ali may not be "back in form" yet but the team is 180 degrees different with her on the field. they can't afford to give up the 50/50s in midfield, and amber can't win all of them. ranee is my height, and just not going to win headers, especially against a team that is as notoriously big and physical as notre dame is. ali is a leader and she is back enough to be solid. they need her for this game, 100% or not.
Not at all! Also no problem with any "don't"s, "shouldn't"s, "wouldn't"s or "ought not"s". . ND is an exceptional program. No Question, they can beat us. I just don't think, under the circumstances, and given the history of our program, our gals can let it happen this year. Losing to ND next Sat would, IMO, be a bigger slap in the face to the program than we have ever sustained-- and totally avoidable iff we are totally focused for 90 minutes. I believe ND will come in confident, and playing with the belief that they can win. I believe the Heels will come in playing out of their heads, because if there is ever a time to send a signal this year about who we are (and put a few nerves into the Stanford players), the game Sat against ND is when we want to Put The Word Out. I am expecting it to be one of our finest games!
Tournaments are all about proving a point, defying the odds, the triumph of the underdog, one for the gipper, etc. (Otherwise, decide the results ahead of time by the RPI or a poll.) I think that a good argument can be made that the Tarheels have something to prove this year given the graduation losses from last year. ND, with essentially the same team coming back, has a different burden. Which team will be more charged up and focused will be the key to the game.
Wow, I found this on another thread, but it is (IMO) the key to the Heels NCAA run! (Thanks to soccersarah for the link.) See comments on the women's game in the last paragraph. Right now, Megan Klingenberg is the UNC player who has the combination of vision, skill and health to execute this "phase 4". Everybody else is missing at least one of those three ingredients. If we dial it in, Stanford is in trouble. If we don't, then we are. What is our Objective (step-by-step) when we transition into attack? There is a difference between being creative (excellent, i love that!) and not thinking about it until we get there, cause we'll figure it out when the time comes (UNC). This year's team needs to resolve our attacking transition, all the way into the net. We answer that and we are on our way. http://www.soccer365.com/us_news/story_151110154310.php
Well, I hope you're knocking on wood a lot, lighting some candles, and generally doing what you can to keep the bad karma juju away. Any team the caliber of ND can beat UNC on a given day. In 2007 many folks didn't think 4 seed ND would beat 1 seed UNC @ Fetzer either. Were this 2010 team senior laden w/ many players with real memories of that 2007 loss, I might share more of your confidence. Instead we have a young that is very talented but one that is beat up a bit and tends to lose focus & intensity for chunks of games. Portland fans could have said similar about UW as you're saying about ND. UW still got past them. UW and Portland play a lot and UW is a rival of sorts much like ND is a rival of sorts to us. This year's NCAA tournament has been a bit crazy w/ the upsets (see 2007 for the last tournament w/ a final 8 w/ bracket busters). I do not want to see the Tar Heels as another data point in the 2010 Upset City NCAA tournament.
Kool Laid makes a great point. Our defense is def vulnerable for letting in goals. You give someone like Henderson a chance to score, she'll make us pay. I think they now have made a change. Looks like Givan is now the starting CB in favor of Wood. This game comes down to us scoring. But just like in 2007 ND was under seeded. Folks were playing a team full of starters that were at last season Final Four. Only one player in the back that I feel can shut down someone is Meg Morris. This team isnt built on strong defense, they will need to score 3-4 goals to beat ND.
Not that I get quite as worked up about it as I might if it was some other team (sorry, that's the very small price you pay for being a dynasty), but this year you got hosed by the Committee. You and the other teams that got lumped in your bracket. Notre Dame should never have been a 3rd round game for both of you. It's almost as bad as Oklahoma St and Oregon St in the 2nd round. And you should probably not have had Florida as your expected 4th round game.* Lucky for you some other teams play their starters in their conference tournaments and make it to the finals... *maybe I'll backtrack on this at some point, but right now there is no way in my mind Florida is lower than a true 6 seed. So how does the presumed #2 true-seed wind up bracketed with a true #5 or 6?
Or maybe it just sucks for Florida that they had to face a team that played them to a tie them during the regular season? Oh, right, that previous meeting, playing even doesn't mean anything in your myopic world... ;-) Good for Duke.
True, true. But hey, even the RPI showed Florida way ahead of Duke. But you may be right, this could be a case of how teams matchup. Still, why is it unreasonable to think the conference tournament is a factor? Florida played 3 games the previous weekend. Duke played one, actually on the previous Wednesday the 3rd, losing in the 1st round. So the Florida game was Duke's 3rd in 11 days. It was Florida's 5th in 10. If things like that don't matter, why do teams like Manchester United have the kind of players that they do usually sitting on the bench during Premier League games but starting when it comes to the FA Cup, etc.? Also, the earlier tie was at Duke. The NCAA playoff game was at Florida. In Albyn Jones terms, that should produce a 120 point rating swing that didn't seem to happen.
It is all about getting to the final 4. At the end of the day losing in the 2nd round vs the 4th round doesn't matter. So facing ND now or in the next round doesn't matter - just win the game you have to play. I doubt the UNC staff or players would have been concerned about seeing Floirda in the 4th round.
Do you mind now if I laugh hysterically and throw up my hands? Florida tied at Alabama, which according to the Albyn-Jones terms should happen about 10% of the time. Miraculously, against all Albyn-Jones rating terms it happened! Why don't you create another thread "Banter about conference tournaments" and then come up with some real numbers rather than polluting all of the threads with your same hit-and-run one-off numbers? I'm sure there would be a lot of people willing to do some ACTUAL RESEARCH about the problem. I've never said that the conference tournaments are good (in fact I have stated a number of times that they are not good) or that they don't correlate to real world problems. I've only said that everything you've presented is shoddy and people are willing to take your shoddy work as indicating a real problem. If you aren't willing to do the real work I can only assume that you are a troll.
Heh, that was a little gratuitous on my part to toss in the Albyn Jones perspective there, but it's perfectly reasonable to note the original tie was at Duke. There is such a thing as homefield advantage. But my casual joke aside (and it was what they call a throwaway line, wasn't it?!), my point simply was that this year, at least, it's clear to me the Committee did the Tarheels no favors. (About miracles against Albyn-Jones ratings, all I'll say here is that the powerful thing about such a method is that it does take into account "miracles" at least in the 10% range and is part of the validation process. If, over a sampling of games, results that should "only" happen 10% of the time don't happen 10% of the time, something's wrong and needs to be accounted for. But otherwise I'll leave these discussions to some of the other threads that are better suited for it)
As someone who has seen a few statistics from time to time, I appreciate the role of RPI. However, does anyone here really think how the Heels fair in NCAA has much to do with home-away advantage? IMO, it is 95% to do with skill, coaching, chemistry, injury, and blind luck on the given day. Maybe the remaining 5% is jet-lag/home field advantage? For the Heels, the only thing that matters is getting to Cary. Our program will not get bragging rights for making the final eight rather than the final 16. All these brackets are tough. No one is getting a pass, least of all the number one seeds already knocked out! The order doesn't matter. However NCAA sets them up, we need to knock them down. One at a time. This is all about program legacy, skill, game-plan, and health. Whether we got a good draw or had a week on the road is better left to the ACC/FSU whine (oops, thread ). We don't need to get a "good draw" or a week in the tanning salon to make the final four. We just need to play the kind of kick-and-run-no-brain soccer that has made us infamous for the last 25+ years! Go Heels! Best of Luck on Sat! I am expecting a barn-burner of a game! Ps: Enfuego, its Kool-Aide, actually. Careful how you go there...
I envy you guys that will be at the game tomorrow at Fetzer. This is one rare occasion that I will miss a UNC/ND game. But I'm coming down in a couple weeks for the Final Four in Cary so I can't make both trips so close together. To me this is the best soccer rivalry in college soccer. It is a special treat when these two schools play each other. A couple of articles. One from each school: http://www.ndsmcobserver.com/sports/nd-women-s-soccer-team-to-face-carolina-yet-again-1.1786307 http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2010/11/tar_heels_meet_familiar_foe_in_fighting_irish
It is going to be an exciting game in this great rivalry! I'm stoked! I hope the Heels win it, and then win another 20 NCAA championships as well! Maybe then, decades hence, our own school newspaper can fact-check our all star players? What does the women's soccer program need to do to get some respect? Courtney Jones is a junior, not a senior. This is a mistake that would not occur in reporting about the men's basketball program. I hope these guys on the Daily Tar Heel are not journalism majors? That would be too bad. If they are, they need to go to work for Fox....
hey anyone know if Notre Dame will be wearing their (cough)"LUCKY"(cough) green, or will they be in blue??
I saw the Irish yesterday at McAllisters Deli. I told Randy he is a great coach. He asked me if I could be an Irish fan for a day. I thought about and said "maybe.....naaaah. We look to be in trouble, down at half 2-1....
Was Daly(GK) injured in the first half? AD put Sieloff, who(I think) still has a cast from a broken hand, in goal early in the first half. It is bad enough that these two teams have to play in the third round, but not being able to watch it(due to what I presume is NCAA broadcast rights) makes it even more annoying.
Both teams have been on TV enough to know how they are going to play. As for the Daly question I asked earlier, it appears AD pulled her because of poor play. Gametacker says the first ND was scored due to a "goalie miscue". Does anyone know if Sieloff is still wearing a cast? Even if she isn't, putting her in goal having not played there for months seems a bit rash. She promptly gave up a goal, which came on a corner, but I don't know if it was her fault.