2015 D3 Season: NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

[Falconer]

AA selections are always so subjective, always dependent on which players one has actually seen.

I put more credence in the NSCAA list (http://www.nscaa.com/awards/2015-ncaa-division-iii-men-s-all-america-teams) than the d3soccer list, b/c the four best players I saw were all on the list--Gilbert Waso, Mike Ryan (the very best, IMO), William Webb, and Jacob Bender. As I've said a few times earlier, Bender might be the best outside defender Messiah has ever had, at least when his game on both ends is considered. I did not see any outside defenders in the tournament who looked as good as Bender. He was 3rd team, and I won't argue with that b/c I didn't see a lot of the others. But, I find it hard to believe he was left off the d3 list entirely. I see that Rummelhart of Loras made the d3 list, too, and he is surely deserving. It's awfully hard for me to understand why Ryan wasn't first team on either list. He's better than Waso or Amolo, IMO, and they both made first team on at least one list. But, of course, opinion is the bottom line.

[Mr.Right]

For the most part the D3 AA list was well done. I can think of 10 strikers I would pick ahead of Bingham in D3 if I was drafting a team from scratch. I respect Bingham and have seen him quite a bit the past few years. His stats are impressive but he is AT BEST 3rd team AA. He is a very cagey SMART player who gets to where the ball is going to end up better than most players in D3 but he is not even a legitimate striker (position wise) IMO. He finishes well and had some big goals this year but besides the goals against Stevens, Bowdoin and a couple other NEWMAC teams his stats are heavily inflated against teams with over-inflated records let alone bad records. I  must say after watching Bowdoin at MIT in the NCAA 2nd round it looked like Bowdoin was in control by the time OT rolled around and OUT OF Nowhere a seemingly harmless cross that should have been cleared by Nescac POY Nabil Odulate was finished by Bingham as he appeared out of nowhere by getting behind his defender and getting to the ball FIRST, Very smart player but personally if I was drafting a team from scratch I can think of 3-4 Nescac strikers I would choose over him. Just my opinion.

[Mr.Right]

Also,

I cannot support the fact that these teams are picked by people that have seen a player play only once or maybe even never. That is no EXCUSE. I never take these selections seriously almost like the week to week Top 25's but if others take this stuff seriously than maybe we should get 2-3 hardcore D3 fans voting instead. Personally, in New England and especially in Nescac I see some of these players 8-10 times a year. I will admit I only saw 3 Trinity TX games this year and I do not recall seeing any of the California schools this year or even Colorado College but if I had a vote I would take it seriously and catch even more games than I do currently. That being said I would have no interest but I can think of 3 posters on here who would and would take the role seriously to really commit their time to watch as many games as they could and really evaluate teams and players all year long. Selfishly, it would allow me to get some scouting reports on teams out of region from posters I respect and get more opinions / debate going on site from other regions.

[lastguyoffthebench]

Gilbert Waso, 9G / 8A;  1st team AA as a FRESHMAN forward, and did not score a goal AFTER October 7th. The last 8 GAMES of the season and NO GOALS...  it's a real head scratcher...  it's not like Etown had a truly difficult schedule.  6 of the 9 goals came against the likes of .500 DeSales, 5 win Gwynedd Mercy who plays NO ONE, 4 win Wilkes and 4 win Juniata squad that was winless in the Landmark.

Is Mid-Atlantic representation that strong for NSCAA?

[Flying Weasel]

(1) Should honors/awards be recognizing the top players or the top performers?  In other words, should honors go to the player who, when on his game, is one of the best or to the player who, regardless how he stacks up talent/abiltity-wise, most consistently put in top performances throughout the season?

I put more credence in the NSCAA list (http://www.nscaa.com/awards/2015-ncaa-division-iii-men-s-all-america-teams) than the d3soccer list, b/c the four best players I saw were all on the list--Gilbert Waso, Mike Ryan (the very best, IMO), William Webb, and Jacob Bender.     . . .    It's awfully hard for me to understand why Ryan wasn't first team on either list. He's better than Waso or Amolo, IMO, and they both made first team on at least one list. But, of course, opinion is the bottom line.

Gilbert Waso, 9G / 8A;  1st team AA as a FRESHMAN forward, and did not score a goal AFTER October 7th. The last 8 GAMES of the season and NO GOALS...  it's a real head scratcher...  it's not like Etown had a truly difficult schedule.  6 of the 9 goals came against the likes of .500 DeSales, 5 win Gwynedd Mercy who plays NO ONE, 4 win Wilkes and 4 win Juniata squad that was winless in the Landmark.

Well, lastguyoffthebench already addressed why E-town's Waso as an All-American, not to mention 1st Teamer, is very questionable at best.

CMU's Webb scored one goal with no assists in six conference games.  Sure, it's a tough conference, but still, that doesn't help your AA resume. If he doesn't score a hattrick against Messiah in game 3, I don't think he ever gets on the national radar, and scoring multiple goals against Messiah never would have happened in any of the last 15 years. Messiah's defensive/goalkeeping miscues had a lot to do with those goals with credit to Webb for taking full advantage.  He scored 3 against Muskingum (4-14-0) in season opening 8-0 win, scored a pair against Bethany (5-12-2) in a 7-0 win, and scored two against Mount Aloysius (12-7-2) in 3-2 win.  So beyond the Messiah game and those three other multiple goal games, he only scored three goals (with three assists) in the other 13 games, failing to score against Allegheny (4-11-2) and unable to keep CMU from being knocked out of the NCAA tournament in the first round when he went scoreless against Gordon in a 2-1 loss. Not sure you can fault voters for passing over Webb.

After his observations about Waso, I wonder if lastguyoffthebench realized this about Mike Ryan. Ryan didn't score a goal or get an assist in any of his five post-season games (3 NJAC, 2 NCAA).  And, sure, I understand a player can contribute in other ways and help the cause in ways that don't show up in the box score, but when trying to select just 8 or so forwards from among almost 1,000 D-III forwards, scoring does matter.  And during the regular season, Ryan didn't score or get an assist against top non conference opponents Salisbury (L0-1), Chris. Newport (T0-0), or Haverford (L0-3), nor did he score or get an assist in their upset losses to Swarthmore (L0-1), TCNJ (L0-1), Randolph (L0-3). Is Ryan a very good forward.  Yes.  He's proven that over his three years at RU-C.  But that doesn't sound like a 1st Team resume to me this year, and I don't think you could fault a voter who took a pass on him.

And it brings me back to the first of the three questions I posed (the second question being similar).  Are the awards for the best players or the players with the best performances?  Is it for the most talented players or the ones who got the job done the most often and the most consistently throughout the season? Ideally it is both, but what is the driver?  I feel it should be a performance-based award/honor, not a grade on talent/ability.

[Ryan Harmanis]

Based on the nature of the Division III game, you are always going to be in a situation where most voters - coaches (NSCAA) or others (D3soccer.com) - have not seen all the players play.

My understanding of the NSCAA voting, limited as it is, is that the coaches get to vote for a certain number of players from teams they played against, at least for the early rounds.  From there, I'm not sure.  But the fact remains, the coaches have probably seen even fewer players than we have - they're on the sidelines during their own games and can't stream multiple games at the same time or watch 5 NCAA games in one day.  Also, for what it's worth, the NSCAA had forty-nine All-Americans, more than four full teams' worth, while D3soccer.com stuck with three teams of eleven.  I won't comment on which one is better, as it's great for these kids to get recognized, but certainly having sixteen extra players qualify for All-American status is a bit overinclusive and makes it less likely that there will be any snubs.

Also, for me, actually watching a player play can be a double-edged sword.  I've been around this long enough and played with/against/watched enough All-Americans to have a good sense of what they look like, the impact they have on games, and the stats they put up (or should put up).  So while watching a player can make me more likely to vote for them even w/o the stats - because they have a greater impact on the game, they're in a different class, etc. - it can also make me omit them because they aren't up to the standard I'm expecting from an All-American.  In that case, if the player is a stud forward based on the eye-test, that's where they start and if they don't put up points then I re-evaluate.  If the player looks pretty average yet scores 20 goals, I re-evaluate.  If the player doesn't look like an All-American live and the stats don't give me much to go on, then they probably aren't getting my vote.  And the more times you see a player, the more confident you are in that player's level and whether or not it lines up with his stats.

Look, it's an imperfect process.  If we're being truly honest, many of the best teams have players who will never sniff an All-American team but are much better players than some of the guys that make the AA teams, just because of the role they're asked to play.  Someone who would be a stud on an average-to-good team, putting up more stats and getting the lion's share of the accolades, might only be the fourth, fifth, sixth best player on Messiah, Amherst, Loras, etc.  I bet there are some guys who made the AA teams that would not start for some of the best teams.  But that's just the way this works.  Look at it this way - if Barcelona was a Division III team, would Luis Suarez get an All-American nod?  Would Sergio Busquets?  In my view they're both clearly in the top 3-4 in their position, but Barcelona would already have two All-Americans in Messi and Neymar, and teams aren't going to get that many players on the AA team.  It just won't happen.  Doesn't change the fact that Suarez is better than every other forward save Ronaldo.  He won't be an All-American.

I'm completely open to a better way of doing this, I'm just not sure if there's one out there.  I know D3soccer.com put a ton of time into the teams and the ballots in terms of giving voters as much information as possible to work with.

[PaulNewman]

A few random thoughts from NCAC NE land, including after reading some of comments above.

I wonder if Loras suffers a bit from playing so many players in terms of AA selections.  Based on the few games I saw (and without checking stats), I would have given strong consideration to Bradley and probably Simon.  Rummelhart is very dangerous but I haven't seen enough of him to have a strong opinion on whether overall he is dynamic enough to go beyond a regional AA team.

I think probably half or more of the selections at least 7 or 8 out of 10 of us would agree on, while allowing for disagreements about which team they were placed on.  In other words, I think at least half are difficult to question.  It's the other half or bottom third that likely could be interchanged with another 30-45 players from around the country.

From the areas that I follow most closely, IMO Bull, NPL, Amolo, Juniet and Schaefer are no-brainers, as are Hollingsworth, Carwile, Copeland, I guess Lanahan, Groenwold, Yarosh, Corkery, Andryk, Dylan Williams, probably Ryan, and maybe a couple of others. 

I personally would not have voted for Barnes of Kenyon (who made NSCAA 1st team and D3 2nd team) or Barnes for OWU. The first Barnes IMO is one of those players who falls into that category FW noted (you might pick on talent/ability but not necessarily body of work for the whole season).  I don't think he scored at all until late in the season.  Yes, he had a few huge, very dramatic PK conversions, but overall I don't think his season matched his lofty expectations.  Great, gutsy player, but for me, a regional AA selection.  The OWU Barnes (who has an older brother who played at Kenyon) was very good and very versatile over the course of the year, but I'm not sure he was even the 2nd best player on his team.  Regional AA also fits for me on him, although his stats for a mid/defender look pretty good I think.  For the NESCAC faithful, I easily could have picked Majumder, Kayne and Devlin over them (I say Devlin based on posters here as I haven't seen him live or enough on streaming to feel strongly).  I think Picard for Brandeis also was very underrated.

I loved watching Cvecko during the season but he seemed to fade (probably along with tighter coverage) along with CWRU.  Another regional AA for me who I could not have picked over Majumder or the striker for Chicago or probably TenBrook for F&M.  There was a player for St Olaf who was all over the field in the snow bowl game with Wheaton and I'm guessing no more than 5 posters on this forum could name him (Johnson, I think). 

I have no idea how the Calvin GK missed out.

Bottom line is the task is just too hard and some have explained why.  As much time as I spent following, I would have no clue how to pick the top 4 players in the NJAC or SUNYAC or be able to tell if some player from Redlands, Whitworth, or the Minnesota/Wisconsin or ODAC areas should have been included, which is a long-winded way of saying that I think NSCAA and D3soccer do a pretty good job.

[Ryan Harmanis]

I have no idea how the Calvin GK missed out.

Me neither.  We were giving him some stick for wearing a short sleeve jersey with a high turtleneck, but man, he was excellent in every aspect of the game.  Great with his feet and distribution, confident on crosses, and made some fantastic saves in almost every round of the NCAA tournament.  Kept Calvin in both the OWU game (tipped a bomb onto the crossbar, saved a breakaway when down 1-0) and in the Loras game, where he made a number of great saves to keep Calvin within striking distance.  Considering he played for a Final Four team, had a ridiculous save percentage, a ton of shutouts, and passed every level of the eye test, I think he's the biggest omission.  Frankly, if Bull hadn't made the stops in the penalty shootout against Oneonta (he'd been shaky during the game) I would have given the Calvin kid the top spot.

[PaulNewman]

I have no idea how the Calvin GK missed out.

Me neither.  We were giving him some stick for wearing a short sleeve jersey with a high turtleneck, but man, he was excellent in every aspect of the game.  Great with his feet and distribution, confident on crosses, and made some fantastic saves in almost every round of the NCAA tournament.  Kept Calvin in both the OWU game (tipped a bomb onto the crossbar, saved a breakaway when down 1-0) and in the Loras game, where he made a number of great saves to keep Calvin within striking distance.  Considering he played for a Final Four team, had a ridiculous save percentage, a ton of shutouts, and passed every level of the eye test, I think he's the biggest omission.  Frankly, if Bull hadn't made the stops in the penalty shootout against Oneonta (he'd been shaky during the game) I would have given the Calvin kid the top spot.

Haha.  I bet you guys were.  He looked like an elf out there in that outfit, but I sure wasn't laughing when he was heading the Final Four!  He also made point-blank breakaway saves against F&M and Kenyon.  For my money, he was the MVP of the NCAA Tournament (as a whole).

[pad3fan]

Can't help to wonder the impact that Ryan Souders, as an ex-keeper and coach, had on his play.

[blooter442]

I think probably half or more of the selections at least 7 or 8 out of 10 of us would agree on, while allowing for disagreements about which team they were placed on.  In other words, I think at least half are difficult to question.  It's the other half or bottom third that likely could be interchanged with another 30-45 players from around the country.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

CMU's Webb scored one goal with no assists in six conference games.  Sure, it's a tough conference, but still, that doesn't help your AA resume. If he doesn't score a hattrick against Messiah in game 3, I don't think he ever gets on the national radar, and scoring multiple goals against Messiah never would have happened in any of the last 15 years. Messiah's defensive/goalkeeping miscues had a lot to do with those goals with credit to Webb for taking full advantage.  He scored 3 against Muskingum (4-14-0) in season opening 8-0 win, scored a pair against Bethany (5-12-2) in a 7-0 win, and scored two against Mount Aloysius (12-7-2) in 3-2 win.  So beyond the Messiah game and those three other multiple goal games, he only scored three goals (with three assists) in the other 13 games, failing to score against Allegheny (4-11-2) and unable to keep CMU from being knocked out of the NCAA tournament in the first round when he went scoreless against Gordon in a 2-1 loss. Not sure you can fault voters for passing over Webb.

I think that the second sentence in particular very much speaks to my reasoning that Kayne didn't get All-American, and FWIW I agree with FW here about Webb. I think that given the context in which Messiah went out last year that many of us thought they would come out of the gates fast this year, so when Webb went and put a hat-trick past them it was surprising to say the least for most of us. However, when CMU's conference slate came along, he went missing, and he certainly wasn't the best CMU player on the pitch when I saw them (that would go to Friedlander or Z. Masciopinto.)

As far as NSCAA vs. D3soccer.com AA selections, I would pick D3soccer.com pretty much any day of the week. While I thought that the NSCAA did a good job with national rankings this year, the NSCAA AA selections – year after year – don't seem to take into account the difficulty of conferences, SOS, etc. in selecting their teams. How in the world Will Corkery – who, along with Yarosh, was incredibly important for Haverford and had great stats for any player, let alone a CM – didn't end up as an NSCAA selection is absolutely beyond me, especially with his big goals in the Centennial Conference tournament and NCAAs, but I was glad to see that D3soccer.com had him as a first-team selection because he really was an incredible player. Another perfect example of an NSCAA head-scratcher from 2012: I would not have picked Kamali Webson of Roger Williams as a 2nd Team All-American. I don't care that he scored six goals and four game-winners as a CB, especially when his team averaged 1.00 goals against over the course of the season and, as a center back, his primary responsibility is defending. Carwile as a center back had a lot of goals this year, but he was the leader of a defensive unit who had a goals against average of 0.35 and was an Elite 8 squad. Trevor Hoxsie in 2013 – another Roger Williams player, another NSCAA 2nd Team selection who was a good player, scored some big goals, but for me a 3rd Team AA selection at best who played in a weak conference and went quiet in the second half of the season.

One other interesting D3soccer.com vs. NSCAA selection from last year was Tyler Savonen. 1st Team NSCAA All-American, yet not picked at all by D3soccer.com. I personally would have had him 2nd or 3rd team on my AA team, but I can very much understand D3soccer.com's reasons in omitting him. Best player and the figurehead of a team that made it to the Elite 8; however, he scored just two conference goals (albeit both of them winners) and went scoreless in the final 7 games of the season. In fact, he had more goals and assists the year before, both in conference and out-of-conference. By that logic, if you're going to leave him out in 2013, then he should also have been left out in 2014 when he was less productive. Again, I understand there is more to the game than simply statistics, his leadership was vital to Brandeis going 17-2 in the regular season and getting to the Elite 8, and I still would have had him as an AA selection if I had been picking them – just trying to show that D3soccer.com wasn't completely off the mark there.

Bottom line: Obviously, these are examples that I'm hand-picking, and they're not representative of every good or bad selection that the NSCAA or D3soccer.com has made. Furthermore, I am human, and I will naturally have my opinions; sometimes they're quite bang on, sometimes they're not. However, from a logic perspective, when I see a trend of good, solid picks from one organization and head-scratchers from another, I'm inclined to give one more credence. For me, D3soccer.com has had many more good picks and fewer head-scratchers than the NSCAA, and so I give its AA selections more credence.

[firstplaceloser]

I say we all create our own list of First team all Americans based on this years stats and career stats

[Jim Matson]

Great comments from everyone. I am hoping for a few more in-depth contributions from you all, as debate is far more interesting than the alternative.

With regard to the keeper picks, stats do matter, and not just save percentage. To what extent does the defense contribute towards a star keeper? How many times is the keeper really tested throughout the season?

It is a tough call to make when looking at all these great stat lines, yet there is more than one keeper this year that had amazing production with absolutely no help from his line. The problem is that those players end up on 12-8 teams in weaker conferences. I'd love to see an opportunity to have an award team of players who just might be very very special, but play in lessor known conferences.

[lastguyoffthebench]

Calvin's Niko Giantsopoulos:

#1 in Minutes played (2292.28)
#1 in Shutouts (19)
#2 in GAA (.236)   #1 was Bull with .225
#3 in Save Percentage (.905). #1 was Bull (.936), #2 was Margotta (.908)

Margotta had 89 saves, Bull 73 saves, Giantsopoulos 57 saves.

[Flying Weasel]

Calvin's Niko Giantsopoulos:

#1 in Minutes played (2292.28)
#1 in Shutouts (19)
#2 in GAA (.236)   #1 was Bull with .225
#3 in Save Percentage (.905). #1 was Bull (.936), #2 was Margotta (.908)

Margotta had 89 saves, Bull 73 saves, Giantsopoulos 57 saves.

Nick Giantsopoulus has great stats and seems he also had the intangibles/leadership, skill with the ball at his feet, etc. that justifies thinking he and Bull should have been the 1-2 picks for GK All-Americans.  But for those who didn't see him play much at all, the stats themselves do not make him a clear-cut choice. 

First, Calvin didn't play one of the tougher schedules.  In fact they had a rather low SoS (.518 according to the NCAA entering the conference playoffs).  If SoS should be taken into account when considering stats so as not to disadvantage the players on teams playing tougher schedules and to not over-value gaudy stats accumulated against a weak slate of opponents, than some of the shine on Giantsopoulos' stats is lost.

Now, if we compare him, for example, to Salisbury's Drew Staedeli (whose selection has been criticized/questioned) over the course of the regular season and conference playoffs (pre-NCAA's), what can be noted?

• According to the NCAA, Calvin had a SoS of .518 and Salisbury had an SoS of .535.  Both on the low side, but to the extent that those values are relatively accurate, Staedeli faced slightly better opponents overall.

• Across 21 pre-NCAA games, Giantsopoulus faced an average of 6.0 shots (per 90 min.) and an average of a mere 2.1 SOG (per 90 min.).  In 19 pre-NCAA games, Staedeli faced an average of 12.9 shots and 5.5 SOG.  So Staedeli obviously didn't have as good a defense playing in front of him, having faced over twice as many shots, and more importantly over two and a half as many SOG!  We can only guess/speculate on whether the SOG Staedeli faced were, on average, of higher quality/more difficult than the SOG Giantsopoulus faced, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect that.

• So, playing arguably a slighlty tougher pre-NCAA schedule with an inferior defense in front of him (and maybe having tougher, higher quality shots to deal with), Staedeli saved 90% of the 108 total SOG he faced.  Giantsopoulus, playing arguable a slightly easier pre-NCAA schedule with a better defense in front of him, saved 91% of the 43 total SOG he faced. 90% against a slightly tougher schedule vs. 91% against an slightly easier schedule?  90% against two and a half as many SOG or 91% against two and half times fewer SOG?  Looked at that way, it doesn't seem so outrageous to consider Staedeli.  He had a lot more work to do and still put up virtually the same save pct.

• Giantsopoulus had the better GAA by far (0.20 vs. 0.56), but that's a product of facing so fewer SOG.  Staedeli would have needed to save 96% of the SOG he faced to match Giantsopoulus's GAA.  Not sure how you can blame a keeper for having had to face more shots and SOG, except to the extent you can conclude that his lack of organizing and communicating with his defense is at fault.  (And it's for this reason I think save pct. is the much more telling stat for keepers than GAA.)

In those numbers and comparisons, I clearly see the case for Staedeli. 

Now, that said, intangibles count, leadership counts, organization of your defense counts, skill with the ball at your feet count, getting the job down in the clutch (NCAA's) counts.  Depending on how you rate the two keepers in those areas, that can overcome a statistically advantage or break a statistical tie.  How many saw enough of both keepers, however, to make a definitive judgement and evaluation of the two in all those areas?

Anyway, my biggest point in the observations and comments above is to show that there are other ways of looking at things and sometimes there may be valid perspectives that differ from our own that we may not have considered.  Giantsopoulus may still very well be the better GK and the more deserving honoree, but statistically-speaking, I don't think that's clear.