2012 NCAA D-I men's soccer bracket announced.

Of course they all lose money so why play? As it is they play a 2 month season which IMHO, is all waste of time and money and it doesn't help the game at all . I'm actually wishing more schools should or could follow the BYU to the PDL regional schedule and play almost year around because this whole NCAA schedule (17 games in 8 weeks) and/or tournament is kind of a joke, for the fans, the schools and for the level and quality of play in the this country. The current set up, is just not doing the game or the players, for that matter, any good.

 

Atlantic Ten got four bids for the first time
Charlotte/VCU/Saint Louis/Xavier

 

Should we post any free streams in this thread or do we want another?

 

... but Caleb's team are so good at defending set pieces.

 

Do you think that kids playing PDL give 1/10th about their team as college players ? PDL is nothing in terms of emotional investment, something to do in the summer to sharpen your skills for the fall and maybe catch a MLS scout eye. Do you think PDL teams will get together over the next 40 years to relive moments ? College soccer is about the experience in addition to the soccer.

 

You nailed it...they played one hell of a schedule this year and almost had a couple results against Creighton, and played very well against Akron. I think the Duke and Evansville losses hurt as well. Team is pretty down, as their were several seniors who had been through the transition period to DI and played through some tough, character-building years.

They are making great strides though, and look forward to the future of the program.

 

Are we trying to grow the game in the USA or are we just trying to live for a letterman's jacket or All American first team bid or the big man on campus memories? Nothing to do with the thread but since you asked, none of this college ra ra stuff is really helping the game grow further in this country and if anything, its hindering it. Most of the PDL players come from colleges and most college players are in school because they play soccer but either way, the college game (from what I've witnessed) doesn't do the players or the game or rather players with professional aspirations any good. I've coached , scouted and consulted teams in the Serie C, B & A in Italy and worked directly with Fiorentina when they were relegated from the Serie A to the C2 and back up to the A again from 02-04 and the quality of play in the USL/PDL is a lot more comparable to those divisions than to anything the NCAA will ever dream about being. Sooner or later, the colleges should start thinking of playing year around otherwise , it won't help the sport at all or the college game in the long run, for that mater.

Anyway sorry about the tangent , back to the thread, carry on....

 

I put together a comparison table. Based upon the seeding location in the bracket, I assigned a seeding number (rank). These numbers are common for a 48 team bracket. I have included the RPI, Massey, BCS Massey, and the TopDrawerSoccer Rank. The BCS Massey rank does not account for actual scores and margins (see FAQ on masseyratings.com). While I recognize that location, cost, etc. all play a role in the seeding, I found it interesting. The most relevant comparison may be the top 16 team comparison from the different rankings. I hope the pdf attaches properly since it is too long for the post here (or outside of my capabilities). Some of the bubble RPI teams are included for comparison.

 

It would be an above-ground trolley most of the way. The Eagles could take the B line inbound. It ducks below ground just before you get into Kenmore. There, they would switch to the outbound D line (I'm pretty sure you can do that at Kenmore), which would just as quickly emerge above ground. Get off at Brookline Village, walk a half mile up Kent St., and you're there!

 

It could be worse - Mount St Mary's just announced that there will be no more upcoming events.

The Mount has a very nice new stadium - for Lacrosse and Women's soccer.

I think the non-host 1st rounder is planning on going and not coming back until after the Sunday match.

Niagara to Michigan is an easy drive. So is the Charlotte to Gtown. If my previous assertion is correct and Brown wins, they bus to MD.

I do have to question if it's busses or buses.

 

Here is Massey vs RPI with autobids marked as A and at-large bids ranked as X. Once again Akron is seeded lower than they should be. UCLA is also seeded lower than their results should be but they really haven't played that well. As expected Stanford deserved a spot but didn't get it. Cal is the only other team that should be per Massey but didn't get a bid, but it is hard feel sorry for a borderline team that loses their last game 6-1. Thought UC Davis was going to be a third but would have been kept out by tournament upsets. It is still a joke of a selection process, but overall isn't really bad this year.

Team	Conf	Record	PCT	Rank	RPI	diff	Bid
Akron	Mid-American	17-1-2	0.9	1	2	-1	A
Notre Dame	Big East	16-3-1	0.825	2	1	1	A
Maryland	Atlantic Coast	17-1-2	0.9	3	3	0	A
UCLA	Pac 12	13-2-3	0.806	4	5	-1	A
Georgetown	Big East	17-3-1	0.833	5	4	1	X
Marquette	Big East	16-3-1	0.825	6	8	-2	X
North Carolina	Atlantic Coast	15-3-2	0.8	7	9	-2	X
St Louis	Atlantic 10	16-4	0.8	8	6	2	A
Connecticut	Big East	15-3-1	0.816	9	7	2	X
Cornell	Ivy League	15-1	0.938	10	23	-13	A
New Mexico	Mtn Pacific SF	16-3-1	0.825	11	10	1	X
Washington	Pac 12	12-4-3	0.711	12	19	-7	X
Creighton	Missouri Val	15-3-2	0.8	13	11	2	A
Louisville	Big East	12-5-1	0.694	14	13	1	X
Wake Forest	Atlantic Coast	11-3-5	0.711	15	18	-3	X
Tulsa	Conference USA	13-5-1	0.711	16	12	4	A
Charlotte	Atlantic 10	14-3-3	0.775	17	17	0	X
Coastal Carolina	Big South	18-2-2	0.864	18	37	-19	X
Indiana	Big 10	11-5-3	0.658	19	16	3	X
VCU	Atlantic 10	12-3-5	0.725	20	14	6	X
Elon	Southern	15-4-2	0.762	21	22	-1	A
Northeastern	Colonial	13-2-4	0.789	22	21	1	A
Virginia	Atlantic Coast	9-6-4	0.579	23	15	8	X
St John's	Big East	10-4-4	0.667	24	20	4	X
Drexel	Colonial	12-3-3	0.75	25	31	-6	X
CS Northridge	Big West	15-6	0.714	26	29	-3	A
Brown	Ivy League	12-2-3	0.794	27	34	-7	X
Old Dominion	Colonial	11-3-2	0.75	28	24	4	X
Stanford	Pac 12	9-8-1	0.528	29	50	-21
Xavier	Atlantic 10	13-2-5	0.775	30	36	-6	X
SMU	Conference USA	10-5-4	0.632	31	28	3	X
Michigan St	Big 10	11-9-1	0.548	32	30	2	A
Kentucky	Conference USA	10-8-2	0.55	33	25	8	X
California	Pac 12	8-7-3	0.528	34	46	-12
Boston College	Atlantic Coast	8-5-5	0.583	35	38	-3	X
Niagara	Metro Atlantic	13-1-4	0.833	36	39	-3	A
Syracuse	Big East	12-6	0.667	37	40	-3	X
Michigan	Big 10	10-9-1	0.525	38	27	11	X
UAB	Conference USA	10-7-2	0.579	39	32	7	X
UC Davis	Big West	10-7-4	0.571	40	42	-2
Cal Poly SLO	Big West	11-7-1	0.605	41	52	-11
Santa Clara	West Coast	11-6-2	0.632	42	54	-12
UC Santa Barbara	Big West	10-6-3	0.605	43	70	-27
Duke	Atlantic Coast	8-8-2	0.5	44	45	-1
South Florida	Big East	8-5-4	0.588	45	26	19	X
Denver	Mtn Pacific SF	11-6-3	0.625	46	47	-1
Villanova	Big East	12-6-2	0.65	47	43	4
Northwestern	Big 10	11-5-4	0.65	48	41	7	X
Edwardsville	Missouri Val	13-7	0.65	49	35	14
Furman	Southern	12-4-3	0.711	50	66	-16
CS Bakersfield	Mtn Pacific SF	9-5-5	0.605	51	67	-16
Rutgers	Big East	7-7-1	0.5	52	33	19
UMBC	America East	11-4-5	0.675	55	51	4	A
FL Gulf Coast	Atlantic Sun	11-5-2	0.667	59	65	-6	A
San Diego	West Coast	11-8	0.579	65	81	-16	A
Cleveland St	Horizon	11-5-3	0.658	68	80	-12	A
Air Force	Mtn Pacific SF	10-8-4	0.545	72	83	-11	A
Winthrop	Big South	12-8-1	0.595	87	73	14	A
Lafayette	Patriot League	9-7-4	0.55	97	115	-18	A
Fairleigh Dickinson	Northeast	9-5-6	0.6	110	108	2	A
W Illinois	Summit Lg	7-8-5	0.475	158	170	-12	A

 

Interesting detail. The San Diego at CSUN soccer game will be taking place at the exact same time as a men's basketball game, CSUN at San Diego.

 

Nothing new. For the prior 7 years Akron, had been under-seeded by more places than any other team except Santa Barbara.

 

The real snub is Stanford. If you feel that RPI is all that matters then it should be BC. But you can make a case for SIUE.

 

Believe it or not, but Big 10 has been far more over rated far more in terms of top seeds than the Big East in the past 7 years. Its not even close.

Conf	C.Seed	M Seed	Diff
A10	6	3	3
ACC	314	290	24
AEC	0	0	0
ASC	0	0	0
B10	141	82	59
BE	147	127	20
BSo	0	11	-11
BWC	24	65	-41
CAA	17	11	6
CUSA	63	45	18
HL	9	19	-10
Ivy	20	21	-1
MAAC	8	15	-7
MAC	53	71	-18
MPSF	22	33	-11
MVC	34	33	1
NEC	0	0	0
P12	70	101	-31
PL	1	3	-2
SC	0	1	-1
SL	0	0	0
WCC	23	21	2

[/FONT]

 

I've always considered cost another reason the committee continually fails to select deserving teams from the West. After all, it is a cross country trip if you add an odd team from the west. It is pretty ironic the NCAA is too cheap to spend money to get proper bracketing and further tainting their tournament, yet you and others demand teams from the West fly to the east in order to offset the NCAAs crooked system. For example Riverside deserved to be in last year based on their RPI, yet the committee somehow found a reason to leave them out.

originally incorrectly typed Northridge

 

The college system funds a whole bunch of youth coaches and creates a lot of interest in playing the sport at a higher level than would otherwise be the case.

 

Northridge not even making the Big West Tournament may have had something to do with their being snubbed a year ago.

 

Sorry, that was a typo. I should have typed Riverside.

 

Last year Riverside was 34 and didn't make it. If Northridge lost to Davis they would have likely dropped close to where Riverside was last year and would have cost the NCAA some plane tickets to have another teams from the west play a game with someone.

 

About that whole travel costs thing - if the NCAA wants to keep them to a minimum, why did they ship Providence out to the west coast for their second round matchup against UCSB last year? Why not give us a closer opponent geographically??