2018 Season - National Perspective

[Falconer]

Messiah fans, keep an eye out....Chewy Gordon of Capital with a brace in first 15 minutes against Ohio Northern and now sitting at 22.

\
West heard you, Paul--he got a goal with about 5 minutes left, after assisting on two more. Ties the all-time D3 record of a goal in 15 consecutive games.

[PaulNewman]

Messiah fans, keep an eye out....Chewy Gordon of Capital with a brace in first 15 minutes against Ohio Northern and now sitting at 22.

\
West heard you, Paul--he got a goal with about 5 minutes left, after assisting on two more. Ties the all-time D3 record of a goal in 15 consecutive games.

LOL.  McCarty should have been resting him.  5 minutes left?  Against Widener?

[PaulNewman]

Some key results around the country....

St Norbert remains unbeaten with a road win and handing Cornell its first loss of the campaign.

Rochester over Endicott 2-0.  Bowdoin over Conn College.  Haverford with big win over Dickinson and looking in better and better shape.  MW over Christopher Newport.  RPI ripping Ithaca 3-0.  Kenyon over DePauw on the road.  New Paltz besting Oneonta.  Cortland blowing a 2-0 lead and prevailing 3-2 on OT.  Tufts over Williams.  Trine over Hope.  SLU with a win over Skidmore.  Vassar beats Hobart.  Springfield and WPI draw 0-0.  W&L with key ODAC win on the road at Roanoke.  Capital crushing ONU at ONU, 4-0 at the half.

[Falconer]

Messiah fans, keep an eye out....Chewy Gordon of Capital with a brace in first 15 minutes against Ohio Northern and now sitting at 22.

\
West heard you, Paul--he got a goal with about 5 minutes left, after assisting on two more. Ties the all-time D3 record of a goal in 15 consecutive games.

LOL.  McCarty should have been resting him.  5 minutes left?  Against Widener?

d
His teammates really wanted him to get it.

[PaulNewman]

Absolutely....just having fun...although that kind of stuff can get tricky.

[PaulNewman]

Paul Newman's Own Top 25 (10/21/18)

1)  Messiah
2)  Tufts
3)  Calvin
4)  St Joseph's (ME)

5)  Montclair St
6)  Cortland St
7)  Trinity (TX)
8)  Chicago

9)  Rochester
10) Conn College
11) CWRU
12) Kenyon

13) North Park
14) Johns Hopkins
15) OWU
16) Lynchburg

17) Lycoming
18) Franklin & Marshall
19) Bowdoin
20) Stevens

21) Washington & Lee
22) Capital
23) SLU
24) Mary Washington
25) Ramapo/GAC/Oglethorpe (TIE)

RV -- (in order) -- Haverford, Amherst, Salisbury, Eastern, Carleton, St. Norbert, John Carroll, Middlebury, CMU, Salve Regina, RUC, Willamette, Texas-Dallas

[rudy]

Messiah fans, keep an eye out....Chewy Gordon of Capital with a brace in first 15 minutes against Ohio Northern and now sitting at 22.

\
West heard you, Paul--he got a goal with about 5 minutes left, after assisting on two more. Ties the all-time D3 record of a goal in 15 consecutive games.

LOL.  McCarty should have been resting him.  5 minutes left?  Against Widener?

d
His teammates really wanted him to get it.

Coach also subbed him for 15 minutes before putting him.back in with maybe 13 minutes left and score was 3-0 at that point. Last 2 goals with less than 4 minutes remaining. Typical sub pattern for second half.

[PaulNewman]

Messiah fans, keep an eye out....Chewy Gordon of Capital with a brace in first 15 minutes against Ohio Northern and now sitting at 22.

\
West heard you, Paul--he got a goal with about 5 minutes left, after assisting on two more. Ties the all-time D3 record of a goal in 15 consecutive games.

LOL.  McCarty should have been resting him.  5 minutes left?  Against Widener?

d
His teammates really wanted him to get it.

Coach also subbed him for 15 minutes before putting him.back in with maybe 13 minutes left and score was 3-0 at that point. Last 2 goals with less than 4 minutes remaining. Typical sub pattern for second half.

Normal sub pattern in a 3-0 game to have your AA player still in with 4 minutes left?  No need to defend it.  I'm sure I would have had him in to get or break a record if I was the coach.  Interesting that the Messiah recap mentions "Chew" Chewy Gordon!  Also of interest is that
according to the play-by-play readout Gordon was subbed for in the 57th minute and did not return to action for the evening.

[Flying Weasel]

The default subbing pattern for Nick West (and many starters) is to come out around the 65th minute and return around the 80th minute, however, if the game is clearly in hand (a lead of 3 or more) before he'd normally sub back in, he does not return. On the other hand, losing, tied or with just a 1-goal lead, he'll spend less time out or never sub out (i.e. Hopkins game). In the three games previous to the Lycoming game against Albright, Lebanon Valley, and Alvernia, Nick West was subbed out near the 65 minute mark with leads of 3-0, 3-0 and 2-0, respectively, and did not return in eventual 4-0, 5-1 and 3-0 wins, respectively.  So no doubt, Nick West was subbed back in to see if he could keep the consecutive game streak alive. Despite the game recap mentioning Chewy Gordon, I highly doubt West would have returned to help him maintain his national goal-scoring lead (and the coaching staff wouldn't have known Chewy had registered a hattrick until after the game, if they are even paying attention to that).

For the crowd, at least the regular fans (many would not have been aware as it was Homecoming), West's pursuit of tying the D-III record added an additional edge to watching the game, especially up 3-0 with no fear that Widener would get back in the game.

[PaulNewman]

The default subbing pattern for Nick West (and many starters) is to come out around the 65th minute and return around the 80th minute, however, if the game is clearly in hand (a lead of 3 or more) before he'd normally sub back in, he does not return. On the other hand, losing, tied or with just a 1-goal lead, he'll spend less time out or never sub out (i.e. Hopkins game). In the three games previous to the Lycoming game against Albright, Lebanon Valley, and Alvernia, Nick West was subbed out near the 65 minute mark with leads of 3-0, 3-0 and 2-0, respectively, and did not return in eventual 4-0, 5-1 and 3-0 wins, respectively.  So no doubt, Nick West was subbed back in to see if he could keep the consecutive game streak alive. Despite the game recap mentioning Chewy Gordon, I highly doubt West would have returned to help him maintain his national goal-scoring lead (and the coaching staff wouldn't have known Chewy had registered a hattrick until after the game, if they are even paying attention to that).

For the crowd, at least the regular fans (many would not have been aware as it was Homecoming), West's pursuit of tying the D-III record added an additional edge to watching the game, especially up 3-0 with no fear that Widener would get back in the game.

Understood.  I didn't mean to imply that West would have re-entered just to maintain the goal-scoring lead.  He's got more games to go to deal with that.  And if Chewy Gordon had a chance to keep a streak going for an all-time NCAA record I would guess Capital's coach would have given him a shot at that. I'm not as moved by the idea that some fans were treated to an additional edge to watching the game, although I can totally get that as a fan I would be pulling hard for a player to match or break a record.

West deserves every award and accolade that he gets this year.  As I have said, I agree that he is the top player in the country this season, and probably by a wide margin....and may well deserve a lofty status all-time (although others here like yourself have a better perspective for commenting on that).  It just occurred to me while watching some of the Capital-ONU game that this Gordon kid is also having a spectacular season and deserved some attention in this forum.  And that's also why I asked Domino1195 to provide some color on Gordon's story.  The nod to Gordon in the Messiah recap was a nice touch.  There may be other players having phenomenal seasons...would be great to hear about them as well.

P.S.  FWIW, Messiah and Capital have virtually identical SoS's.

[PaulNewman]

Speaking of SoS, have programs become more aware and proactive in recent years, or has that always been the case?  It seems that some are going higher and higher, like with the UAA schools, but perhaps they always have been this high.  Chicago, CMU and Wash U (and maybe a few others) should be pushing .675 when all is said and done. 

I am curious about Wash U....not ranked last week, but this week will 6-6-1, with a SoS over .650, and I think a RvR of 2-3-1.  Does that get them ranked?  And is it conceivable that Wash U could get a bid if they end up 7-8-1 or 7-7-2 with a SoS north of .670 and RvR of something like 3-4-2/3-3-3?  Has a team ever gotten a Pool C with a record or .500 or below?

This may be in one of Shirk's articles about the process, but has SoS always played such a big role in rankings, like 15-20 years ago, or just over the past 8-10 years?

[Gregory Sager]

Speaking of SoS, have programs become more aware and proactive in recent years, or has that always been the case?  It seems that some are going higher and higher, like with the UAA schools, but perhaps they always have been this high.  Chicago, CMU and Wash U (and maybe a few others) should be pushing .675 when all is said and done.

I'm sure that every coach tries to be strategic about non-conference scheduling, if that's at all possible. (Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances such as geography that make it impossible to schedule to a coach's liking.) However, it's frequently a crapshoot, as you can't always predict from year to year how your prospective opponents will fare, especially if you're signing multi-year contracts three or four years out.

Of course, the UAA enjoys a plenitude of advantages in this regard, since each coach can strategically schedule locally and his conference peers can then reap the advantages without there being the disadvantage of other sides in the league knocking down the records of those non-conference opponents. Naturally, the UAA programs as a whole have to be inherently solid in order for this advantage to really take effect.

To use the program I follow as an example of how hard it can be to schedule strategically, North Park was hampered in the first regional ranking by the fact that the Vikings had a lowly .525 SoS. But two of the better Chicagoland non-con opponents that the Vikings annually play, Dominican and Aurora, are having relatively down seasons by the standards of those two programs, as is annual trophy-match rival UW-Whitewater. And the bottom has completely fallen out in 2018 for two traditionally solid programs, Thomas More and Dubuque, that I'm sure NPU head coach John Born had scheduled a year or two ago when the ongoing competitiveness of the Saints and the Spartans looked a whole lot healthier. The CCIW's had its problems as well, as Carthage and Elmhurst (to cite the two other programs besides perennial powers NPU and Wheaton that've been to the D3 playoffs over the past decade) are both dramatically underperforming -- and NPU had already played both prior to last week's ranking and gotten no SoS help from the two.

I am curious about Wash U....not ranked last week, but this week will 6-6-1, with a SoS over .650, and I think a RvR of 2-3-1.  Does that get them ranked?  And is it conceivable that Wash U could get a bid if they end up 7-8-1 or 7-7-2 with a SoS north of .670 and RvR of something like 3-4-2/3-3-3?

The SoS numbers obviously matter greatly, since, again using North Park as an example, the Vikings were slotted below North Central last week, in spite of the fact that the winning percentage for NPU was a lofty .846 at the time (11-2) and NCC's was only .667 (8-4). The disparity between SoS numbers -- NPU's was .525, while NCC's was .566 -- more than offset the gap in W% in the eyes of the committee. (Of course, that will change this week, as North Park won two matches and the Cardinals lost their pair, including a 2-1 win for NPU at North Central on Saturday.) It was even worse for the likes of MWC stalwarts St. Norbert and Cornell, as neither got ranked at all in spite of even gaudier winning percentages than NPU's (both were undefeated at the time of last week's ranking, with SNC blemished only by a single tie and Cornell having tied twice), reflecting the weakness of the MWC.

Getting back to the Bears, it actually looks wide open for Wash U to get ranked and then rapidly climb the Central Region ladder if the Bears can finish with a flourish. They take their annual East Coast road trip this weekend, playing at Brandeis on Friday and at NYU on Sunday; winning those two matches will be formidable tasks, to say nothing of the annual rivalry match against Chicago in St. Louis a week from Saturday that closes out the slate for the Bears -- but the Bears will end the regular season with an SoS that is absolutely stratospheric.

The initial Central Region ranking turned out to be a jinx for most of the teams listed, as five of the seven sides (Chicago, Hope, Millikin, North Central, and Benedictine) took one on the chin last week, with NCC dropping a pair and Millikin suffering a tie in addition to its loss. I would expect North Central and Benedictine to drop out entirely this week, with North Park moving up to fourth behind Chicago, Calvin, and Hope, and Wheaton moving into the ranking at fifth (which is good news for Wash U, as it'll give the Bears another win over a regionally ranked opponent). Millikin might hang on by its fingernails in sixth or seventh, or it might drop out altogether, but at least one other spot aside from the one that Wheaton will claim will be opening up. Who will get it? Carthage? (The Red Men are only 9-7-1, but they've run a fearsome gauntlet of opponents this season, so their SoS is high -- and, of course, the Red Men did beat Chicago down on the South Side this past week.) Does St. Norbert finally crack the ranking, now that the Green Knights have beaten Cornell this past Saturday (and in Mount Vernon, no less)? Does another NACC side take Benedictine's slot (presumably MSOE, which at 13-3, 9-1 has just clinched the NACC title and first seed in the NACC playoffs)? Or do the Bears somehow sneak in?

If Wash U did get ranked this week, it would really be a statement about the sogginess at the bottom of the Central Region if an unranked side found its way into the next week's rankings despite losing a match in the intervening week (the Bears were beaten by UW-Whitewater yesterday, 1-0).

  Has a team ever gotten a Pool C with a record or .500 or below?

I don't know. That sounds like a Christan Shirk question to me.

This may be in one of Shirk's articles about the process, but has SoS always played such a big role in rankings, like 15-20 years ago, or just over the past 8-10 years?

Again, Christan may be better equipped to answer that question than anybody else.

[Falconer]

It just occurred to me while watching some of the Capital-ONU game that this Gordon kid is also having a spectacular season and deserved some attention in this forum.  And that's also why I asked Domino1195 to provide some color on Gordon's story.  The nod to Gordon in the Messiah recap was a nice touch.  There may be other players having phenomenal seasons...would be great to hear about them as well.

P.S.  FWIW, Messiah and Capital have virtually identical SoS's.

I totally agree, Paul. Prior to this past week (when he had two hat tricks), Gordon wasn't on my radar as a potential challenger for most goals in 2018. A couple other guys were, including Joseph Fala of Ramapo, who currently has this stat line:
21 goals, 6 assists, 48 points, on 113 shots attempted.

But, clearly Gordon might overtake West in goals scored--depending on how far each man's team progresses. Both teams are probably now locks for a tournament bid. Wouldn't it be just terrific to see a Capitol-Messiah game at some point, maybe in the Final Four, with each guy getting 2 or 3 goals? I for one would love that! Far too many low scoring games for my taste in the final rounds.

I've never seen Gordon play, either in person or streaming. So, forgive my curiosity: what type of game does he play? He has 23 goals, just 1 assist, on an amazing number of only 62 total shots. West has 24 & 4 on 92 shots. Now, given where West shoots from--pretty much anywhere in the attacking third--I think 24 goals on 92 shots is terrific, much better than most other strikers. But, Gordon just blows that away. The single assist and the incredible shot % suggest to me that Gordon gets most of his goals from close in, after being fed by teammates, with perhaps the occasional self-created SOG. But, having never seen him play at all, I literally don't know what I'm talking about.

Who's actually seen Gordon play a few games? What's his game like?

[WUPHF]

Getting back to the Bears, it actually looks wide open for Wash U to get ranked and then rapidly climb the Central Region ladder if the Bears can finish with a flourish. They take their annual East Coast road trip this weekend, playing at Brandeis on Friday and at NYU on Sunday; [...]

After traveling for the last month, Washington University will play their final three games in the Francis Olympic Stadium.

[Shooter McGavin]

Paul Newman's Own Top 25 (10/21/18)

1)  Messiah
2)  Tufts
3)  Calvin
4)  St Joseph's (ME)

5)  Montclair St
6)  Cortland St
7)  Trinity (TX)
8)  Chicago

9)  Rochester
10) Conn College
11) CWRU
12) Kenyon

13) North Park
14) Johns Hopkins
15) OWU
16) Lynchburg

17) Lycoming
18) Franklin & Marshall
19) Bowdoin
20) Stevens

21) Washington & Lee
22) Capital
23) SLU
24) Mary Washington
25) Ramapo/GAC/Oglethorpe (TIE)

RV -- (in order) -- Haverford, Amherst, Salisbury, Eastern, Carleton, St. Norbert, John Carroll, Middlebury, CMU, Salve Regina, RUC, Willamette, Texas-Dallas

+K Paul. I would switch Montclair with Chicago though