UAA Soccer

[SierraFD3soccer]

Paul,

this year, most all of the UAA did poorly out of conference, this caused the Strength of schedule for UAA to fall across the board and then the in-conference games didn't carry any significance nationally.

the opposite was true for NESCAC, all did well out of conference so then they all are beating each other and getting bonuses for quality wins.

UAA needs to be better in the first part of the season if they hope to go another 20 years with getting multiple bids (last time with one bid was 2004).

I know this isn't the test but I wonder if most folks think Wesleyan and Hamilton are better than or at least equal to every single UAA.  Remember, if not for an AQ, UAA would have had zero.  Rochester, for example, finished just about where they always do...9-4-4 (3-2-2) with their usual well above average non-conference schedule.

Will it take the UAA teams a number of years till it becomes a premier conference again?  Can it be fixed by scheduling and winning against top out of conference teams?  For instance, with W&L's scheduling and success, it could be argued that it has dragged ODAC to a two or three team qualifier?

[Kuiper]

Paul,

this year, most all of the UAA did poorly out of conference, this caused the Strength of schedule for UAA to fall across the board and then the in-conference games didn't carry any significance nationally.

the opposite was true for NESCAC, all did well out of conference so then they all are beating each other and getting bonuses for quality wins.

UAA needs to be better in the first part of the season if they hope to go another 20 years with getting multiple bids (last time with one bid was 2004).

I know this isn't the test but I wonder if most folks think Wesleyan and Hamilton are better than or at least equal to every single UAA.  Remember, if not for an AQ, UAA would have had zero.  Rochester, for example, finished just about where they always do...9-4-4 (3-2-2) with their usual well above average non-conference schedule.

Will it take the UAA teams a number of years till it becomes a premier conference again?  Can it be fixed by scheduling and winning against top out of conference teams?  For instance, with W&L's scheduling and success, it could be argued that it has dragged ODAC to a two or three team qualifier?

The UAA's status as a multi-bid conference was artificially boosted by the Regional Ranking system of selection. It was unique among conferences in having teams in several different regions, some of which were fairly weak or lesser populated in men's soccer.  That meant that a lot of UAA teams were regionally ranked pretty regularly by the time they got to conference play and UAA teams had several chances to amass wins against regionally ranked opponents that simply were not available to teams during conference play in conferences where all teams were part of the same region.  Those wins against ranked teams were like the Quality Win Bonuses of today's NPI and few conferences had teams with the travel budgets to compete with the UAA in racking them up.

Under the NPI, UAA is going to have to adjust its scheduling in non-conference games in order to survive as a high-achieving conference.  It no longer has a built-in advantage over other conferences.  Indeed, it now has a built-in disadvantage because the back-loaded conference schedule requires them to find a lot of early non-conference games, which might be harder to do when they don't have something to offer like a regionally ranked win prospect. Now, it's just the risk of a loss against a team that might not be highly ranked for NPI purposes. 

My guess is UAA will pivot from strong early schedules to more of a mix of finding wins in the first half of the season before conference play.  Although the NPI was ostensibly structured by the Men's Soccer Committee to encourage strong scheduling, the reality is that if you are in a conference with strong teams, you may be better off scheduling primarily weaker non-conference opponents, with a few teams playing strong local opponents mixed in that they can beat, like NESCAC does for the most part, knowing that if everyone arrives to conference games with good records, they're going to amass NPI points during conference play.  It's the strong teams in weak conferences that need to find better opponents to guard against missing out completely if they are upset in the conference tournament.

[deutschfan]

Ignominious end for the UAA with Emory being shut down in first round. Chicago has to be biggest disappointment from national champ in 2022 to sub .500 in two years. After the Emory loss the coaching staff mentioned in their press release the possibility of a NCAA bid. After the Wash U loss the coaching staff declined to even issue a recap of the game. That was total sour grapes.

[Hopkins92]

Paul,

this year, most all of the UAA did poorly out of conference, this caused the Strength of schedule for UAA to fall across the board and then the in-conference games didn't carry any significance nationally.

the opposite was true for NESCAC, all did well out of conference so then they all are beating each other and getting bonuses for quality wins.

UAA needs to be better in the first part of the season if they hope to go another 20 years with getting multiple bids (last time with one bid was 2004).

I know this isn't the test but I wonder if most folks think Wesleyan and Hamilton are better than or at least equal to every single UAA.  Remember, if not for an AQ, UAA would have had zero.  Rochester, for example, finished just about where they always do...9-4-4 (3-2-2) with their usual well above average non-conference schedule.

Will it take the UAA teams a number of years till it becomes a premier conference again?  Can it be fixed by scheduling and winning against top out of conference teams?  For instance, with W&L's scheduling and success, it could be argued that it has dragged ODAC to a two or three team qualifier?

The UAA's status as a multi-bid conference was artificially boosted by the Regional Ranking system of selection. It was unique among conferences in having teams in several different regions, some of which were fairly weak or lesser populated in men's soccer.  That meant that a lot of UAA teams were regionally ranked pretty regularly by the time they got to conference play and UAA teams had several chances to amass wins against regionally ranked opponents that simply were not available to teams during conference play in conferences where all teams were part of the same region.  Those wins against ranked teams were like the Quality Win Bonuses of today's NPI and few conferences had teams with the travel budgets to compete with the UAA in racking them up.

Under the NPI, UAA is going to have to adjust its scheduling in non-conference games in order to survive as a high-achieving conference.  It no longer has a built-in advantage over other conferences.  Indeed, it now has a built-in disadvantage because the back-loaded conference schedule requires them to find a lot of early non-conference games, which might be harder to do when they don't have something to offer like a regionally ranked win prospect. Now, it's just the risk of a loss against a team that might not be highly ranked for NPI purposes. 

My guess is UAA will pivot from strong early schedules to more of a mix of finding wins in the first half of the season before conference play.  Although the NPI was ostensibly structured by the Men's Soccer Committee to encourage strong scheduling, the reality is that if you are in a conference with strong teams, you may be better off scheduling primarily weaker non-conference opponents, with a few teams playing strong local opponents mixed in that they can beat, like NESCAC does for the most part, knowing that if everyone arrives to conference games with good records, they're going to amass NPI points during conference play.  It's the strong teams in weak conferences that need to find better opponents to guard against missing out completely if they are upset in the conference tournament.

Solid explainer, kuiper.