Clearly I misread the game ticker to think there were only four games this weekend X-D So Lancaster lost and Houston won, as those two games were not today but later yesterday (and just not reported yet when I looked). I gotta pay more attention... If Lancaster turns things around and beats Long Island, it'll still keep the dominance of the non-ex-W-League teams in the East. For the West to continue being as even as possible, one would cheer for the Storm to win... but I'll all for RSL maybe separating the division out a bit. X-D
Well, I got my wish that RSL got all 6pts from their Colorado trip... UWS might want to pencil in that championship match at RioT after all. On the other hand, a bit surprising to see that the W-League teams finally drew some blood in the East as both Lancaster and New England lost their matches today. So Lancaster are definitely out, and New England have unexpectedly slipped up. Huh. Next week's Mutiny vs Copa match might be the division decider if Copa win it. Also: the West may be fairly even, but it's oddly that the visiting teams seem to be the ones always winning. 8 matches to the visitors (plus 2 draws) to just 2 matches to the hosts! With that considered, maybe the two Colorado squads aren't out just yet.
RSL looking good with the two road wins over the weekend. The West is a dogfight and you're right... the Colorado teams (esp. the Pride) are not out of it yet. Could we see a conference champion with three losses? That would keep Houston in the race but they would need to win their last two home games and as you said, home field advantage doesn't seem much in the West this year. Three weeks until their final two games as well. Long time to sit and watch. As far as the East is concerned... the Mutiny certainly did slip up. Fell flat on their face is more appropriate. Their owner didn't mince words with his post-game quote after the TSF loss. Its literally do or die time for them. They need to beat NJ in both games against them now. I've been following the team since the Springfield Sirens days and that TSF loss was one of their worst in a long time. Goalkeeper issues it looks like.
I'm really excited to see how the West division closes out... Aside from the Storm, every team is hovering at or slightly above 1.5PPG. Everyone getting 1.5PPG is really easy to do if you say the home team always wins, in which case the division would be won just looking at who picks up points away or drop points at home. But as we've said before, UWS West is backwards in that respect, with the visiting team taking all the points (8 games) more often than the home team picking up any points (3W+3T). So if we wanna then look at points picked up at home or dropped away.... RSL +2h, -3a, -1 total HOU +0h, -3a, -3 total SAC +4h, -2a, +2 total COP +3h, -0a, +3 total COS +3h, -7a, -4 total With just 6 games left to play, i.e. 3^6=729 possibilities left, that's in theory enough to churn through in an afternoon manually.... I'm busy right now, but am very tempted to see how things might play out.
Damn.... Now that's a way to put an exclamation point on your regular season if I've ever seen one. RSL not only gets the home win they need, but they absolutely embarrass the Pride (the then-leading home/away point differential team) by five goals in doing so. Update: Houston need to win both of their remaining games to pass RSL and COP, while not eliminated, needs to win all three of theirs (neither can tie RSL); SAC needs to go 3-0 or 2-0-1 to pass RSL outright, while 2-1-0 puts them in a tie. Finding he tiebreak rules on UWS's website is not easy to do, (it's buried in the UWS Rules document in the About Us section, nowhere near the standings page,) but first tiebreak is H2H points (and second is total wins) so SAC would also win the conference if they go 2-1-0. So how likely are these things? Let's pretend all the teams are essentially equal strength (seems to have played out as such for the most part anyway) and the chance of winning is random with the home team winning 25% and the away team winning 50%. This gives you chances of passing RSL* at... HOU 2-0-0 (both home matches): 6.25% SAC 3-0-0 (two away, one home): 6.25% SAC 2-0-1 (draw home): 6.25% SAC 2-0-1 (draw away): 3.125% SAC 2-1-0 (loss home): 12.5% SAC 2-1-0 (loss away): 3.125% SAC total possible: 31.25% COP 3-0-0 (two away, one home) : 6.25% *Note that it is possible for both SAC and HOU to pass RSL since they don't play each other, so just passing RSL does not win the conference. If both pass RSL, that means HOU has 15pts while SAC has 14, 15, or 17pts. In the case the tiebreak is invoked at 15pts, HOU and SAC are 3-3 on H2Hpts, but HOU would win the conference with 5W to SAC's 4W. If I've combined the percentages correctly, then I think there's a ~42% chance that at least one team passes RSL, so their win yesterday made it "more likely than not" that they've won the conference!
All six East teams were active yesterday, and as has generally been the case, the ex-W-League teams lost. This time, though, that also meant NJ Copa has secured the East division title! Congrats to the expansion team. =-D Also, on Friday, SAC beat COS in Colorado (another away win) by a score to 5-1. With three games to play, I estimated their chances of passing RSL at just under 1/3. However, winning one of two games is easier than winning two of three games. With just a home-and-away against COP left, (away leg later today,) they have a 50% change of winning away and a 25% chance of winning at home, giving them a change of NOT getting just one more win at a bit above 1/3 - so they've basically doubled their chances of passing RSL. COP stands in the way of both HOU and SAC. If COP gets 2 or 4pts from their home-and-home with SAC, that would eliminate both.
#COPSAC ended as a 2-2 draw. This eliminates COP from the West title, and SAC needs to win - at home - if they want to keep their West title hopes alive. That ~65% chance of passing RSL has plummeted to just the 25% home win chance.
Great job on all the math, STT! Tough season for the Pride. They put out a solid team in 2016 but nothing like the past two years. They just lost too much quality to the pro ranks, etc. Hard to replace that kind of talent right away at this level. The same has happened with my Mutiny team. It seems like its one year on, one year off with them... which hopefully means 2017 they'll be back on top. That loss to TSF (who were blown out by Lancaster on Saturday) scuppered their season. If they had won that game, this Saturday's Mutiny v Copa match would've been for the East title.
So the regular season is almost done and the respective division champions have been determined. Congratulations to Santa Clarita and NJ Copa. Hopefully the final will be a competitive quality game to put a good finish on the inaugural league season. What are everyone's thoughts about the league? Do we get expansion next year? Do the Canadian teams come back in the east? There is also clearly room to add a few teams in the west. Do some of the WPSL teams migrate to the league? Does the league try to form a mid-west division? I think the league proved itself to be well run with high game standards and a nice mix of professional veterans and top level college players. There is always room for improvement and I think the teams need to do more to increase attendance to insure economic viability, but I believe they used social media wisely and established themselves as a notch above the other leagues. Now just update the stats correctly! (yes, it's a pet peeve of mine)
These are questions more for the catch-all UWS thread instead of the season-specific one, but just to respond... It's been a good first year, I think. The West has been very exciting with how even it's been. The East has been less exciting, but I enjoy how an expansion side is the one that's taken it - early, too boot. I think there most certainly will be expansion, largely from ex-W-League teams who decided to plop down in WPSL for a year before UWS was announced (or just waiting to see how UWS would play out - the on-field product and the professional presentation have both been nice, but we have no clue how the teams are doing financially). Most of those ex-W-League teams are in the east, though. Those that aren't - Seattle in the West, Dayton in the Midwest, Atlanta in the South - would probably need to convince some WPSL stalwarts to jump ship with them, else they'd be rather isolated from the rest of UWS. (That said, if you get Dayton, Atlanta, Carolina, Charlotte, and both Spirit squads coming over, that could work as its own division since I bet they'd all be willing to travel.) I think any expansion would require a third division somewhere unless it's just two western teams joining, because I think UWS likes its somewhat-short-season - i.e. I don't think a home-and-away season would be preferable in an eight-team East divsion. I doubt the CSA drops its block on letting teams join UWS, though.
The Spirit folks I've talked with are less than impressed with the WPSL - most notably, they didn't find out anything about the playoffs until Monday night - so I'm hoping the whole organization jumps to UWS. The Charge have had issues with the league for a long time, so they're a possibility as well. If the Breakers organization could be convinced as well, you could have a New England Conference and a Mid-Atlantic Conference. Fingers crossed!
If both the Spirit and Breakers Reserves come over, I would hope the Red Stars Reserves come as well just so there's unity among the NWSL Reserves sides, though they'd be pretty isolated even if Dayton comes to UWS as well.
Yes, I didn't mention Chicago since to make sense for them they'd have to bring along four or so more teams in the area.
From what I heard prior to the season, a Midwest conference almost came to be realized this year without CRS. If Chicago decided to go the UWS route for 2017, that conference could very well solidify. And with manageable travel, too.
SANTA CLARITA 2, NEW JERSEY 1 (2 OT)West champions win UWS Final via 119th minute goalhttps://t.co/8ZfEExzW6w pic.twitter.com/P3IrzvKvSL— United Women's Soccer (UWS) (@UWSSoccer) July 31, 2016
http://www.uwssoccer.com/news_article/show/677323?referrer_id=2311518 Another good indicator that UWS is on the right track as a developmental Pro-Am league.
Well, it's been pretty normal for WPSL/W-League players to move up in to the pros, so this is more of a sign UWS isn't doing anything wrong as opposed to a sign they're doing something right... I will say, though, I'm surprised it's WNY showing interest. They're already scoring out the wazoo - and I thought the Copa youth system had some sort of loose connection to Sky Blue FC. That said, the quality of (most) UWS games seemed to me to be as high, or maybe higher than, what the W-League had, so I would hope that this sort of move up becomes increasingly common, especially as NWSL expands. What I really want to see, though, is current-team-retention and subsequent expansion of UWS. Would also be nice if they slowly lean more toward the pro sides of Pro-Am. I'm really curious as to what the financials of this past season's teams will pan out to be.