Looks like the West Coast Conference is off to a great start, especially with last weekend's great showing against the Pac 12! Week 1 standings here: http://www.wccsports.com/standings/#/w-soccer/2016 As usual, Santa Clara off to a good start, USF & Pepperdine looking good as well. Nice rebound for Pepperdine and hopefully USF can close out their season with a tournament bid. Last nights BYU loss was a surprise but they should be there at the end to contend for the conference title. Any early predictions or surprises? Anybody have daughters playing or know or have favorite players?
First, kudos for starting a WCC thread. Santa Clara had a fantastic weekend. Pepperdine had a great weekend, just not as good as Santa Clara's. Portland's win over Washington was big, especially since the Pilots started four frosh. I'd say they're the big unknown this year. BYU may be another unknown this year. They should be very good, but .... For NCAA tournament purposes, the conference's biggest problem is lack of depth, which hurts all teams' strength of schedule. The addition of Pacific, a couple of years ago, is a particular problem. Their weakness hurts all conference teams when it comes to the NCAA tournament selection process. I'm sorry, Pacific fans, I don't really like to talk about that, but it's true. Still, the top of the conference is looking very good.
Looking forward to this weekend's games in the WCC! Here are my predictions: Santa Clara W 2-0 over Washington State W 1-0 over Washington BYU D 1-1 with Penn State Gonzaga W 2-1 over Idaho L 0-1 vs Washington State Portland W 2-0 over Portland State L 3-0 vs. Cal San Diego L 0-4 vs. Utah St. Mary's L 0-2 vs. UC Santa Barbara W 1-0 vs. Cal Poly SLO UC San Francisco W 2-0 vs. Cal Poly SLO W 2-1 vs. UC Santa Barbara Pepperdine W 2-0 vs. Fresno State D 1-1 vs. USC Loyola Marymount W 3-0 vs. Cal State Bakersfield Pacific L 0-2 New Mexico
My 2016 season simulator has the following games with a different result: Santa Clara loss to Washington State Santa Clara tie with Washington [These two games are where we get a better picture of Santa Clara's great results last weekend. My simulator has Washington State ranked ahead of Washington because Washington's two best players are red shirting to play in the U20 World Cup.] BYU win over Penn State Gonzaga loss to Idaho St Marys loss to Cal Poly San Francisco loss to Cal Poly San Francisco loss to UC Santa Barbara Pepperdine loss to USC Pacific tie with New Mexico So far, the simulator has been right about 63% of the time; and it's been within a half of being right another 22% of the time (i.e., a predicted win-loss game was a tie or a predicted tie was a win-loss). It's gotten games outright backwards about 15% of the time.
Thanks for posting this cpthomas! I was hoping you would do so. I don't have a lot of information on the out of state teams so I'm really just taking a stab in the dark on those. I am hoping others will chime in with their picks and why. Either way, I look forward to seeing how well your simulator does.
Gonzaga traveled to Idaho yesterday and tied 2-2. GU led 1-0 and 2-1 but gave up the lead both times. An Idaho record crowd of 1100+ attended, which was great fun. Now the Vandals are on the road until 30 September, so there's no building momentum really, just the equivalent of another first home game.
According to my 2016 season simulation, this was a good result for ... Gonzaga. The WCC's problem is that the lower portion of the conference is weak.
Cpthomas, I believe you said that playing against weaker teams actually counts against you in determining post season eligibility, right?
It doesn't exactly count against you. Part of your rating is your strength of schedule, so if you play against a poor opponent and win, it's not as good for your rating as playing against a strong opponent and winning. Plus, if you're a bubble team, you're going to want to have some wins or ties against very strong opponents. The only way to do that is to play strong opponents, probably a number of them, so you have a chance of a good result against one or two. Of course, that then can hurt your ratings, since you'll probably lose to most of them. But, at least they'll make good contributions to your strength of schedule. The effective weights of your record and your strength of schedule, in the rating formula, are equal, so it's a 50-50 balance. Your strength of schedule consists of two factors: (1) your opponent's record and (2) your opponent's opponents' records. Within SoS, the effective weights of those two, effectively, is 80-20. So, overall the rating formula weights the factors as: (1) 50% your own record (winning percentage); (2) 40% the average of your opponents' records (winning percentages); and 10% the average of your opponents' opponents' records (winning percentages). There are a couple of tweaks to this, but for practical purposes that's how it works.
Tough loss for Pepperdine. USC was definitely the more aggressive and physical team in the first half. Pepperdine came out stronger in the second half but it's tough to come back from down 0-3 regardless of your opponent.
Santa Clara (2-2-1) has to settle for the 1-1 draw in double overtime vs. Marquette (2-3-1). After starting the season 2-0 beating Cal and USC, these last 3 matches are head scratchers. Anybody see this game? Santa Clara hosts Wisconsin on Sunday. St. Mary's (0-4) at Hawaii playing in the Outrigger Soccer Classic this weekend. Hawaii is undefeated this season and looking pretty good. St. Mary's needs to rally and try and pull out a win. Clarque tends to play his upper class more than the youngers. Maybe it's time to switch things up and give some of his hand picked recruits (freshmen) some more time on the pitch. Sunday's game is vs. the Idaho Vandals whom UH already beat 2-0 so maybe a chance for St. Mary's win on Sunday? USF (2-2) travels to Missouri (3-1). Missouri tied UNC 1-1 in an exhibition game so not sure how much credit to give there. Missouri just beat University of Colorado 2-1 (which isn't saying much). Not sure what to call here but I'm going out on a limb and giving the edge to USF since we know players on the team.
Pepperdine (3-1) at Maryland (2-1-1). Heard they lost a lot of quality players due to a recent coaching change. I expect Pepperdine to bounce back from last Sunday's defeat at the hands of USC and pull this one out. Pepperdine then takes on #3 Virginia (4-0) this Sunday . I can't see Pepperdine pulling out a win here but a tie would be great for their RPI and tourney chances. This is overly optimistic however.
Just for fun, here's what the simulator says for this weekend. It looks pretty dismal, so let's hope it's wrong. So far, gets games exactly right about 60% of the time; with a half about 20% of the time (a predicted win/loss is a tie; or a predicted tie is a win/loss); and clearly wrong about 20% of the time (a predicted win is a loss). Santa Clara Win v Marquette (actually was a tie) Loss to Wisconsin Pepperdine Win v Maryland Loss to Virginia BYU Win v Tennessee Win v Utah (on Monday) Portland Tie v Seattle Win v Cal Poly San Diego Loss to San Diego State Tie with Cal State Northridge Loyola Marymount Loss to Long Beach State Loss to Ball State San Francisco Loss to Missouri Tie with Vanderbilt St. Mary's Loss to Hawaii Loss to Idaho Gonzaga Tie with Eastern Washington Win v Portland State Pacific (on one tough road trip) Loss to Connecticut Loss to Boston College
Ouch! Let's hope for St. Mary's sake your simulator is wrong. An 0-6 start to the season would not be good.
Pepperdine gets the 1-0 win over Maryland to take them to 4-1. I know it's early but looks like Pepperdine is making an early case for an NCAA tournament birth. Nice to see last year's 0-1 losses and 1-1 draws take a turn this year and result in some Wave good will and wins.
Wow! USD is looking good with conference play just around the corner. BYU is still BYU, USF has fallen off the map from last year, Pepp is struggling to score and Santa Clara is not the Santa Clara of old. Should make for an interesting season.
My brother, who is not a Woso fan or even a So fan, but knowing that I am, stumbled onto BYU women's soccer a few years ago, I think Ashley Hatch was a freshman. This weekend via DVR, I watched BYU vs Tennessee and some of BYU vs. SMU. I believe BYU’s attacking unselfish, possession game is marvelous; sets a very high standard for how the game can be played at the college level; and results in news leads like this one: LOGAN, Utah – Ashley Hatch, Michele Vasconcelos and Nadia Gomes each scored as No. 6 BYU beat Utah State 3-1 Saturday afternoon. Add in Elena Medeiros and Page Barker and you have an outstanding offense.
Ouch! They've looked good up to this point. Played Pepperdine tough last weekend. BYU has pretty much been boat racing since day 1. The only two WCC teams that have a shot at unseating them as WCC champions are Loyola and possibly San Diego. Loyola is the more likely choice but SD has knocked off some notable teams this year and is playing well. I think Pepperdine has an outside chance (waay outside...) but they'll have to beat USD on Thursday and then upset BYU on Saturday. Tall order to be sure.
BYU 3 - 0 Portland Cougars continue boat racing without nation's scoring leader, Ashley Hatch, at WNT camp