34 RPI and a win vs Michigan St this weekend puts them at .500. Are they in the same conversation with Rutgers?
*Playing Michigan State will cause their RPI to drop, win or lose. *They'd still have to win at least one game in the Big Ten tournament so that they'd be over .500 with a loss there. My hunch is if they come out of the Big Ten tourney with a winning record - not .500, but over it - that they'd get in. That means making the finals. I don't think a .500 record and an RPI in the mid-30's gets them in. The Cleveland State and Bowling Green losses really hurt the Wolverines.
Cal Poly (10-6-1) beats UC Davis (8-6-4) by a score of 1-0 on a Mackenzie Pridham goal. Meanwhile, Sacramento State (8-7-2) lost to UC Santa Barbara (10-5-3) 2-1 behind goals from Cesar Castillo and Charlie Miller. All four teams have one conference game left and Davis is still in first place with 18 points (6-3) and Poly and Sac State (both 5-3-1) have 16 points, tied for 2nd in the BW North. UCSB (4-4-1) has 13 points and could tie both Poly and Sac State for 2nd but are barred for post-season. Sac State finishes @UC Davis and Poly finishes hosting UCSB. Only the top two teams in the division make the BW Tournament so I'm not sure what the tie-breaker is if Sac State and Poly finish with the same amount of points. BTW, UCSB fans will note, with irony, that Davis got a bench red card at the end of the game, presumably for bitching at the ref.
What?! This is HORRIBLE!!! Where were the cops?! Ban them!!! This is not the way soccer should be played!!!
To The Gauchos... Thanks for getting the win today Love (for today only and probably never again), A CP fan
Soph. Kelmend Islami with a goal and an assist as Marquette beats Cincinnati 3-0 in the 1st round of the Big East Tourney. R-Fr. centerback Axel Sjoberg's 7th goal of the season was the game-winner and Sr. Andy Huftalin, who began the season with 3 career goals, added his 10th of the season. Incidentally, if you like contrasts, Islami is listed at 5-5; Sjoberg is listed at 6-7.
On a side note, Cal Poly had 25 fouls. That is very, very rare for them to get that many in 90 minutes. They also had 4 YC's. I'm a bit stunned they played so physical it seems. Sandon, I think you asked about Canadian Mackenzie Pridham a year ago, wondering why he wasn't playing very much? Well, he has turned it on with 11 goals this season. It's not just the number but how he plays in front of goal. He is very good at dealing with big, physical centerbacks and he is also very good at turning and finishing. The best forward we have had at CP since I started following them maybe 6-7 years ago.
Mackenzie Pridham may be Canadian but he pretty much grew up in Cupertino Ca and went to Bellarmine College Prep (HS) in San Jose, Calif. He played for former NASL forward Chris Dangerfield at the DeAnza Force youth team......
With UCSB's self-ban from postseason play, tiebreaking and postseason scenarios pretty much go down like this: The Winner of the Sac State-UC Davis game gets the #1 seed in the BW north. Sac State has the advantage in any tiebreaker scenario with Cal Poly. They tied and defeated Cal Poly in their two meetings this year. Cal Poly has the tiebreaker over UC Davis. They swept Davis this year. A UC Davis tie clinches a spot in the BW tournament. A loss and a Cal Poly win knocks Davis out of the conference tourney, and probably the NCAAs as well. Cal Poly earns the #1 seed with a win over UCSB and a Davis tie. UCD then becomes the #2 seed and Sac State is eliminated.
Cal State Northridge clinched the top spot in the Big West and improved their overall record to 13-5-0 in a 1-0 win over visiting Cal State Fullerton. Beto Velasquez scored the game's only goal. The junior transfer from Virginia Tech hooked a free kick into the corner of the net in the 36th minute. Then Northridge for some reason decided to sit back and say to the Titans, "take your best shot." And that's what the Titans did... 17 shots. Six of made it on goal but were all stopped by senior goalkeeper Michael Abalos. It was a somewhat physical game, with 33 total fouls called by former USSR Premier League referee Alex Gorin. 17 of the fouls were called on Fullerton but there was only one yellow card given to each team. Cal State Northridge closes out the regular season against UC Irvine, which has not won a road game since August 24th and are 1-14-1 since their 3-0-0 start. Even if they lose on Senior Night, CSUN is guaranteed the top spot in the Big West Tournament, but a win could help their tournament seeding.
Beto Velasquez, a transfer from Virginia Tech (one of many), scored his 8th of the season and Cal State Northridge improves to 12-5-0 with a 1-0 win over Cal State Fullerton (7-11-1). Meanwhile, UC Riverside (10-7-0) won a wild-one over UC Irvine (4-14-1) in OT 4-3. Richie Osborne scored the tying and winning goals. Northridge had already clinched the BW South and now has 21 points (7-2-0). Fullerton has 10 points (3-5-1), just ahead of Riverside (3-6-0) with 9. Riverside travels to Fullerton Saturday with 2nd place and a spot in the BW Tournament on the line.
In a battle between the 2nd and 3rd place teams in the West Coast Conference, Santa Clara (9-6-1) and St. Mary's (9-3-4) trudged to a 0-0 tie that saw a grand total of 4 shots on goal, 3 by SCU. The result gets each team closer to first place San Diego (9-6-0, overall), which was idle. San Diego is in 1st place with 21 points (7-1), followed by Santa Clara at 19 (6-2-1) and St. Mary's at 17 (5-2-2). Both St. Mary's and Santa Clara still have a game left with San Diego, so they each have a good chance to win the league if they win out, though obviously if both win out, Santa Clara would finish ahead of St. Mary's.
Gamesmanship never hurts anyone. besides, the Locos would be much worse. I will say this though - I was rooting for CP against Wisconsin a few years back, and Ramses Barden makes us proud repping the Big West in the NFL.
Some random thoughts regarding Torre One could argue Torre was UCLA's top recruit of the 2012 class after Mario Rodriguez and Pelosi didn't materialize and thus far hasn't performed well enough to be a consistent starter. (Fender actually has received more minutes). To his credit, Torre did play well against the Husky's on Monday and perhaps the recent trip with the 20's bolstered his confidence some. What is bothersome to me is in watching him in the UCSB game and Husky match, he seems to be a bit of a hot head, fouling recklessly and shoving guys. As Bruin fan, I hope that doesn't cost them with a stupid red card in what is the most important part of the season. Also - Munoz's suspension left a gap at left wing which I would of thought Cummings would of slotted into with Torre back filling in at LB. (Curiously Cummings didn't play vs. Washington). Consider also that Wiet and Cummings will both graduate after this year and it may serve UCLA well if Torre gets some minutes this season as he may be earmarked to be the left sided centerback (where he played at the club level)/ or LB (where he played at w/ the US 20's) next season. Not sure this is a recent phenomenon w/Salcedo as the Bruins have consistently used the long throw in from Bruin centerback Sofia also. He may have fallen in love with that play when the Bruins converted on a Sofia throw vs. Dartmouth a couple of season's ago at the end of OT that put the Bruins in the Elite 8.
All four of the ACC games going on right now are available on ESPN 3. http://espn.go.com/watchespn/player/_/source/espn3/id/639219/size/condensed/
indiana 1 northwestern 0 at half time. game is live on big ten network right now. zavaleta with the only goal so far.
UNC gets a 4-0 win against Boston College, its largest scoring output since the season opener. Wake Forest defeats Maryland 4-2. UNC and Maryland both finish 6-1-1 in the conference. Edit: ACC Tournament: Maryland gets #1 seed, will play winner of NC State vs. Virginia Tech. UNC gets #2 seed. Wake Forest gets #3 seed. Still figuring out the rest with Virginia still playing NC State