2021 NCAA Tournament

[Gotberg]

St. Olaf has a very cool hype video.

It's brilliant!

[Centennial1]

St. Olaf has a very cool hype video.

Very cool indeed. That coach hasn't even hit puberty by the looks of him. I keep an eye on the MIAC during the season, since that's where I played One Quarter Of A Million years ago. I watched St. Olaf play with discipline, creativity, poise--and had a couple of gnarly set piece plays to boot. When trying to evaluate where they stood on a national level, I didn't rate them like a Kenyon, Messiah, or Tufts, because teams can look very good against average opposition (to wit: MSU). I would love to have them prove me wrong, and see a Champion from the MIAC. You never know: this is football. Anything can happen.

[paclassic89]

6 straight Sweet 16s/Round of 16 (whatever it is called in D3 soccer) for Calvin.  I could do the research, but does anyone know off the top of their head if there are any longer current streaks out there?

Others have already pointed out the current sweet 16 streaks.  There was a stretch (2004-2010) where Messiah won the title 6 out of 7 years and the year they didn't, they lost in the sectional final. 

[d4_Pace]

Yeah that's crazy. Tufts have won 4 of 6 but would need to win 6 of the next 7 to match Messiahs 10 of 13 run

[lastguyoffthebench]

St. Olaf has a very cool hype video.

It's brilliant!

If only it opened with chants of OLAF OLAF OLAF  OLAFFFF and continued throughout...

[Gregory Sager]

When trying to evaluate where they stood on a national level, I didn't rate them like a Kenyon, Messiah, or Tufts, because teams can look very good against average opposition (to wit: MSU).

I dispute your contention that St. Olaf's schedule consisted of "average opposition." The MIAC is a pretty decent league, even with St. Thomas having been given the heave-ho, and the Oles played two tourney teams in non-con play (one of which was Chicago) plus a couple of solid (albeit inconsistent) sides in Colorado College and Luther. Given the difficulty of scheduling when you're more or less on the corner of the D3 chessboard (Canada to the north, and no D3 teams to the west until you're nearly to the Pacific), St. Olaf did alright for itself in terms of setting up a good schedule. Massey ranked the Oles' SOS 110th out of the 414 D3 teams, which is well above average.

[Centennial1]

When trying to evaluate where they stood on a national level, I didn't rate them like a Kenyon, Messiah, or Tufts, because teams can look very good against average opposition (to wit: MSU).

I dispute your contention that St. Olaf's schedule consisted of "average opposition." The MIAC is a pretty decent league, even with St. Thomas having been given the heave-ho, and the Oles played two tourney teams in non-con play (one of which was Chicago) plus a couple of solid (albeit inconsistent) sides in Colorado College and Luther. Given the difficulty of scheduling when you're more or less on the corner of the D3 chessboard (Canada to the north, and no D3 teams to the west until you're nearly to the Pacific), St. Olaf did alright for itself in terms of setting up a good schedule. Massey ranked the Oles' SOS 110th out of the 414 D3 teams, which is well above average.

I hear what you're saying, Gregory, but I'll respectfully stick to my guns. Compared to the top programs, playing the top opposition, the Oles were hard to compare based upon their oppostion. Using the Massey ratings that you mentioned, Kenyon, Messiah, and Tufts (the examples of top teams that I cited), had SOS ranking of 19, 2, and 1 respectively. That's a huge difference from 101. My point is that I really like the play of St. Olaf, and hope that they look that good against great programs like NPU, and perhaps Chicago/Calvin.

BTW, nothing against NPU. I like them. My favorite thing about NPU is the PbP's authentic pronounciation of Scandinavian sirnames. Having grown up in Sweden, Cent1 approves . Bonus points for anyone who can pronounce #7 Rydfjäll correctly.

[Hopkins92]

I like St. Olaf so much I put them in the F4 in my bracket.

[wingtips2]

Amherst goes 1-0 up in the 2nd minute. Giammattei takes a shot from the top of the 18, the 'keeper dove to save, but the rebound sat right up for Derby who made no mistake. I guess if we're being super critical we could say that the 'keeper didn't get the ball far enough out of danger, but tough to tell and the shot had some decent velocity on it so I'll give the benefit of the doubt.

One thing that has not changed over the years with the Mammoths is that they'll come out in the first 10 minutes really hard to try to get a goal. When it works and they get the jump, their high press — plus the fact that the opponent then has to come out — means that they can make it very lopsided very quickly if they get an advantage. Will be curious to see how the Beavers respond.

Was at the game - I can confirm what hasn't changed over the years is that Amherst has the most annoying bench and biggest bunch of whinging players on the field in all of college soccer.

[PaulNewman]

From my remote location where I've 'gone fishing' as the NBA TNT crew says, some thoughts on the rest of the tournament...Most are gut feel, and some are kind of random, and I may change my mind a couple of times before I hit 'post'...

Will the teams that just had big scares kick into a higher gear or were those a reflection of vulnerability that foreshadows an exit?  I think Tufts, Messiah, and Conn are in this category. Conn should be the least vulnerable on this measure because they already answered their close call with Salem St with a convincing win over NYU.  I have to add here that Coach Burk for Conn is either cool as a cucumber or getting a nice dose of Xanax or both.  I watched him in the last minute of the 2nd OT with Salem St send in a PK specialist GK, sit in his chair, pull out his notebook, and I presume start scribbling down his PK line-up and notes very methodically without glancing up even once to check on the action on the field.  Easy to forget that Salem St had 2 saves during the shootout and was within a kick or two of dispatching Conn from the tournament in the 1st round on their home field.  And in their PK shootout, Stevens had advancing literally on a foot...one score and advance.

Big picture, I think Tufts goes into this weekend as a clear tournament favorite...two games at home and then back to the Final 4 where there should be teams that can beat them but none of which who would be favored.  I don't think Amherst or Messiah have vintage teams, and both of those could fail to get there.  IMO North Park is one of the most talented and dangerous teams left, but they have to get to the Final 4 first and they'll have two extremely difficult games.  St Olaf is very good...maybe not quite good enough to win it all, but certainly good enough to spoil things for NP.  Calvin and Chicago feels like a toss-up but is anybody really going to pick against Calvin here?  They are very comfortable winning on the road, as they have proven over and over, and just did again last week.  A lot will depend on matchups...I think NP could beat Calvin but maybe struggle more with Chicago, and St Olaf would have a good shot against Chicago but not have the experience to get through Calvin.  That's a wide open sectional.

Messiah should be on their A game after Sunday and it's very hard to imagine Hanover advancing past the Falcons.  I do think W&L can beat Messiah, especially on a slip-'n-slide pitch and because of Singleton who should put together a very solid gameplan.  I don't think CNU would get by Messiah, and the problem for W&L is whether they'll get their shot against Messiah.  CNU could very easily get past W&L, a team and setting the Captains have already faced.  The Captains are battle tested after one of the most challenging schedules in the country.  IMO they can win a shootout style match with W&L but may not be disciplined enough to win a likely lower scoring affair with Messiah.

I'm curious who NESCAC folks think would be a more dangerous Final 4 team, Amherst or Middlebury.  If not for a possible outbreak by GG, I'd pick Middlebury.  Of course just to get to the Elite 8 Middlebury will have to survive one of, if not the most, mature, experienced, and disciplined teams remaining in John Carroll.   I wouldn't say JCU has flown under the radar like St Olaf, but I'm not sure they've garnered enough respect either.  I have no idea how JCU, a turf team from Cleveland, will handle coming to New England and playing on a small, grass field, but one could think that a very strong, disciplined team should be able to hold their own with less field to cover.  I have no clue what to make of Cortland St.  Will Cortland make their usual polite (or impolite) exit from the Sweet 16, or is this edition better and with the moxie to go into Amherst and advance vs the Mammoths.  If they do, Cortland would obviously go into Elite 8 with loads of confidence.  I just have a feeling Amherst will get by Cortland one way or the other, but I'm gonna predict that Amherst will not get by Midd or JCU.

I'm half-joking but did Tufts give Conn a little too much bulletin board material with the NESCAC POY ranting?  Most, including me, are picking Conn over Redlands but we really have no idea.  I mean, Salem St nearly ousted Conn.  We'll see.  I'd give Conn far more than a puncher's chance against Tufts, like maybe 40/60 or 45/55 odds, but Conn CANNOT look past the first game.  That would be an exceptional Elite 8 tilt.  Absolutely love the Washington College story and would love to see the Shoremen crash the Final 4, but they're gonna get a very perked up Tufts team that should not be flat.  I expect Wash Coll to show well, but can't help thinking they'll be a little overwhelmed by the Jumbos. 

Hoping for Wash Coll or Conn, W&L, St Olaf, and John Carroll or Midd....

Expecting Tufts, W&L, Calvin, Middlebury...

Teams with best chance to knock out Tufts (if they can get there)...in order...North Park, Conn, Midd, W&L...

[College Soccer Observer]

Just wanted to point out from an NCAA rules perspective that it was not necessary for Conn to sub in the pk specialist goalie before OT expired.  That would be the case under FIFA rules, but NCAA rules allow any non-ejected player to participate.  As far as the idea of getting him in the game to avoid putting him in cold for pks, I get it, but the substitution itself was not required by the rules.  Another quirk in NCAA pk rules.  FIFA has all 11 players participating, or else a reduction by the team with 11 if one team is playing with 10.  NCAA rules ask a team to designate 10 kickers, one of whom may be the goalkeeper.  In the Tufts-Stevens shootout, teams only went 10 deep instead of 11 before allowing repeat kickers.

[wingtips2]

SlideTackle, I think saying NESCAC got no respect is a bit of distortion.  They did get 4, which is pretty good and about what they usually get.  Yes, they deserved five this year. And yes, they should have gotten one of the Centennial bids and Rochester should not have received a bid.

The geographic concentration of the NESCAC in a singular area doesn't help their case. 
The UAA is spread out and each of the teams could be theoretically be considered top team in their region and have the entire conference get in. 
And the Centennial teams have a lot more wiggle room geographically as well. 

And this has probably been discussed before, but why isn't Tufts in the UAA?  Their academic profile as a research university with endless graduate programs certainly matches the UAA teams more than the NESCAC.

[Gregory Sager]

When trying to evaluate where they stood on a national level, I didn't rate them like a Kenyon, Messiah, or Tufts, because teams can look very good against average opposition (to wit: MSU).

I dispute your contention that St. Olaf's schedule consisted of "average opposition." The MIAC is a pretty decent league, even with St. Thomas having been given the heave-ho, and the Oles played two tourney teams in non-con play (one of which was Chicago) plus a couple of solid (albeit inconsistent) sides in Colorado College and Luther. Given the difficulty of scheduling when you're more or less on the corner of the D3 chessboard (Canada to the north, and no D3 teams to the west until you're nearly to the Pacific), St. Olaf did alright for itself in terms of setting up a good schedule. Massey ranked the Oles' SOS 110th out of the 414 D3 teams, which is well above average.

I hear what you're saying, Gregory, but I'll respectfully stick to my guns. Compared to the top programs, playing the top opposition, the Oles were hard to compare based upon their oppostion. Using the Massey ratings that you mentioned, Kenyon, Messiah, and Tufts (the examples of top teams that I cited), had SOS ranking of 19, 2, and 1 respectively. That's a huge difference from 101. My point is that I really like the play of St. Olaf, and hope that they look that good against great programs like NPU, and perhaps Chicago/Calvin.

I never disputed the fact that St. Olaf played a less demanding schedule than Kenyon, Messiah, and Tufts. Why would I? It's blindingly obvious that the Oles don't measure up to those three teams in terms of SOS.

My contention was with your specific use of the term "average opposition," because in the case of St. Olaf it's inaccurate. In the overall sweep of D3, the Oles played an above-average schedule in terms of difficulty.

BTW, nothing against NPU. I like them. My favorite thing about NPU is the PbP's authentic pronounciation of Scandinavian sirnames. Having grown up in Sweden, Cent1 approves . Bonus points for anyone who can pronounce #7 Rydfjäll correctly.

Aaah, the NPU play-by-play guy is overrated. I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw him.

Funny thing is, many of North Park's Swedish student-athletes exasperate me by readily adopting the American pronunciation of both their given names and their surnames. The aforementioned NPU#7, William Boström-Rydfjäll, is a classic example. For all of the work that I've put into mastering the complexities of Swedish vowels, he, like many of his fellow Swedes, informs North Park's sports information department that he's happy to use the Yankified pronunciation of his name by which his North Park student peers call him. That leaves me with the dilemma of either going along with what the student wants (which is the default for broadcasters and P.A. announcers, of course), or going with what mor och far (and especially farmor) want to hear their boy called, since a considerable number of folks back in hemlandet watch the Vikings, even when the game starts at 2 am local time.

(He also answers to "Billy," since for the past two seasons NPU has also had a Swede named "Willy" on the team.)

This is obviously a conflict between the famous Swedish tendency to blend in, and my own tendency as an anal-retentive broadcaster.

My favorite example of this try-to-fit-in syndrome among Swedes is a term with which many soccer coaches are familiar (and which causes many American and British athletes to snicker), fartlek. It refers to the type of interval training for running -- short sprints interspersed amidst stretches of walking and jogging -- that has become a standard in soccer training as well as for distance runners, because it obviously replicates the way that soccer players move throughout a game. Fartlek is a term invented by a couple of Swedish running coaches back in the mid-20th century that literally means "speed play" in Swedish, and it has become such a commonly-used loanword in the English-speaking sports world that it's now in the Oxford English Dictionary.

So what's the word that Swedish athletes and coaches currently use to describe distance interval training? Intervallträning. 

[blooter442]

My favorite example of this try-to-fit-in syndrome among Swedes is a term with which many soccer coaches are familiar (and which causes many American and British athletes to snicker), fartlek. It refers to the type of interval training for running -- short sprints interspersed amidst stretches of walking and jogging -- that has become a standard in soccer training as well as for distance runners, because it obviously replicates the way that soccer players move throughout a game. Fartlek is a term invented by a couple of Swedish running coaches back in the mid-20th century that literally means "speed play" in Swedish, and it has become such a commonly-used loanword in the English-speaking sports world that it's now in the Oxford English Dictionary.

So what's the word that Swedish athletes and coaches currently use to describe distance interval training? Intervallträning. 

As someone who ran in HS/college and finished my first marathon in October, this was something I didn't know. It's not directly applicable to Swedish — rather going into English and how it got that way — but The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson was a fascinating read. It basically explains that a number of words and phrases (and spellings) of English words are derived from errors or misunderstandings but the new use/pronunciation/etc. are persisted with, and it appears that the English translations of Swedish phrases or words are likely modified or misunderstood similarly. Still, if we're talking purely about how things are phrased in English, I like "speed play" over "interval training."

[SlideTackle]

SlideTackle, I think saying NESCAC got no respect is a bit of distortion.  They did get 4, which is pretty good and about what they usually get.  Yes, they deserved five this year. And yes, they should have gotten one of the Centennial bids and Rochester should not have received a bid.

The geographic concentration of the NESCAC in a singular area doesn't help their case. 
The UAA is spread out and each of the teams could be theoretically be considered top team in their region and have the entire conference get in. 
And the Centennial teams have a lot more wiggle room geographically as well. 

And this has probably been discussed before, but why isn't Tufts in the UAA?  Their academic profile as a research university with endless graduate programs certainly matches the UAA teams more than the NESCAC.

Not sure what geographics has to do with this. If you put NESCAC teams that finished 5-10 this year in several other region I or even region II conferences they'd win far more games and likely finish in the top 2 in many if not all of those conferences.  Hamilton, who finished 10th in the NESCAC this year and is quite talented, beat Oneonta in October.  Oneonta gave Mid a good game but finishes the year having lost to 2 NESCSAC teams. I don't think Cortland will be very competitive against Amherst, but we shall see.

Don't recall all of this year's games, but I believe in UAA v. NESCAC this year NESCAC teams won their games and I don't believe gave up a goal.  The two I recall are Tufts 4-0 over Brandeis and Conn 3-0 over NYU.  Both those NESCAC teams lost to or tied NESCAC teams that didn't get bids to the tournament.  I guess every year is different, but the last tournament had 2 NESCACs in the national finals, they have been ranked in the top 10 most of the year and yet the committee gave only 4 slots to NESCAC and 5 to UAA. I wouldn't chalk that up to geographics.  Probavbly more a misjudgment of conference strength.