NCAA TOURNAMENT 2024

[eaglesoccerdad]

Depending on when the Ohio teams are travelling they could run into some winter weather (6-12" of snow expected on Thursday) in the Alleghany Mountains on the ride

[LibbyMoore]

Yikes--hope all the traveling teams get out ahead of the weather and arrive safely at their host location. Are we expecting weather at the northern host schools--snow or just rain?

[Hopkins92]

I goofed on the days when looking at the weather forecast. Things are actually better than I originally thought.

Eau-Claire shows Saturday being chilly, but mostly sunny. High of 39 degrees on Saturday. Sunday is cloudy but with a high of 42 degrees. Assuming folks travel on Friday, the weather is fine. Mostly cloudy but rain/snow is not in the forecast in Wisconsin.

Carlisle shows slightly annoying snow/rain mix in the morning changing to mostly rain in the afternoon on Friday. But Saturday is showing cloudy with a high of 52 and then Sunday is partly cloudy with a high of 52.

[Hopkins92]

Middlebury shows Friday as partly cloudy, Sat there are scattered showers and a high of 44. Sunday is partly cloudy and high of 42.

Fredericksburg is showing by far the balmiest forecast. Cloudy on Friday with a high of 49, but then things brighten up with partly cloudy forecasts on both days and high of 59 on Sat and 60 on Sunday.

[Rcjh2245]

Just perusing through the Buffalo State roster...they've got players from South Africa, Portugal, England, Wales, Italy...as for the rest of the players on their roster, if they aren't international they're from NY.

Stat leader, #10 Diego Rivera, is sitting pretty on 18 G, 8 A. He's had hat tricks against St. Aloysius and Oswego State.

Portuguese senior, #17 Manu Prieto, follows closely behind with 10 G, 17 A. Prieto had a hat trick vs Alfred and picked up a brace on 2 separate occasions. 4 assists vs Oswego State.

I had watched the conference championship game where they lost 3-1. It could've been 5-1 as cortland hit 4 posts and had the run of play all game. I also felt their third goal was a poor call.
In the buff state goal he made that out of nothing. It was 1 on 3. He cut from toward the sideline into the 3 players and put it in inside corner from about 20 yds out. Crafty player who plays with a lot of confidence. Just needs his one chance like he did against tufts.
Their center back is also a super player too. Super composed on the ball and walks up the field when he wants to.

The player who scored from 20 yards out - was this #10 Rivera or #17 Prieto? Or neither? Just curious.

Rivera

[Mr_November]

Wanted to do a deeper dive into Babson, since I haven't seen any of their matches yet.

Out of Babson's top 9 stat leaders, 8 of them have AT LEAST 50% SOG. That's pretty impressive and shows some serious discipline when it comes to shooting.

It also looks like they have a fairly wide spread of goals, with their top 5 stat leaders contributing at least 13 points.

Top stat leader, Kento Abe, transferred in from Maryland and is playing his Grad year at Babson. Listed as a defender at UMD but has racked up 8 goals and 6 assists for Babson. Looks like he contributed 14 games and 9 starts at UMD last season as a senior.

[PaulNewman]

I question a "high level ref" who is looking at foot rotation and thinks white touches a ball that has zero deflection.  Either it's a different clip or your high level ref went to a NESCAC school and is looking for a reason to justify the call.

I'd defer to a current "high-level ref" who is grading refs based on video evidence such as this on a daily basis over a "former ref" such as you. And since you are alleging some sort of bias, he has zero affiliation with the NESCAC. Also, he knows that ref and does not speak highly of him on a personal or professional level, so no bias there either. As for me, I vehemently root against the NESCAC every chance I get.

The fact of the matter is that he is more qualified to speak on the play than any of us since we all have access to the same information yet he has the training and expertise. Now, for those who were at the game, they have more information and can more credibly make an assessment than he can. But they are also arguably the most biased.

Given that you said you thought it was a foul, and so many others did as well, I guess what is not clear to me now is what prompted you to refer the matter to the friend in the first place.

That's a rather silly question, so I'll answer it by asking you one as well. Have you ever in your 64 years felt confident about your layman's opinion on something, but still decided to sanity-check it with an expert?

Not that I can think of in a situation where I am absolutely clear on what I saw as were many, many others (and some of whom have a strong refereeing background).

Do you typically refer your initial, clear impressions supported by basically everyone else out for official review?

Not sure what 'layman' means here either. This was not a tricky, idiosyncratic close call...at least not for me..I saw no need for an expert opinion but we did have one from CSO already.  This was not like a tough block/charge call in bball or a close, debatable pass interference play in football.

You raised a lot of red flags imo. You're not a NESCAC fan. Your expert isn't a NESCAC guy. Your guy knows the ref in question, but...and you thought this supported the objectivity of your guy...your guy doesn't even like the ref. What? How were those little add-on details relevant? 

Thankfully, though, your expert finally confirmed what 95% of the laymen saw.

[PaulNewman]

I actually did have a layman question that I referred out in this thread, which nobody attempted to answer.

Can a ref call a play back 5 seconds after the play upon realizing oh wow, I should have called that. I realize that doing that after Kirkman was about to shoot or after the goal would have been really bad from, but what if he had called it back right before or while the assist guy played the ball over the top? Or, even, sticking with his non-call could he still have interrupted play for an injury check?

[eaglesoccerdad]

I goofed on the days when looking at the weather forecast. Things are actually better than I originally thought.

Eau-Claire shows Saturday being chilly, but mostly sunny. High of 39 degrees on Saturday. Sunday is cloudy but with a high of 42 degrees. Assuming folks travel on Friday, the weather is fine. Mostly cloudy but rain/snow is not in the forecast in Wisconsin.

Carlisle shows slightly annoying snow/rain mix in the morning changing to mostly rain in the afternoon on Friday. But Saturday is showing cloudy with a high of 52 and then Sunday is partly cloudy with a high of 52.

teams usually have a training session at the venue on Friday so i think most teams travel on Thursday

[Tyler12410]

It seems like money is an issue when folks wanna make money an issue. I thought this year was supposed to be different with NPI carrying a lot of weight (as jknezek has detailed effectively) and the exception being a situation like we have with Wisconsin and Amherst. If Trinity and CMS can go there Vermont, then certainly W&L can go to Williams.

You'd have thought. I certainly thought W&L was headed to Williams and was very surprised when Carlyle popped up on the W&L schedule page.

Then again, W&L's women's team, which I think was the 3 seed overall, is going to Scranton (9) for their second weekend. They are the top NPI in a pod with Scranton, Trinity (22) and William Smith (16). I really can't figure that one out, as William Smith is Hobart, and when W&L's football team went to Hobart for an NCAA game, it was a bus trip. Trinity is a flight either way.

So I'm real confused on why the W&L women aren't at home. Maybe it had something to do with hosting priority and W&L put in to host for both teams and the men had the second weekend, so even though they didn't get it, it forced the women to the road? Don't know how that works.

I believe the reason W&L women are not at home is due to their Field Hockey team hosting the second round of their tournament. Nonetheless it's quite crazy that Trinity from Texas will be flying across the country to the home of the office, Scranton PA.

[Mr_November]

I believe the reason W&L women are not at home is due to their Field Hockey team hosting the second round of their tournament. Nonetheless it's quite crazy that Trinity from Texas will be flying across the country to the home of the office, Scranton PA.

One can only hope teams will be able to steer clear of the Scranton Strangler

[FanofNescac]

Probably missed it but is there a video/link of the controversial no call/foul in the Messiah Williams game?

[NEsoccerfan]

I question a "high level ref" who is looking at foot rotation and thinks white touches a ball that has zero deflection.  Either it's a different clip or your high level ref went to a NESCAC school and is looking for a reason to justify the call.

I'd defer to a current "high-level ref" who is grading refs based on video evidence such as this on a daily basis over a "former ref" such as you. And since you are alleging some sort of bias, he has zero affiliation with the NESCAC. Also, he knows that ref and does not speak highly of him on a personal or professional level, so no bias there either. As for me, I vehemently root against the NESCAC every chance I get.

The fact of the matter is that he is more qualified to speak on the play than any of us since we all have access to the same information yet he has the training and expertise. Now, for those who were at the game, they have more information and can more credibly make an assessment than he can. But they are also arguably the most biased.

Given that you said you thought it was a foul, and so many others did as well, I guess what is not clear to me now is what prompted you to refer the matter to the friend in the first place.

That's a rather silly question, so I'll answer it by asking you one as well. Have you ever in your 64 years felt confident about your layman's opinion on something, but still decided to sanity-check it with an expert?

Not that I can think of in a situation where I am absolutely clear on what I saw as were many, many others (and some of whom have a strong refereeing background).

Do you typically refer your initial, clear impressions supported by basically everyone else out for official review?

Not sure what 'layman' means here either. This was not a tricky, idiosyncratic close call...at least not for me..I saw no need for an expert opinion but we did have one from CSO already.  This was not like a tough block/charge call in bball or a close, debatable pass interference play in football.

You raised a lot of red flags imo. You're not a NESCAC fan. Your expert isn't a NESCAC guy. Your guy knows the ref in question, but...and you thought this supported the objectivity of your guy...your guy doesn't even like the ref. What? How were those little add-on details relevant? 

Thankfully, though, your expert finally confirmed what 95% of the laymen saw.

What a waste of time. As I said from the beginning, I should have known better than to disturb the echo chamber, which despite you denying it at the time you quite clearly proved my point by saying "clear impressions supported by basically everyone else".

Carry on!

[eaglesoccerdad]

LOL Scranton is 2+ hours from Carlisle

[SierraFD3soccer]

W&L is hosting the Field Hockey Final 4. D3 has about 150 teams as only really the mid Atlantic and up to the NE play field hockey. https://www.collegepipe.com/universities For instance in Maryland high schools, there are maybe 3/4 as many teams that play compared to every HS which plays soccer. In ODACs, 14 women's soccer teams v. 9 FH teams.

W&L is mainly hosting because it has a legit FH field as opposed to artificial turf fields on which the vast majority of teams in HS and D3 colleges play on. It basically is a very slick (watered before they start) surface that gets the ball going really, really fast. You'll see water come up when you slap the ball. https://generalssports.com/facilities/w-l-turf-field/3 

So hosting 4 teams with families of which W&L is not one of in a small rural town in VA and having women's soccer . . .