kansas hokie, your NPI rank numbers are not from the end of last year-- They are from the NPI report of October 27, 2024-- going into conference tournament play for most d3 conferences.   These were not the NPI rankings at the time of the selections on November 10, 2024.   I am posting an update with the NPI rankings at the time of selection-- those are the true final NPI rankings.  I also went to the Brandeis at Suffolk game yesterday and have some thoughts on that game as well, which I will post today.   It will be harder to discuss the UAA this year with casual d3 fans due to the requirement of getting a FloSports subscription to watch most of the games involving UAA teams. 

Here were the NPI rankings of the non-conference opponents that UAA teams played this weekend at the time of selection for the 2024 NCAA DIII Men's Soccer Tournament on November 10, 2024.  If a team is listed as an AQ, it means that the team won their conference's automatic bid to that tournament.

Source: http://status.ncaa.org/selection_rankings/nitty_gritties/40157

UChicago--  Gustavus Adolphus (#11-- at-large pick #5), St. Olaf (#15-- MIAC AQ)
NYU-- Rowan (#29-- NJAC AQ), Vassar (#39-- Liberty League AQ)
Carnegie Melllon-- Baldwin-Wallace (#216), Allegheny (#267)
Brandeis-- US Coast Guard Academy (#91), Suffolk (#110-- CNE AQ)
CWRU-- Franciscan (#60-- Presidents Athletic Conf AQ), Juniata (#78)
Rochester-- Cortland (#22-- SUNYAC AQ), Nazareth (#153)
Wash U-- Millikin (#100), Westminister (MO) (#336)
Emory-- Wash & Lee (#18-- ODAC AQ), Covenant (#37)

Lowest ranked NPI team that got an at-large bid last year was Buffalo St with an NPI ranking at #33. 

Quote from: kansas hokie on August 31, 2025, 10:25:08 PMThoughts on first weekend for UAA teams?

Numbers in parentheses are NPI rank at end of last year.

Chicago with quality loss against Gustavus Aldophus (6) and a tie with St. Olaf (23), top competition there.

NYU two losses, Rowan (38) and Vassar (43), but both were top teams last year. Still a result would have been good for the conference.

CMU win against Baldwin Wallace (214) is as exptected, tie to Allegheny (282), ugh.

Brandeis, two wins, good start, Coast Guard (51) and Suffolk (134).

Case, similar, two wins, Fransciscan (71) and Juniata (65), quality wins.

Rochester, terrible weekend, 4-0 and 4-1 losses, Cortland (31) and Nazareth (123), those scorelines are never good.

Wash U - 8-1 over Milliken (115) is quite impressive, 2-1 loss to Westminster (341) is equally shocking

Emory - wins over Washington & lee (42) and Covenant (34), great start against strongest out of conference games they will play.

Overall, don't think UAA did enough this weekend to give hope that it will be more than a one bid conference again this year. Case, Brandies, and Emory starting well; Chicago up there playing top teams; Wash u and CMU confounding; NYU next...then Rochester in the back.

Looking forward this week, there's a bunch of games that UAA teams should be winning, let's go 12-0 this week!

Quote from: Ole Ollie 76 on July 30, 2025, 10:06:51 PMSome of the teams have posted at least partial rosters for the upcoming season. Most notably, Chicago has posted its full roster. Nineteen players, including freshmen Kahn, Randall, and Ward and high impact grad transfers Nick Roper (IWU) and Shane Regan (Wesleyan), all of whom have previously been mentioned on these boards. Other incoming frosh are Yuki Dai from Virginia, and Daltyn Simon from Miami. Otherwise, no surprises.

Brandeis and Rochester have rosters up not including freshmen and transfers.  The biggest name is Brandeis' Aeden Using, who returns for a sixth year. He missed one entire year due to injury and another due to COVID. Aeden was UAA defensive player of the year in 2023-2024. He led Brandeis last year in rebounds and blocks. Odd statistic -- last year he had more luck shooting three pointers (19 of 38) than free throws (14 of 29). Brandeis is also adding another freshman, Emre Bayazit from IME Academy.

Brandeis's most notable transfer this upcoming season is DJ Courtney, who played for Kalamazoo last season.   He started 7 of the first 8 games of the 2024-25 season for the Hornets and had a 26 point game vs CWRU before injuries prematurely ended his season before MIAA conference play.  If Courtney has recovered from his injuries, I look for him to really help the Judges out. 

I can't believe that WeAreD3 almost lost the game on the Elam Ending after coming into it up by 20 points, leading 86-66.  Fail Harder proved today why they were going to be WeAreD3's toughest TBT opponent to date.  WeAreD3 was up by as much as 29 points in the 4th quarter, but Fail Harder rallied in the Elam Ending to take a 93-92 lead with a target score of 94 points for the victory.  A free throw by WeAreD3 tied the game at 93-93, but I was expecting that Fail Harder was going to score the winning bucket.  Instead, WeAreD3 is heading to the semifinals on Thursday, and I am breathing again. 

I had to bite the bullet this year and get an annual subscription to FloCollege for the 2025-26 academic year, as Brandeis along with the rest of the UAA decided to go with the Flo.   As I stated on the UAA men's basketball page a few weeks ago, the only bright side that I see with this is that I can watch Brandeis games on demand on my Roku TV again-- the streaming player on the Brandeis website last season did not allow me to Chromecast games onto my Roku TV, and the ability to watch games on demand on the player was limited to as long as a new game did not replace it on the player. 

Previously, I only subscribed to FloCollege for basketball season, as I also had the benefit of watching Bentley U's conference, the DII NE10, as well as Northeastern U's conference, the Division I CAA, on the service.  Bentley is the other college in Waltham, MA, where Brandeis is located, and Northeastern is where my dad and one of my uncles attended undergraduate education back in the 1950s, and where I went to law school after I graduated from Brandeis.   Along with NEWMAC also available through FloSports, there was enough value in the service to pay the monthly fee for 3 months of basketball.   I had only subscribed to the service in the winter, however, because I did not see a need for it for the fall and spring.

Now that the UAA has joined FloSports, I will need the FloCollege service to watch soccer as well as basketball, so I figured it was best to subscribe right now and pay the one-time $107.88 for the year so that I can at least watch some programs on-demand for July and August before the fall sports start up.   I made my payment yesterday, so I am set until the end of June next year with this service.

With my income, $107.88 is a big expense for me to pay for a 1 time payment for the year, but it will save me money over paying at least 6 months of $19.99 each per month.  It will also give me the option to watch baseball and softball of the other UAA teams, even if Brandeis is not expected to go to postseason in those sports next spring.

It is a real shame though that a lot of D3 fans, either due to income or due to philosophic objections about paid streams for D3 Sports, will not be able to watch UAA games live for at least the next 5 years.  It also will make it harder for me to talk and promote my league as a lot of fans will only be able to get info second hand and not be able to get the experience of watching UAA games for themselves unless they are fortunate enough to live in the areas of these universities and are able to attend in person. 

The UAA has decided to go with the Flo for the next 5 years.   On June 20, the UAA announced an exclusive 5 year deal to have all of their teams exclusively streamed on FloSports.   Which means that I will have to buy FloCollege as a necessary streaming package for at least the fall soccer and winter basketball seasons.   

If there is one silver lining to this, it will be that I can finally watch all Brandeis home games on my Roku TV again provided that I pay the FloCollege subscription fees.

http://uaasports.info/news/2025/6/20/general-uaa-and-flosports-enter-exclusive-media-rights-agreement.aspx

NCAA DIII Baseball NPI summary report has been released for games played through Sunday, April 27--

http://stats.ncaa.org/selection_rankings/nitty_gritties/44396

UAA teams in the NPI baseball rankings--

1.)  CWRU-- AQ-- #11 nationally-- NPI of 59.733-- down 1 spot from #10 last week.
2.)  Emory-- #24 nationally-- NPI of 58.284-- up 4 spots from #28 last week.
3.)  UChicago-- #28 nationally-- NPI of 57.810-- down 2 spots from #26 last week.
4.)  WashU-- #30 nationally-- NPI of 57.613-- up 9 spots from #39 last week.
5.)  NYU-- #94 nationally-- NPI of 54.243-- up 5 spots from #99 last week.
6.)  Brandeis-- #228 nationally-- NPI of 48.805-- up 20 spots from #248 last week.

Emory, UChicago, and WashU are in very good positions to get at-large bids to the NCAA DIII Baseball tournament at this time with a little less than 2 weeks left.

Quote from: DagarmanSpartan on April 27, 2025, 03:48:20 PMSpartans took Gamw 4 today 15-3.

It appears that CWRU won every conference series this year.

CWRU won their series vs WashU 3 games to 1.

CWRU won their series vs Emory 3 games to 1.

CWRU won their series vs UChicago 3 games to 1.

CWRU won their series vs NYU with 2 wins, 1 loss, and 1 tie.

CWRU won their series vs Brandeis 3 games to 1.

That accounts for the 14-5-1 in UAA play for the Spartans.

Game has now gone final in Chicago--

FINAL-- UChicago 3, NYU 1 (7 innings).

UChicago finishes UAA play at 12-8 in the UAA and is now at 26-13 overall with 1 scheduled non-conference game remaining to be played.

NYU finishes UAA play at 8-11-1 in the UAA and is now at 20-16-1 overall with 3 scheduled non-conference games yet to be played.

UAA baseball conference play for 2025 has now concluded for the season.

UChicago leads 3-0 over NYU after 6 innings in a game scheduled for 7 innings in Game #2 of a doubleheader-- Final game of the 4 game series.

Update-- Game video bug says 4-0 lead for UChicago, but live stats only have UChicago leading 3-0.  I will go with the live stats. 

NYU now down to their last at-bats in the top of the 7th.

Game has gone final in Waltham, MA

FINAL score-- CWRU 15, Brandeis 3  (7 innings, 10 run rule).

CWRU finishes UAA play at 14-5-1 in the UAA and improves to 25-12-1 overall with 2 scheduled non-conference games remaining.

Brandeis finishes UAA play at 3-17 in the UAA and drops to 11-27 overall with 2 scheduled non-conference games remaining. 

Brandeis did not score in the bottom of the 6th.

In the top of the 7th with 1 out, CWRU is now leading 15-1.

CWRU can win this game in the bottom of the 7th by preventing Brandeis from scoring at least 5 runs.

Brandeis did not score in the bottom of the 5th.  In the top of the 6th, CWRU has just hit a 2 run homer with 1 out to extend their lead to 12 runs over Brandeis at 13-1 in favor of the Spartans.

Brandeis now needs to score at least 3 runs in the 6th and 7th to avoid having this game end early on the 10 run rule.

In Waltham, MA-- CWRU is now leading over Brandeis, 11-1 after 4 1/2 innings.   Brandeis has the bottom of the 5th, 6th, and 7th to cut into this Spartan 10 run lead and to prevent being run-ruled out in 7 innings.   

While we wait for the remainder of UAA baseball play to go final today, here are the remaining non-conference games left for UAA baseball teams to play over the next 2 weeks.

Emory, WashU, and UChicago are candidates for 3 of the 23 at-large bids at this time based on the national NPI rankings through games of Sunday, April 20.   An updated report reflecting games played through today is scheduled to be released no later than Monday morning.

The 2025 UAA Baseball champion and AQ-- CWRU-- has 2 home non-conference games remaining at Nobby's Ballpark.  CWRU is scheduled to play Baldwin-Wallace this Tuesday, April 29, and is scheduled to finish the regular season vs John Carroll next Sunday, May 4.

WashU and Emory have finished their regular seasons.

1.)  UChicago has an away game vs Concordia-Chicago scheduled for Wednesday, April 30 to finish their regular season.

2.)  NYU finishes their regular season with a scheduled home Senior Day doubleheader on Staten Island vs Mount St. Vincent on Thursday, May 1.  The Violets then are scheduled to play an away game at Scranton on Friday, May 2 to conclude regular season play.

3.)  Brandeis finishes their regular season with 2 home games in Waltham, MA-- vs Amherst on Tuesday, April 29, and their Senior Day game vs Curry on Wednesday, April 30.