The Big Dance

[Ejay]

Personally, I see an all-UAA final, with Chicago taking the crown, due to the fact that as the higher seed, they won't have to wear their hideous maroon-and-gray road unis.  Wearing those uniforms should be a felony.

The dark grey with maroon stripes?  Coming from a town/club with maroon as the main color, I love that option.

[Saint of Old]

Have I lost my touch, or is there really no video for the Final Four?!

They actually used to have the final four over thanks giving break.
Really gave all 4 teams an opportunity to break bread before the war begins.

[hickory_cornhusker]

Have I lost my touch, or is there really no video for the Final Four?!

They actually used to have the final four over thanks giving break.
Really gave all 4 teams an opportunity to break bread before the war begins.

I'm pretty sure the NCAA not wanting to pay to fly teams on short notice on Thanksgiving weekend also has something to do with it.

[blue_jays]

Personally, I see an all-UAA final, with Chicago taking the crown, due to the fact that as the higher seed, they won't have to wear their hideous maroon-and-gray road unis.  Wearing those uniforms should be a felony.

The dark grey with maroon stripes?  Coming from a town/club with maroon as the main color, I love that option.

The maroon and grey looks really good in person. Very La Liga style.

[Brother Flounder]

I few loose thoughts as I wind down and out of 2018 (which is not to say that I won't try to catch the last 3 games)......

I am almost a Tufts fan....almost...

I can't recall him being talked about much (although Mr.Right might have and I missed it) but Van Brewer is more important to Tufts than I realized.  He serves the Messiah Plaza role...distributing and playmaking.  My guess is that you wouldn't think he is athlete if you saw him on the street, but he is very strong on the ball, you rarely see anyone take the ball off him, and he is crafty escaping pressure and making nice, accurate passes in tight spaces.  And then I think his sub came in...#6...who promptly banged in a goal to put Tufts up 4-0.

I think I said this before, but Tufts was the wrong opponent for MSU....Tufts was ready to play and almost seemed disappointed that MSU didn't get chippier.  I used the word 'relished' and that really fits for me in terms of how much Tufts embraced the matchup.  MSU lost that game before they even got off the bus.  And Tufts has the kind of depth where you wonder if the subs are better than some of the starters...and there certainly is no apparent drop-off in size or athleticism.  I am looking forward to how Tufts and Rochester look out on the field against each other.

I didn't want to re-quote the whole thing, but I want to endorse FW's idea about greater participation and to agree that there can be a "broad brush" effect based on a limited number of posters for a school and even often only one poster.  There are only 2-3 regular Messiah posters.  And then there are the NESCAC posters, who roughly are one per school, not counting Mr.Right and blooter who follow and comment about NESCAC, UAA and the rest of New England with volume.  Then there is the "Kenyon guy," the "W&L guy," the "OWU guy," the "North Park guy," etc, etc.  Loras has had their two primary posters in the past and Chicago seems to have a couple.  Seems like Calvin and Wheaton (Ill) have had a poster or two in the past.  It would be nice if more teams had a handful or more of posters, which would also help those of us who do have specific teams from seeming like a team spokesperson or whatever or a single target for negativity towards a particular school by association.  It's also inhibiting when you are a single poster.  I actually would have liked to say more about Kenyon, including why I think they would have embraced playing Calvin and fared well, more critique of coaching decisions, poor plays, etc.  Believe it or not, I've heard of some Kenyon folks feeling that I've been too critical to the extent that I've been referred to as a "Kenyon hater."  Anyway, more posters would help increase activity, expression of different views, etc while taking some of the pressure/focus off of individual posters.  Periodically we've had former players, especially those who have recently graduated, chime in, but they seem hesitant and generally dissipate into the ether within a few weeks or within at most a season or so.   Maybe they are just better able to move on with their lives than dirt old posters like myself, but hopefully it's not because they find the waters too unwelcoming.

Good luck to the surviving foursome.

Maybe it's because everyone else but us losers have a life 😳

[Brother Flounder]

I'll happily chime in more often but my bias is indicated in my name...

Pardon the suggestion, but isn't a "past Jumbo" just another name for a Mammoth? 

Hahaha... good one Falconer! 🐘🐘🐘🐘

[1970s NESCAC Player]

Bloots, excellent preview of Semi-final No. 2!

[blooter442]

Bloots, excellent preview of Semi-final No. 2!

Thanks! Excited for both semis, but that one in particular.

[Falconer]

I just wanted to circle back to a comment I made during the Messiah-Cortland game on Saturday, specifically this one:

"Quite possibly, Ruiz Plaza is the most skillful handler in the tournament..."

<BIG SNIP>

Finally, in terms of losing him rather than someone else for the second week of games, if someone had asked me beforehand which Falcon(s) would I be most concerned about losing for the tournament, here's my list of three, in order:

--West (duh)
--Ruiz Plaza
--Luke Groothoff

In other words, I'd rather have almost anyone else miss those games. Ruiz Plaza was the main driver of the Falcon offense this year, as he had been for each of the 3 previous seasons. He didn't start the first two games of his FR season (2015), but after the debacle at CMU he entered the starting lineup and stayed there, except for injuries, the rest of his career. In Falcon history, it's unusual for a FR to start most or all of a season, and exceptional to do so at the 6/8 position that runs the offense. I don't quite think his game was on the level of Brian Ramirez, and certainly not at the level of the great Hayden Woodworth (POY in 2002 and the main reason for winning the Final Four in 2000), but he's head and shoulders above most other occupants of that role in Falcon history. It will be awfully hard to replace him in 2019.

I feel gratified by this information that just came out: https://unitedsoccercoaches.org/web/Awards/Recipients/2018_United_Soccer_Coaches_NCAA_Division_III_Men_s_All-Mid-Atlantic_Region_Teams.aspx. West was obviously a foregone conclusion, but Ruiz Plaza finally gets recognized for the high level skills he cultivated.

Honestly I'm surprised that Luke Groothoff got recognized as a FR (the only one on the first or second team), but (as I've said all year) he's dynamite at CB, better than anyone else I've seen this year except Vegter--even though he didn't play there in HS. I hope he makes it all the way to the national AA team. I've seen most of the defenders on this list of regional AAs, and IMO Groothoff is already better than any of them. I'm also glad to see Gilbert Waso here; as I said somewhere last week, he's a personal favorite.

[PaulNewman]

Vindicated?  About what?  Didn't see anyone disagree with you that Plaza is really, really good and/or a key player for Messiah.

[Falconer]

Vindicated?  About what?  Didn't see anyone disagree with you that Plaza is really, really good and/or a key player for Messiah.

"Gratified" would be a better word, PaulNewman, and I just changed it. Thanks for the implicit suggestion.

[Buck O.]

Personally, I see an all-UAA final, with Chicago taking the crown, due to the fact that as the higher seed, they won't have to wear their hideous maroon-and-gray road unis.  Wearing those uniforms should be a felony.

The dark grey with maroon stripes?  Coming from a town/club with maroon as the main color, I love that option.

The maroon and grey looks really good in person. Very La Liga style.

I'll admit that I've never seen them in person, but I have my doubts.  I have nothing against maroon or gray, but I don't think they go together.

Then again, some of the away kits in La Liga over the years have been pretty ugly, too, so I'll agree with the second sentence!

[blooter442]

On the subject of kit selection, I wonder why Tufts wore the (very spiffy in my opinion) blue-and-black-striped "third kit" in its regular-season home game against Amherst but wore the home kit in the NCAA game. At first I thought it had replaced the light blue as the away kit and was being worn due to the weekend double-header (even a home team hosting a double header wears its away kit at least once), but I have seen them wear their traditional blue away kit this year, so clearly it has not been supplanted. NCAA mandate, maybe?

[oldonionbag]

I was under the impression it was just for homecoming? I do like these, though! Much better than blue and brown hoops 

[blooter442]

I was under the impression it was just for homecoming? I do like these, though! Much better than blue and brown hoops 

If so, that's a lot of money for one game (or so I'd imagine)!