UAA 2017

[WUPHF]

#18 Washu with a tight double overtime win at Wheaton (3-5) on Saturday night. The go ahead goal was scored by a freshman in his first collegiate game played. It looks like they got outplayed with 17 shots for Wheaton vs only 9 for Washu. Washu now 5-0-1, it's gonna be interesting how they hold up once UAA starts with their opener away at Emory on Saturday.

You may have noticed, but there is an interesting reference from the WUSTL game recap about a play that almost ended in favor of Wheaton:

Senior goalkeeper Colin McCune (5-0-1) made six saves in the win, including a breakaway save in the 95th minute when Drew Shay was awarded a yellow card after swatting ball in net with his hand.

The keeper is a senior, but is basically playing on varsity for the first time in his career.  Four shutouts so far on the season.

[UAA Insider]

Ahead of conference play starting this weekend, I am interested to see everyone's predictions for what the standings will look like at the end. My predictions:

1. Chicago - Only graduating Desai and returning Koh & Lopez up top is scary. Along with Drablos, Capatosto and Bonin, I don't see Chicago not winning the UAA outright.
2. Carnegie Mellon - Watched two of their games so far and they look impressive. Very young team but don't see them topping Chicago over 7 games. Make an alum proud 
3. Brandeis - Ocel, Hernandez and Flahive should be able to show some leadership and lead the Judges into the tournament come November. Interested to see how their style of play will change with Coven gone.
4. Wash U - Have won some big games this season so far and have shown they can hang with the best. Watched their game (win) against Wheaton, a quality opponent, and was not impressed with their style of play. However, style of play doesn't win games, goals do.
5. Emory - Not much competition down south for out of conference games but they always seem to show up in the UAA.
6. CWRU - Similar to Wash U in the sense that have shown up for games against great teams, but differ in that they don't get results. That won't help against teams like Chicago, Brandeis and CMU.
7. Rochester - Haven't watched them yet, and at the same time, have not heard about them yet. Graduated a few good seniors so this may be a rebuilding year for the Yellow Jackets.
8. NYU - Haven't seem them either. But after seeing they tied a team CWRU beat 10-0, it's hard to not list them at the bottom.

Again, these are PREDICTIONS!!! Best of luck to the teams in one of the top conferences in the country! Please reply with your predictions!

[truenorth]

I am admittedly a biased NESCAC fan, but I just thought I'd rekindle the debate regarding quality of conferences.  All I did was to look at the D3 finalists for the past ten years, and didn't research the semi-finalists.  But among the finalists, the NESCAC has had three different schools in four finals, and each of those NESCAC teams won the national championship.  I don't think I saw a UAA school among the finalists during those ten years... 

That said, Messiah on its own has outperformed the NESCAC collectively with five national championships during that same stretch...pretty impressive!

[Mr.Right]

As an observer for a long time I can promise you that this year the UAA will outperform Nescac in the NCAA's. Nescac is waaay down and even w/o 1 regular season UAA game being played yet I am confident they will be better.

I really cannot predict this league until I have seen some games so I will wait for the weekend and Brandeis at Case. After watching John Carroll I can tell you that CMU must have done a fantastic job defending in that game because I was really impressed by the explosiveness of JCU offensively.

I still think a profile on the woman in charge of the NYU Mens team would be a great read. Bloots, maybe you can take a few weeks off from work and go down and observe practice and a couple games and see how things are running....

[blooter442]

I am admittedly a biased NESCAC fan, but I just thought I'd rekindle the debate regarding quality of conferences.  All I did was to look at the D3 finalists for the past ten years, and didn't research the semi-finalists.  But among the finalists, the NESCAC has had three different schools in four finals, and each of those NESCAC teams won the national championship.  I don't think I saw a UAA school among the finalists during those ten years... 

That said, Messiah on its own has outperformed the NESCAC collectively with five national championships during that same stretch...pretty impressive!

Truenorth, as a UAA fan I will be the first to say that the NESCAC has outperformed the UAA on the national stage. In fact, the only UAA school to have won a national title is Brandeis, back in 1976, and that was before they were in the UAA. Moreover, the UAA has only had two appearances in the Final 4 in recent memory -- 2006 (NYU) and 2016 (Brandeis). Since the turn of the century, many highly-touted UAA teams have simply failed to perform on the national stage.

That said, the one thing I will say about UAA teams is that they are geographically pretty spread out. So when you have three/four NESCAC sides in the same quadrant of the bracket, as sometimes happens, there is a decent chance that one of those teams "wins" the quadrant. If you have four teams spread out through each quadrant, the (theoretical) odds for any individual one getting to the Final 4 is 1/16. If you have four NESCAC teams in the same quadrant, those (theoretical odds) that one of those sides gets to the final are 1/4. Of course, this is highly hypothetical, and every game is different, but this perhaps explains why UAAs have not appeared in the Final 4 as often as some might have thought.

Now, in terms of NESCACs performing in the finals, there is absolutely no denying that they get the job done better than any other conference as a whole -- as you noted, Messiah has won somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 national titles while the NESCAC has five.

I myself would like to see more battles between UAA and NESCAC sides -- perhaps a non-conference opening weekend trip in the form of what Haverford did in coming to Brandeis (2016) or Brandeis did in going to Trinity in TX (2015). For its part, Brandeis is 3-2-2 against the NESCACs since the start of 2014, and those two draws were both PK shootout wins over Amherst, so the Judges have performed reasonably well in those matches.

Again, this isn't to make excuses for the UAA -- the conference as a whole has not performed on the national stage -- but rather to provide an explanation.

As an observer for a long time I can promise you that this year the UAA will outperform Nescac in the NCAA's. Nescac is waaay down and even w/o 1 regular season UAA game being played yet I am confident they will be better.

I really cannot predict this league until I have seen some games so I will wait for the weekend and Brandeis at Case. After watching John Carroll I can tell you that CMU must have done a fantastic job defending in that game because I was really impressed by the explosiveness of JCU offensively.

I still think a profile on the woman in charge of the NYU Mens team would be a great read. Bloots, maybe you can take a few weeks off from work and go down and observe practice and a couple games and see how things are running....

Hahaha well if you want to get that litany of excuses out then we should talk. I have some friends down there...would enjoy the upgrade in terms of quality of pizza and bagels!

I'd still put money on Chicago. I've watched them a number of times over the last few years, and they are as legit as any NESCAC side in my view -- they are really, really good. Even considering the bad luck they had in the game against Redlands, they really should have won that game, and I thought it was a farce they didn't make it to the Final 4 from that quadrant. Absolutely no question they underperformed. That said, I think that was a good lesson in managing the pressure of that stage. They return pretty much the same team minus Weis and Desai, and they have pace and skill all over the field, and seem to have picked up where they left off, so I think they'll repeat.

[blooter442]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Rochester's non-conference games are up to their usual standards this year. They have Hobart and picked up Brockport, both good sides, but -- particularly in comparison to last year -- they dropped Vassar and RPI. Rochester has often had one of the best SoS in the country, and maybe it is still better than I think, but I was a little surprised when I looked at their schedule and didn't see heavy hitters like Oneonta/St Lawrence/etc. on the calendar like they have been in previous years.

[stlawus]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Rochester's non-conference games are up to their usual standards this year. They have Hobart and picked up Brockport, both good sides, but -- particularly in comparison to last year -- they dropped Vassar and RPI. Rochester has often had one of the best SoS in the country, and maybe it is still better than I think, but I was a little surprised when I looked at their schedule and didn't see heavy hitters like Oneonta/St Lawrence/etc. on the calendar like they have been in previous years.

SLU wanted to keep Rochester on the schedule but they were the ones who didn't want to renew the matchup.  They didn't like playing back to back on weekends.

[blooter442]

SLU wanted to keep Rochester on the schedule but they were the ones who didn't want to renew the matchup.  They didn't like playing back to back on weekends.

On the one hand, I get that, but on the other hand the UAA schedule is pretty much playing back-to-back on weekends (albeit Friday night and Sunday midday), so it seems a little odd to use that reasoning as justification. Maybe they want to maximize recovery time before the conference schedule hits? Either way, I find that a bit odd, and it sounds to me like they knew they might not be as competitive in those matchups as in years past...but that is just an assumption that could well be incorrect.

[stlawus]

SLU wanted to keep Rochester on the schedule but they were the ones who didn't want to renew the matchup.  They didn't like playing back to back on weekends.

On the one hand, I get that, but on the other hand the UAA schedule is pretty much playing back-to-back on weekends (albeit Friday night and Sunday midday), so it seems a little odd to use that reasoning as justification. Maybe they want to maximize recovery time before the conference schedule hits? Either way, I find that a bit odd, and it sounds to me like they knew they might not be as competitive in those matchups as in years past...but that is just an assumption that could well be incorrect.

As to your first point that's actually the reasoning I heard.  They wanted a steady day of rest for recovery going into league play. As to your second point, Rochester beat SLU the last time they played in 2014.

[blooter442]

As to your first point that's actually the reasoning I heard.  They wanted a steady day of rest for recovery going into league play. As to your second point, Rochester beat SLU the last time they played in 2014.

I do remember that result. I just don't think Rochester is as strong as it was then -- the next year, the Yellowjackets went 6-5-5 and missed the tourney, the year after they squeaked into the tourney, going in a 7-0-1 in the first half of the season before 2-4-2 in the second half of the season (2-3-2 in conference plus a 3-0 hammering at Vassar). They have started decently enough this year, although the loss at Buffalo State would have raised some questions.

[Laserpen123]

Ahead of conference play starting this weekend, I am interested to see everyone's predictions for what the standings will look like at the end. My predictions:

1. Chicago - Only graduating Desai and returning Koh & Lopez up top is scary. Along with Drablos, Capatosto and Bonin, I don't see Chicago not winning the UAA outright.
2. Carnegie Mellon - Watched two of their games so far and they look impressive. Very young team but don't see them topping Chicago over 7 games. Make an alum proud 
3. Brandeis - Ocel, Hernandez and Flahive should be able to show some leadership and lead the Judges into the tournament come November. Interested to see how their style of play will change with Coven gone.
4. Wash U - Have won some big games this season so far and have shown they can hang with the best. Watched their game (win) against Wheaton, a quality opponent, and was not impressed with their style of play. However, style of play doesn't win games, goals do.
5. Emory - Not much competition down south for out of conference games but they always seem to show up in the UAA.
6. CWRU - Similar to Wash U in the sense that have shown up for games against great teams, but differ in that they don't get results. That won't help against teams like Chicago, Brandeis and CMU.
7. Rochester - Haven't watched them yet, and at the same time, have not heard about them yet. Graduated a few good seniors so this may be a rebuilding year for the Yellow Jackets.
8. NYU - Haven't seem them either. But after seeing they tied a team CWRU beat 10-0, it's hard to not list them at the bottom.

Again, these are PREDICTIONS!!! Best of luck to the teams in one of the top conferences in the country! Please reply with your predictions!

My Predictions:

1. Chicago: Unlike last year, when this team was ranked number 1, and got a bit nervous of the spotlight in their game against Brandeis, this team is older and has been here before. They are the clear favorites to hold the title, but it is very difficult to repeat as champions.
2. Brandeis: This team is doing well, and have won the games they should have. Have been tested by Cortland and Tufts, and played pretty well. This team is deep, and can play good soccer. I think they will challenge Chicago along with Wash U.
3. Wash U: This team faded along the homestretch last year, but they bring lots of talent to the table. Their biggest games are where they decide their place in this league, namely Chicago and Brandeis.
4. Carnegie Mellon: The Tartans are young, but promising. Again, their second game of the league @ Brandeis will be a big test for where they want to be.
5: Emory: They used to be a powerhouse, a team to be feared. Having dropped that part of them, can they reclaim it and not lose on their home field in league play? That will be a good goal for them.
6: CWRU: When I have seen them play, they seem lax on the ball, and not playing with a purpose. Haven't seen them play this year, but heard some good and some bad. They falter in the UAA usually, so they're down here.
7. Rochester: Rebuilding, and just don't have the firepower to be a contender.
8. NYU: With a last place finish this year, the coach could be on the hot seat. Petr gone, season gone.


When all is said and done, I can see 5 teams making the tournament again. Chicago, Brandeis, Wash U, Carnegie, and Emory may just sneak in.

[blue_jays]

Ahead of conference play starting this weekend, I am interested to see everyone's predictions for what the standings will look like at the end. My predictions:

1. Chicago - Only graduating Desai and returning Koh & Lopez up top is scary. Along with Drablos, Capatosto and Bonin, I don't see Chicago not winning the UAA outright.
2. Carnegie Mellon - Watched two of their games so far and they look impressive. Very young team but don't see them topping Chicago over 7 games. Make an alum proud 
3. Brandeis - Ocel, Hernandez and Flahive should be able to show some leadership and lead the Judges into the tournament come November. Interested to see how their style of play will change with Coven gone.
4. Wash U - Have won some big games this season so far and have shown they can hang with the best. Watched their game (win) against Wheaton, a quality opponent, and was not impressed with their style of play. However, style of play doesn't win games, goals do.
5. Emory - Not much competition down south for out of conference games but they always seem to show up in the UAA.
6. CWRU - Similar to Wash U in the sense that have shown up for games against great teams, but differ in that they don't get results. That won't help against teams like Chicago, Brandeis and CMU.
7. Rochester - Haven't watched them yet, and at the same time, have not heard about them yet. Graduated a few good seniors so this may be a rebuilding year for the Yellow Jackets.
8. NYU - Haven't seem them either. But after seeing they tied a team CWRU beat 10-0, it's hard to not list them at the bottom.

Again, these are PREDICTIONS!!! Best of luck to the teams in one of the top conferences in the country! Please reply with your predictions!

My Predictions:

1. Chicago: Unlike last year, when this team was ranked number 1, and got a bit nervous of the spotlight in their game against Brandeis, this team is older and has been here before. They are the clear favorites to hold the title, but it is very difficult to repeat as champions.
2. Brandeis: This team is doing well, and have won the games they should have. Have been tested by Cortland and Tufts, and played pretty well. This team is deep, and can play good soccer. I think they will challenge Chicago along with Wash U.
3. Wash U: This team faded along the homestretch last year, but they bring lots of talent to the table. Their biggest games are where they decide their place in this league, namely Chicago and Brandeis.
4. Carnegie Mellon: The Tartans are young, but promising. Again, their second game of the league @ Brandeis will be a big test for where they want to be.
5: Emory: They used to be a powerhouse, a team to be feared. Having dropped that part of them, can they reclaim it and not lose on their home field in league play? That will be a good goal for them.
6: CWRU: When I have seen them play, they seem lax on the ball, and not playing with a purpose. Haven't seen them play this year, but heard some good and some bad. They falter in the UAA usually, so they're down here.
7. Rochester: Rebuilding, and just don't have the firepower to be a contender.
8. NYU: With a last place finish this year, the coach could be on the hot seat. Petr gone, season gone.


When all is said and done, I can see 5 teams making the tournament again. Chicago, Brandeis, Wash U, Carnegie, and Emory may just sneak in.

Prediction: CMU is the second-best team in the conference, mark it down now. I feel confident that this will be true in the final standings on Nov. 5.

[WUPHF]

Prediction: CMU is the second-best team in the conference, mark it down now. I feel confident that this will be true in the final standings on Nov. 5.

Brandeis, Chicago, and Washington University all on the road in sequence. 

You will have a pretty good idea by October 15th.

[Ommadawn]

3. Wash U: This team faded along the homestretch last year, but they bring lots of talent to the table. Their biggest games are where they decide their place in this league, namely Chicago and Brandeis.

It's interesting to see how well WUSTL has started off the year in comparison to Harvard after both teams experienced similar scandals last year (Harvard's definitely garnered more attention and occurred during--instead of after--the season).  If anything, WUSTL is doing better than last year, while Harvard is doing substantially worse.

[WUPHF]

It's interesting to see how well WUSTL has started off the year in comparison to Harvard after both teams experienced similar scandals last year (Harvard's definitely garnered more attention and occurred during--instead of after--the season).  If anything, WUSTL is doing better than last year, while Harvard is doing substantially worse.

One of the primary differences is that whatever the Washington University men did dates back to the Fall 2015.  The team was ultimately cleared by the community standards office.