NESCAC

[Bobcat1]

Trying to remember the last time Bates was 3-2 in the conference midway through the season. They are playing with more and more confidence with each passing game. Can't wait to see how they respond tomorrow against a desperate Amherst team...

[Mr.Right]

Nescac Predictions:

Hamilton at Wesleyan------------Hamilton is coming off a real disappointing weekend losing 2 tough matches at Home to Conn and Midd. Both games could have gone the other way but Hamilton could not get it done as they scored 1 goal in those 2 games. It's funny because the past few years just when you are about to count Hamilton out they surprise or bounce back with a victory or two. Hamilton has a mighty big weekend coming up with 2 games at Wesleyan and at Tufts. I can honestly say they could go 2-0 or 0-2 or even 0-0-2 I have no idea. Wesleyan is coming off two straight 1-0 losses at Bates and at Tufts. They showed 1st Half last night at Tufts they have some pieces. They look to be decent in net, Teddy Lyons is a Nick Jackson prototype and KMP and Gallo along with Haas up top can create some dangerous chances. Wesleyan's backline looks like Wheeler has moved Devanney to CB and he is quick and skilled but not the most physical presence as is Wesleyan's other backs. The Frosh in midfield Kelsch adds size but did nothing for me with his skill. Maybe it was an off night. Getting to the point it seems Wesleyan has some pieces but is not quite back to a level they were once at 5-10 years ago. Based on other teams in Nescac, Wheeler and Wesleyan are going to have a difficult time avoiding their 3rd straight missed Top 8 / Nescac Playoffs. For a school like Wesleyan it is just unacceptable but Wesleyan might need 1 or 2 more solid recruiting classes before they are contending again. Hamilton has more size especially in the back than Wesleyan. Hamilton's backline is quick enough to deal with Wesleyan's forwards. KMP still has zero goals for a Wesleyan side that cannot score goals much less create many chances. Hamilton takes this game.........Hamilton 1-0

Has Wheeler's program been the same since he missed his window to try to jump to an Ivy League job earlier this decade? Wild speculation aside, it's got to be frustrating that Wesleyan Men's Soccer has flatlined while the university boosted its athletic program in recent years, with a bunch of other teams at the university achieving newfound success.

Exactly....Wesleyan hired the former Williams Football Coach to be its AD and Football Coach I believe. I believe he went to Wesleyan but made some stipulations to Wesleyan Administration which he apparently got.  The biggest being Wesleyan admissions basically "opening the door" to some kids for Football and Lax that had really no business getting into the school otherwise. I believe Wesleyan followed Bowdoin and got rid of the Admissions reading SAT's and just focused on GPA. This allowed another bunch of kids to get in that would otherwise not have in the past. Basically, like Trinity Football took priority over anything else. Just looking at Wesleyan's field and knowing that is the same field they have played on since 1950 shows how much Wesleyan / Wheeler is getting for support. Still Wheeler should be able to sneak kids in without that SAT barrier you would think. Compare Wesleyan in say 2009 to this outfit and it is not even close. So you can blame recruiting but you can also blame quite possibly this same tired tedious system of play. It works when you have the GK, back 4 and midfielders that run all day. His system to me has gotten stale. If you were a recruit and you watched them today on that field would you want to go there? IDK...Wheeler has been their 19 years and while I do not think he is going anywhere I believe the Football Coach / AD fired his wife who was Head Coach of Women's Lax and hired Belichick's kid. So he does need to be careful but yea his window of leaving is pretty much gone and it was no secret he wanted out of town by 2010. After that NCAA Sweet 16 run in 2009 he almost rode the coattails to an Ivy League job but he has come up just short in that as well. I think this can all be turned around by getting a few more pieces to surround KMP with. He never did and now KMP will be graduating..Still they are only 4 games in at 1-3-0 in Nescac with games v Trinity and at Colby coming up this week. He very well could be 3-3-0 if the ball bounces Wesleyan's way..

[blooter442]

Have to say I don't get why Amherst had Bryce Johnson doing flip throws on seemingly every throw in (defensively and offensively). Attacking, I get it, it's like a corner, but making it a whole production to chuck it up the sideline when in the defensive half of the field seems a bit futile to me.

[Once_A_Metro_Always_A_Red]

Nescac Predictions:

Hamilton at Wesleyan------------Hamilton is coming off a real disappointing weekend losing 2 tough matches at Home to Conn and Midd. Both games could have gone the other way but Hamilton could not get it done as they scored 1 goal in those 2 games. It's funny because the past few years just when you are about to count Hamilton out they surprise or bounce back with a victory or two. Hamilton has a mighty big weekend coming up with 2 games at Wesleyan and at Tufts. I can honestly say they could go 2-0 or 0-2 or even 0-0-2 I have no idea. Wesleyan is coming off two straight 1-0 losses at Bates and at Tufts. They showed 1st Half last night at Tufts they have some pieces. They look to be decent in net, Teddy Lyons is a Nick Jackson prototype and KMP and Gallo along with Haas up top can create some dangerous chances. Wesleyan's backline looks like Wheeler has moved Devanney to CB and he is quick and skilled but not the most physical presence as is Wesleyan's other backs. The Frosh in midfield Kelsch adds size but did nothing for me with his skill. Maybe it was an off night. Getting to the point it seems Wesleyan has some pieces but is not quite back to a level they were once at 5-10 years ago. Based on other teams in Nescac, Wheeler and Wesleyan are going to have a difficult time avoiding their 3rd straight missed Top 8 / Nescac Playoffs. For a school like Wesleyan it is just unacceptable but Wesleyan might need 1 or 2 more solid recruiting classes before they are contending again. Hamilton has more size especially in the back than Wesleyan. Hamilton's backline is quick enough to deal with Wesleyan's forwards. KMP still has zero goals for a Wesleyan side that cannot score goals much less create many chances. Hamilton takes this game.........Hamilton 1-0

Has Wheeler's program been the same since he missed his window to try to jump to an Ivy League job earlier this decade? Wild speculation aside, it's got to be frustrating that Wesleyan Men's Soccer has flatlined while the university boosted its athletic program in recent years, with a bunch of other teams at the university achieving newfound success.

Exactly....Wesleyan hired the former Williams Football Coach to be its AD and Football Coach I believe. I believe he went to Wesleyan but made some stipulations to Wesleyan Administration which he apparently got.  The biggest being Wesleyan admissions basically "opening the door" to some kids for Football and Lax that had really no business getting into the school otherwise. I believe Wesleyan followed Bowdoin and got rid of the Admissions reading SAT's and just focused on GPA. This allowed another bunch of kids to get in that would otherwise not have in the past. Basically, like Trinity Football took priority over anything else. Just looking at Wesleyan's field and knowing that is the same field they have played on since 1950 shows how much Wesleyan / Wheeler is getting for support. Still Wheeler should be able to sneak kids in without that SAT barrier you would think. Compare Wesleyan in say 2009 to this outfit and it is not even close. So you can blame recruiting but you can also blame quite possibly this same tired tedious system of play. It works when you have the GK, back 4 and midfielders that run all day. His system to me has gotten stale. If you were a recruit and you watched them today on that field would you want to go there? IDK...Wheeler has been their 19 years and while I do not think he is going anywhere I believe the Football Coach / AD fired his wife who was Head Coach of Women's Lax and hired Belichick's kid. So he does need to be careful but yea his window of leaving is pretty much gone and it was no secret he wanted out of town by 2010. After that NCAA Sweet 16 run in 2009 he almost rode the coattails to an Ivy League job but he has come up just short in that as well. I think this can all be turned around by getting a few more pieces to surround KMP with. He never did and now KMP will be graduating..Still they are only 4 games in at 1-3-0 in Nescac with games v Trinity and at Colby coming up this week. He very well could be 3-3-0 if the ball bounces Wesleyan's way..

Yeah this is a pretty solid run-down of things there. I think it's worth pointing out that things also dipped when longtime assistant Rob Stone moved on. He wasn't necessarily the world's greatest soccer mind, but he was a good man-manager and had Wheeler's trust, which is pretty hard to come by as Wheeler keeps a pretty tight circle in terms of people he'll actually take input from. The thing is, that I'm not sure that Wheeler is a bad coach -- at least, he's fairly knowledgeable about the game and coaching techniques, is on top of good ways to train + stay fit, etc -- and I still think he's quite good at drilling good defensive habits into his team.

These are the problems there as I see it:

For starters, there's a lack of any real attacking identity/strategy/gameplan, and certainly not one that's effective. Defense has always been Wheeler's strong suit, and Wesleyan really hasn't had an systematic way to score goals in years. They may get goals at times, but every so often you'll score some in a game as random as soccer. He also, as I mentioned, is very much a defense-first kind of guy and the team plays a bunch of their games on Jackson - a field basically immune to beautiful soccer - so you'd think he'd be looking for the big trees that the Amhersts and Bowdoins and the like try to recruit. But, often Wesleyan is stocked with guys like KMP and other slightly-undersized, but technical players who then have to be shoe-horned into Wheeler's pretty rigid system. And the few times this decade when he's tried to adjust his tactics to his players a bit (going to a high-pressing 4-3-3 or a 3-5-2) he's tended to abandon those plans halfway through the season after a couple poor results. At the end of the day, he'll always come back to the 4-4-2 that he's comfortable in. And frankly, there's no reason his teams can't have success in that system but then he's got to recruit guys that will be successful there.

For all the talk that KMP needs to step up and get goals for this team: the team often is doing so much defending and has so little sustained possession in the attacking half that he's rarely ever in the types of possessions where he can have the ball at his feet and create dangerous scoring opportunities. Sure, he probably should still be doing more, but if you make him a box-to-box midfielder (whether centrally or out wide) in Wheeler's 4-4-2, he's often going to be pretty far away from those half spaces right around the top of the box where he'd be most threatening to defenses.

[d3soccer]

Idk whats going on with Colby. Putting (used to be) mohawk guy on the wing is suspect, especially when he's a cdm. What happened to all the potential from 2015, half the team is gone looking at the roster. #6 should not be in there, first Conn and now Middlebury, he is dropping points for them. Ewan seems to be at wits end, doesn't seem like he will be back after this season. The whole attack seems to struggle and they are lucky to get points out of any game, except trinity.

[NESCAC11]

Idk whats going on with Colby. Putting (used to be) mohawk guy on the wing is suspect, especially when he's a cdm. What happened to all the potential from 2015, half the team is gone looking at the roster. #6 should not be in there, first Conn and now Middlebury, he is dropping points for them. Ewan seems to be at wits end, doesn't seem like he will be back after this season. The whole attack seems to struggle and they are lucky to get points out of any game, except trinity.

Why do you think Ewan won't be back?

[blooter442]

Just saw Tufts' winner from today on video. Nice through ball by Najjar into space -- Hamilton LB was caught too far up the pitch -- and great finish by Braun as the 'keeper came out but I do wonder what the Hamilton CB was thinking. He was running outside the right post and probably could have stopped it from entering the goal if he had booted the ball out for a corner behind the goal (Braun was quite wide right and the ball traveled quite a ways to get to the goalmouth before crossing the line). Instead he tried to chase it as it dribbled towards the goal to slide tackle it off the line but couldn't do it. I could understand maybe he was afraid of scoring an own goal but I do think he could have stopped it from entering the goalmouth if he had been more incisive. (Much easier said than done, of course.)

Jumbos are perfect (9-0) at the end of September. That has to be a first (last year's Amherst defeat came on Sept. 30).

[Brother Flounder]

Have to say I don't get why Amherst had Bryce Johnson doing flip throws on seemingly every throw in (defensively and offensively). Attacking, I get it, it's like a corner, but making it a whole production to chuck it up the sideline when in the defensive half of the field seems a bit futile to me.

I thought the same thing a few times....

[Brother Flounder]

Just saw Tufts' winner from today on video. Nice through ball by Najjar into space -- Hamilton LB was caught too far up the pitch -- and great finish by Braun as the 'keeper came out but I do wonder what the Hamilton CB was thinking. He was running outside the right post and probably could have stopped it from entering the goal if he had booted the ball out for a corner behind the goal (Braun was quite wide right and the ball traveled quite a ways to get to the goalmouth before crossing the line). Instead he tried to chase it as it dribbled towards the goal to slide tackle it off the line but couldn't do it. I could understand maybe he was afraid of scoring an own goal but I do think he could have stopped it from entering the goalmouth if he had been more incisive. (Much easier said than done, of course.)

Jumbos are perfect (9-0) at the end of September. That has to be a first (last year's Amherst defeat came on Sept. 30).

I thought the Jumbos may be a little flat off the Amherst win. The controlled the game today but had a hard time finding the net.... I can't recall the undefeated/no tie record this late in the season, at least in the Shapiro era. Still a few hard games left.....

[BetaBob]

They had one goal disallowed on a pretty weak call from the ref.

[ECSUalum]

Mr Right's Sat NESCAC predictions just about perfect with winners and scores!  Only miss was Mid-Colby 1-1 tie vs prediction of Colby 1-0 victory!  NICE JOB!!

[Bobcat1]

Mr Right's Sat NESCAC predictions just about perfect with winners and scores!  Only miss was Mid-Colby 1-1 tie vs prediction of Colby 1-0 victory!  NICE JOB!!

Yes, very impressive prediction Saturday by Mr. Right! As was said earlier, he had taken his analysis and predictions up another notch so far this year. I thought Bates acquitted themselves well at Amherst yesterday. I have to admit when Bakken put them up 1-0 early I was thinking about how sweet it would be to take a point or three from this game.  It was not meant to be. Colman's shot in the 81st minute requited a quality save by Montanaro, but Giammattei was in the right place at the right time to capitalize on the rebound. Credit to Amherst, they needed the game and they got the three points. There was lots of chatter about the physicality of the game the day before with Tufts. Apparently Lind delivered a big elbow to one of the Tufts players early in the game. I looked at the box score and noticed neither Rojas nor Paoletta played yesterday for Tufts against Hamilton.  Could be something to keep an eye on.

[blooter442]

Bowdoin facing Thomas at home this afternoon...the Terriers are 9-1 with the lone loss coming to Colby.

[Bobcat1]

Bowdoin facing Thomas at home this afternoon...the Terriers are 9-1 with the lone loss coming to Colby.

Been raining up here most of the day.  Will be a slick pitch.

[Mr.Right]

Mr Right's Sat NESCAC predictions just about perfect with winners and scores!  Only miss was Mid-Colby 1-1 tie vs prediction of Colby 1-0 victory!  NICE JOB!!

Haha thanks ECSU...Nescac Men's Soccer has become very predictable if you are paying attention. When you have 11 Coaches that are more afraid of losing than going out and winning it gets easier to predict. There are some games that are tougher to predict than others. For instance, today.........



Trinity at Wesleyan--------This is a difficult game to predict because both teams are DESPERATE for a Win. Trinity / Pilger does not sit in even though I would give him free reign to do so because of how awful they are at defending and how close they are to going 0-10-0. IMO this is Trinity's last chance to get a Win in Nescac this season. Whether Trinity wins this game or not their season will be finished Wednesday October 24th.  It looks like a 54 day season and then the boots get hung up in Hartford. This game becomes difficult to predict because of both teams circumstance, bad weather and because I do not know if Wesleyan will decide to show up today and bust their tail to get back in the Nescac Top 8 hunt. They are by no means out of it yet BUT if they lose / draw today than I just do not see how Wesleyan gets into the Nescac Playoffs. Right about now I am betting Wesleyan's Jackson Field is a mud pit and I am betting if possible they move this game to the turf. No way Football will let them play on the turf because they will be practicing and the Women have it booked for tonight. They could play on Wesleyan's Field Hockey field or this game could get moved to tomorrow. If they played on Jackson Field today not only would it be an extremely ugly game they will rip that field to shreds and make it much worse than it already is. Metro's analysis of Wesleyan's situation and what has led them to present day is spot on. I think Wheeler should push KMP out to the flank today and have him go at Trinity's Frosh RB who is a weak defender. That is assuming he is still starting at RB as I have not seen Trinity play in a week and a half. So get KMP out of the middle of the field and hopefully he can create some dangerous chances from out wide that Gallo, Haas or LaCorte can finish. Wesleyan will get more SOG on this game than they have all season they just need to finish them. In 7 games Wesleyan has 33 SOG which is basically a friendly 5 SOG a game. That is one reason why Wesleyan has scored only 4 Goals all year. They have been shutout in 3 consecutive games 1-0. They have not scored a Goal in almost 3 weeks since defeating Bowdoin at Home. That changes today.............Wesleyan 3-1