2017 Season - National Perspective

[Gregory Sager]

I think Calvin could be slotted as high as #2, but Chicago should definitely be #1.    I don't have a problem with North Park at #2, but Calvin should at the very least, be ahead of Washington.

North Park beat Chicago on Chicago's home pitch less than 48 hours ago. The Maroons still have a better SOS than does NPU (whose SOS, in turn, is significantly better than Calvin's), but the Vikings are now 12-1-1 to Chicago's 13-2. Head-to-head has to count for something.

[D3 Dad]

Playing in a poor conference is always going to bring Calvin's SOS down. In fairness they did schedule Case Western, OWU, and Oberlin in the preseason and those squads maybe haven't been as strong as people thought they'd be early on. It puts a lot of pressure to be perfect in the league, and the league tournament. Last year they lost two regular season games and probably had to win their league tournament just to make the field, but no doubt their SOS hurts them when the seeding and match-ups are announced. I'm sure they'll have to go on the road again this year against top ten teams early on in tournament.

[Gregory Sager]

A big part of the problem with the MIAA is the fact that the league plays a double round-robin schedule, which isn't the norm for D3 soccer. It not only dramatically reduces the number of non-conference matches that MIAA teams can play, it also holds down the SOS of the league's better teams by forcing them closer to .500.

[Mr.Right]

Drew at #7 is interesting.    Could a team that reaches conference finals, potentially finishing 18-1-1, be on the bubble? 

.515 SOS with Catholic and Goucher remaining which should drop it even further.   

Throw in a conference playoff game vs a team with a weak SOS and OOWP, I'm not so sure they qualify to stay in the rankings.

And Last Guy makes an appearance.....So Last Guy how is the reffing going? You reffing High School games yet or are you still doing 6th Grade Girls games on the line?

[Mr.Right]

Trinity(TX) playing some beautiful futbol tonight. Granted it is against a horrible team(Centenary) but Trinity has not allowed the other team to touch the ball in the 1st half..A complete performance and excellent picture of keepaway as they lead 2-0 but by the looks of how weak Centenary is this one could finish 8-0. I wish just for one year the committee would allow Trinity to host a quad with a New England, Mid Atlantic and East teams. I think if that happened every year when Trinity has deserved to host but forced to travel we would have seen a few different National Champions.

[Mr.Right]

One last observation for the night...RUN at 15-2-0 looked on paper to be a Pool C lock and after seeing them twice on the stream they are definitely an NCAA team BUT they have 1 RvR Win against Stevens and who knows if Stevens will even last in the Regional Rankings. They were Regionally Ranked #6 in the South Atlantic behind 5 teams with extremely high SOS. The best being Emory at .642 and the worst being Oglethorpe at .577. There is no way RUN at .544 can get close to those 5 teams in SOS. Also, without any ranked teams that they could possibly face until they meet Rowan in the NJAC Final it looks quite possible that RUN is AQ or bust. So this might be the team that went out of its way to play an extremely weak non-conference schedule assuming that the NJAC would pump its SOS up. Their non-conference SOS is a measly .519. IMO this Non-Conference SOS is a very important criterion and am very glad they introduced it this year. I just am blown away that this is not Primary criteria. Seems to me this could be one of the more important piece of info we have.

[firstplaceloser]

One last observation for the night...RUN at 15-2-0 looked on paper to be a Pool C lock and after seeing them twice on the stream they are definitely an NCAA team BUT they have 1 RvR Win against Stevens and who knows if Stevens will even last in the Regional Rankings. They were Regionally Ranked #6 in the South Atlantic behind 5 teams with extremely high SOS. The best being Emory at .642 and the worst being Oglethorpe at .577. There is no way RUN at .544 can get close to those 5 teams in SOS. Also, without any ranked teams that they could possibly face until they meet Rowan in the NJAC Final it looks quite possible that RUN is AQ or bust. So this might be the team that went out of its way to play an extremely weak non-conference schedule assuming that the NJAC would pump its SOS up. Their non-conference SOS is a measly .519. IMO this Non-Conference SOS is a very important criterion and am very glad they introduced it this year. I just am blown away that this is not Primary criteria. Seems to me this could be one of the more important piece of info we have.

RUN does this to themselves every year. newark and montclair used to play teams like Hood and score 8 goals and brag about it. it only hurts themselves bc when they play higher quality teams they look awful.

[Mr.Right]

Yea I remember RUC always challenged themselves with their schedule. The coach was willing to play anyone anywhere at least back between 2012-2104. Not sure if he will do it now but they do have a .569 SOS so it looks like he still challenges his team even if they are not as strong.

[firstplaceloser]

Yea I remember RUC always challenged themselves with their schedule. The coach was willing to play anyone anywhere at least back between 2012-2104. Not sure if he will do it now but they do have a .569 SOS so it looks like he still challenges his team even if they are not as strong.

2012 was a pretty tough schedule. 2013 was fairly tough but we were just so strong that year. after Mike Ryan graduated they fell off sadly. even the lower njac teams play tougher schedule than RUN and Montclair. Kudos to Rowan this year with their schedule. thoroughly deserved

[firstplaceloser]

Yea I remember RUC always challenged themselves with their schedule. The coach was willing to play anyone anywhere at least back between 2012-2104. Not sure if he will do it now but they do have a .569 SOS so it looks like he still challenges his team even if they are not as strong.

from 2012-2013 we had a 56 games streak that was snapped in the loss to Messiah. At home i would've played any team in the country on any given day, went almost 2 years without losing at home. that's why homefield advantage is so important come NCAA time. nothing is better than waking
up in your bed at the tournament site.

[4samuy]

Yea I remember RUC always challenged themselves with their schedule. The coach was willing to play anyone anywhere at least back between 2012-2104. Not sure if he will do it now but they do have a .569 SOS so it looks like he still challenges his team even if they are not as strong.

from 2012-2013 we had a 56 games streak that was snapped in the loss to Messiah. At home i would've played any team in the country on any given day, went almost 2 years without losing at home. that's why homefield advantage is so important come NCAA time. nothing is better than waking
up in your bed at the tournament site.

I agree with the home field as I think most people would agree.  The fact is, all tournament teams have to hit the road (with final four teams On a neutral site) at some point.  Other factors, is it men's hosting year or women's hosting year, is a particular facility available to host etc.  come into play as well.  It got me thinking and I came up with the "worthless stat of the day".  8 of the top 25 d3soccer.com teams have WON every road game they've played this year.  Lotta factors involved obviously, most importantly being strength of opponent and number of road games played, But it does say something about getting on planes, busses and the traveling And having a mindset to overcome to get the he job done in every road game you've played!

Trinity 8-0
St Joseph's 8-0
Chicago 7-0
Rowan 6-0
Gettysburg 6-0
Springfield  5-0
Chris. Newport 5-0
Lynchburg    4-0

[lastguyoffthebench]

Drew at #7 is interesting.    Could a team that reaches conference finals, potentially finishing 18-1-1, be on the bubble? 

.515 SOS with Catholic and Goucher remaining which should drop it even further.   

Throw in a conference playoff game vs a team with a weak SOS and OOWP, I'm not so sure they qualify to stay in the rankings.

And Last Guy makes an appearance.....So Last Guy how is the reffing going? You reffing High School games yet or are you still doing 6th Grade Girls games on the line?
[/quote

Stuck grinding it out for HS... Every. Single. Day... Only getting turn backs for college at this point, because I committed to games back in April.  HS seems down this year in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware counties this season.

[Mr.Right]

Lebanon Valley hanging tough with Messiah as it is 0-0 about 15 minutes in. They try to play futbol a bit and look like a decent outfit..It id hard to tell on the stream but they look to be in a 4-3-3 which against Messiah I am not so sure about but we will see.

[Mr.Right]

Jeez...Lebanon Valley misses a sitter 6 feet from the goal..They are hanging tough still 0-0 about 10 minutes into the 2nd Half

[Mr.Right]

Lebanon Valley starting to amp the pressure up as they are attacking Messiah's goal with purpose....

Wow it pays off as a nice cross from the flank gets slotted home by LVC. The kid was wide open on the backpost as a Messiah defender lost his man for sure...1-0 LVC..lets see how they play this as a win here would be HUGE and possibly get them a Pool C...Let's see if they sit in now for the next half-hour