Big Dance 2022 - Let's Go!

[PaulNewman]

Kuiper, do you see any of the West/Texas teams having more than a puncher's chance against Chicago?  Willamette and the other four at MHB?

[PaulNewman]

So, as a very biased observer, this is what I think the cmte should have done and could have done rather easily.

And I'm presuming that Stevens was the #4 seed and Kenyon #5 or #6.  They could have just switched out Messiah and Stevens and Stevens still could have been a top seed, and you'd have a potential #4 v#5 matchup rather than what some have endorsed as possibly the best team in Messiah history vs a #5 or #6 (all on paper because as we know Stevens and Kenyon have a ton of work to do to even get to an Elite 8). 

Also, I get that Calvin is often hard to place.  But especially since Calvin is probably or should be the #6 or #7 seed, they just as easily could have been placed with in the pod with North Central (also geographically closer) with St Olaf going to Kenyon.  Still a very difficult opponent to match up with CMU and possibly Kenyon but a little more reasonable nonetheless.

[Coach Jeff]

IMO it doesn't look like the Cmte was concerned with who the overall top 4 teams were.  It appears they just filled the bracket after deciding who these teams were.  In most brackets in the NCAA they will place the top seed against number team 64 and #2 against team 63.  I doesn't appear that that is what they did in the D3 soccer brackets.  Just an observation.

[Hopkins92]

Even here

https://twitter.com/tuftsjumbos/status/1589693332959088640?s=61&t=w6o7JiKsO3ojtdkD1hu5wQ

Thanks for posting all of those!!

I absolutely think about the players and coaches during that show every year. I've talked about it a bunch, Hopkins being the last one in last year was agonizing, I can't imagine what it was like for the fellas in that room.

[Saint_Dad]

So if Marvin Sibanda and SLU take down Amherst (I know I'm getting ahead of myself as Roger Williams will be tough), is Marvin the Div 3 player of the year?  I believe most eyes will be on that game.

[paclassic89]

I would think McDonald from Messiah is the current favorite for D3POY.   It would probably take an early Messiah exit for someone else to win it.  Just judging by the numbers

[Saint_Dad]

He does have a lot of goals (21) on a high scoring team.  But you are comparing a forward to a player that played mostly defensive mid-field, or as some others said, point guard, for SLU.  Sibanda still scored 11 goals, which was a similar percentage (slightly higher) than McDonald, and had the same amount of assists (6) as Mcdonald.  Hoping for the SLU Amherst matchup on a decent pitch.  We can't expect them all to be like SLU's or Vassar's grass field, but hopefully the field will be playable after two games Saturday on a rain soaked pitch.  Perhaps it will be moved to turf.

[Kuiper]

Kuiper, do you see any of the West/Texas teams having more than a puncher's chance against Chicago?  Willamette and the other four at MHB?

Short answer:  No

Longer answer:  Chicago's offense can be frustrated by a determined defense with speed, size, and strength, but to beat their defense requires one of two things in my opinion: 

(1) a moment of brilliance, usually from a long shot.  Their GK is solid, but I don't think he's the kind of keeper who makes spectacular saves in the upper 90.  Most of Chicago's goals conceded this year came from penalty kicks on hand balls in the box (for some reason), but of the few goals they gave up in the run of play, several came from long shots, including Carthage's goal and one of Wheaton's goals; or

(2) a play that draws out Wada when Gillespie is marauding forward and then uses one touch passing to get through the other players.  Wada can makeup ground deceptively fast, but he's best when he can use the angle to deal with speedy players.  If you can get him to overplay a target forward (he and Gillespie do that a lot) and one touch it around him, he takes some time to turn and run back (not surprising at his height) and a fast one touch sequence down the middle can be effective.

So, how do the Northwest/Texas teams fare on those things?

I don't think Willamette can play the kind of defense to frustrate Chicago (they lack the speed, GK, and size on corners), although they do have at least one player, Jett Starr, who can hit a nice long shot.  Not sure he can uncork that quickly though and Chicago would likely close him down before he had a chance.

Pacific Lutheran's strength is experience (from beating Trinity last year) and it's fighting spirit that might come from having a lot of players who are from the same HS or grew up together.  Their leading scorer, for example, is the brother of one of the Assistant Coaches and brought a bunch of kids from his HS.  That experience and spirit is worth something, but I don't think they have the talent to challenge Chicago.

Mary Hardin-Baylor has some experience playing against big guns.  Last season, they went to Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania and played Messiah pretty evenly before losing 1-0 on a goal in the 107th minute of 2OT and then went to Lancaster two days later and played Franklin & Marshall and their chaos pretty evenly until giving up a goal in the 78th minute to lose 1-0.  This year, they've had some hiccups, but dominated in the ASC tournament.  I could see them making it out of the second round given that they are playing at home, but I just don't see where they have the offense to unlock Chicago's defense.  They've scored a lot of goals as a team and they returned their leading scorers from last year, but these guys scored 7-8 goals each both seasons.  You need someone special to unlock Chicago's center backs and these guys are just pretty good.

St. Thomas is the team that has the best chance.  They've got a center forward, Salako, who is reasonably tall, but with a wide body and holds up the ball well for distribution and/or gets fouled.  He scored 9 goals, but he also led the team in assists with 8.  The two leading scorers were Aleman (16 goals/5 assists) and Castro (17 goals/4 assists).  They could score on a free kick near the box or in the run of play.  All of that presents some challenges Chicago may not have seen, especially with players who have tight foot skills.  Could St. Thomas defend?  I think so, but that's less clear.  They have speed and they get stuck in, but their GKs are short and they might have trouble on corner kicks.  Bigger concerns I have for them relates to something I mentioned during the season in their game against Colorado College.  They have a style of reacting to fouls that I see a lot in Southern California and South Texas when I lived there.  It involves complaining about every decision, mass confrontation of the refs, embellishment, pushing the ball forward when the refs aren't looking (which I see on throw-ins everywhere nowadays), etc.  That may be OK with the refs they will see in the first two rounds, but when they get out of region, they may find themselves in trouble.  Plus, St. Thomas' is almost exclusively from Houston (although some list their home towns in El Salvador, Venezuela, Mexico etc).  Playing in Chicago in November with the cold/wind etc would be new for many of them.  They have the passing skills to keep it on the floor and Chicago's turf field would suit them better than playing on one of those muddy or frozen cow pastures some schools have this time of year, but I'm not sure how they would react.  It's kind of like the US playing Mexican or Central American teams in Minnesota.

UPDATE:  I realized I left out Chapman.  I just don't see them taking Chicago.  Chapman's offense is built around high pressing the defenders and that simply doesn't work against Chicago.  And Chapman's defense is not particularly strong as a unit.  Strong passing teams can go around them pretty easily (that's how Pomona-Pitzer got off to a 3-1 lead on them at halftime against them before falling apart).  They have one strong defender and their GK cleans up a lot of messes by being really aggressive.  He comes out hard and far.  In fact, he might be the right kind of GK to defend against Chicago on corners, not because he's tall, but because he's going to track the ball and fight to get a touch on it.  So many of Chicago's corner kick goals are because the GK stayed on his line and the defenders lost track of or couldn't handle Chicago's big guys.  The problem is that if your GK has to come off his line to save your defense time and time again, skilled players are going to dance around him and slot it home since the GK has left the goal wide open.

[SimpleCoach]

If we are doing PoY, this is my current thinking.

Luke Groothoff, Messiah
Matt McDonald, Messiah
Jared Pavlovich, Messiah
Richard Gillespie, Chicago
Griffin Wada, Chicago
Marvin Sibanda, St. Lawrence
Marcos Vila, Luther
Ian Daly, Tufts
Payton Blynn, Western Connecticut
Shea Bechtel, St. Olaf
Jake Vogrin, John Carroll
Adam Silva, Stevens
Michael Kutsanzira, Washington & Lee
Carter Thiesfeld, WI Eau Claire
Sam Farrell, Franklin and Marshall
Laurens ten Cate, Amherst

Well, maybe not all of them would be finalists, but this would be one hell of a lineup....

SC.

[blue_jays]

If we are doing PoY, this is my current thinking.

Luke Groothoff, Messiah
Matt McDonald, Messiah
Jared Pavlovich, Messiah
Richard Gillespie, Chicago
Ben Brandt, Chicago
Marvin Sibanda, St. Lawrence
Marcos Vila, Luther
Ian Daly, Tufts
Payton Blynn, Western Connecticut
Shea Bechtel, St. Olaf
Jake Vogrin, John Carroll
Adam Silva, Stevens
Michael Kutsanzira, Washington & Lee
Carter Thiesfeld, WI Eau Claire
Sam Farrell, Franklin and Marshall
Laurens ten Cate, Amherst

Well, maybe not all of them would be finalists, but this would be one hell of a lineup....

SC.

I'm guessing you meant Griffin Wada for UChicago, since Ben Brandt graduated last year.

[SimpleCoach]

If we are doing PoY, this is my current thinking.

Luke Groothoff, Messiah
Matt McDonald, Messiah
Jared Pavlovich, Messiah
Richard Gillespie, Chicago
Ben Brandt, Chicago
Marvin Sibanda, St. Lawrence
Marcos Vila, Luther
Ian Daly, Tufts
Payton Blynn, Western Connecticut
Shea Bechtel, St. Olaf
Jake Vogrin, John Carroll
Adam Silva, Stevens
Michael Kutsanzira, Washington & Lee
Carter Thiesfeld, WI Eau Claire
Sam Farrell, Franklin and Marshall
Laurens ten Cate, Amherst

Well, maybe not all of them would be finalists, but this would be one hell of a lineup....

SC.

I'm guessing you meant Griffin Wada for UChicago, since Ben Brandt graduated last year.

Indeed.  Not sure where that came from.  In their case, if you could make co-PoY or Tandem of the Year.

[LetteroftheLaw]

Shocked that Catholic makes the tournament.  Outside of league champion Scranton who they played 2x (1-1), the only other Tournament team they played was Mary Washington who spanked them 3-1. 

Western Connecticut (20-0-2) on the other hand played 4 tournament teams and was 4-0-1.

Catholic was a true bubble team no doubt but they get in and will make their 5th appearance in the dance within the last decade. Catholic was 2-2 against teams that made the tournament (1-1 against Scranton, Loss to UMW, and win over Marymount), they also tied Gettysburg and Montclair St and beat Drew convincingly, 4-1. I would argue that if Western Conn State should have gotten in over an at large team it should have been Vassar who they beat head to head. WCS was 4-0-1 against teams that made the tournament but overall their strength of schedule was weaker in my opinion. One goal victories against Lehman, USMAA, and UMass Boston and a draw to Drew is not as impressive as 4-0-1 vs tournament teams sounds. Those teams all will likely be bounced in the first round and maybe Catholic and Vassar will too, who knows.
The ironic thing to me is that this is the best tournament draw that Catholic has gotten since 2014 and they're an at large bid. The past two tournaments when they have won the Landmark they got dealt Connecticut College in the first round the year they won it all and last year they got Kenyon in the first round. I think the Lynchburg vs Catholic game will be a good one, I think both teams are evenly matched and CNU in the second round is not unreasonable either. Time will tell whether Catholic will take advantage but this is definitely their best opportunity to make some noise in the tournament.

[PaulNewman]

Shocked that Catholic makes the tournament.  Outside of league champion Scranton who they played 2x (1-1), the only other Tournament team they played was Mary Washington who spanked them 3-1. 

Western Connecticut (20-0-2) on the other hand played 4 tournament teams and was 4-0-1.

Catholic was a true bubble team no doubt but they get in and will make their 5th appearance in the dance within the last decade. Catholic was 2-2 against teams that made the tournament (1-1 against Scranton, Loss to UMW, and win over Marymount), they also tied Gettysburg and Montclair St and beat Drew convincingly, 4-1. I would argue that if Western Conn State should have gotten in over an at large team it should have been Vassar who they beat head to head. WCS was 4-0-1 against teams that made the tournament but overall their strength of schedule was weaker in my opinion. One goal victories against Lehman, USMAA, and UMass Boston and a draw to Drew is not as impressive as 4-0-1 vs tournament teams sounds. Those teams all will likely be bounced in the first round and maybe Catholic and Vassar will too, who knows.
The ironic thing to me is that this is the best tournament draw that Catholic has gotten since 2014 and they're an at large bid. The past two tournaments when they have won the Landmark they got dealt Connecticut College in the first round the year they won it all and last year they got Kenyon in the first round. I think the Lynchburg vs Catholic game will be a good one, I think both teams are evenly matched and CNU in the second round is not unreasonable either. Time will tell whether Catholic will take advantage but this is definitely their best opportunity to make some noise in the tournament.

Minor correction...the year Conn Coll won it all and Catholic losing to Kenyon were the same tournament....both last year.

[LetteroftheLaw]

Good call, that's my fault. Conn College was still really good in 2019 and made a nice run before losing to the eventual National Champion Tufts. Point still stands, Catholic finally has a winnable first round game for the first time since 2014.

[Planters Nuts]

I've been following the dialogue here for quite sometime, more so the last two weeks or so.  Really having a hard time wrapping my head around a 20-0-2 team not even "being brought to the table" as some of you have put.  Clearly something is wrong with the committee process and standards for bids to the national tournament.

Surely a few tenths of a percentage in lower SoS can't be the deciding factor when the actual winning percentage is a full 2 to 3 points higher?  Westconn was 4-0-1 against teams in the tournament, but they only won those games by one goal and that is a bad thing? In a year full of ties, they WON. Finishing with the 3rd best win% in the country, tied for most shutouts, 2nd best goal differential, 3rd most goals scored.  Left out.  Between them and Montclair, they have some legitimate beef!

If team names were left off of resumes presented to the committee, Westconn would never have been left out of the big dance.  Given Montclair's more known name in the world of D3 Soccer - its just as head scratching

*Full disclaimer, I have no ties to Westconn or Montclair.  I live in CT and go to a number of different college games each season to watch with my kids.  Just love watching good competitive soccer.