It appears we don't have any UNC, Stanford, Denver, or Wake fans on the board. Anyone going to watch the games tonight?
Evidently not. Who'd want to follow one of those four teams anyway? Can't watch the first, might be able to catch the second one in progress. Hope to watch the final on Sunday. http://www.ncaa.com/news/soccer-men...-live-updates-scores-2016-di-mens-college-cup Semifinals (Friday, Dec. 9) No. 2 Wake Forest vs. No. 6 Denver | 6 p.m. ET | ESPNU | GameCenter No. 5 Stanford vs. No. 9 North Carolina | 8:45 p.m. ET | ESPNU | GameCenter Championship game (Sunday, Dec. 11) Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2 | 2 p.m. ET | ESPNU
Sandon didn't take the bait, so I will 'set the table' with Sandon's informative QF thread post ... "First we get Wake Forest vs. Denver. Wake Forest HC Bobby Muus came to Winston-Salem from... the University of Denver where his assistant coach and successor was Jamie Franks, the current Denver HC who played his college soccer at... Wake Forest. This is Denver's first FF. Also they are undefeated. The last time a team showed up to the Final Four undefeated was 2009, when Akron did it. 2009 was also the last time Wake Forest made the Final Four. The other SF is Stanford, the reigning national champions, and North Carolina, the 2011 champs. When UNC won the national title in '11, in the final they beat Charlotte who at the time was coached by Jeremy Gunn, now the HC at... Stanford. So, we get a re-match of sorts. If either Stanford or UNC wins the national championship, Gunn or Tar Heel coach Carlos Somoano will both have two national titles, which would tie them with Sasho Cirovski and George Gelnovatch for the most among active college coaches. Stanford is the first defending champion to make the Final Four since Wake Forest in 08. They are looking to be the first team to win back-to-back national titles since Indiana in 03-04. Since 1998, UNC has been to six Final Fours while Stanford and Wake have now been to five. Stanford, Wake and Denver are all private colleges. This is the first FF with three private colleges since 1992 when San Diego, Duke and Davidson made it. This is the fourth time in six years a Pac-12 team has made the FF (UCLA in 11 and 14), Stanford last year If you count Denver as a "western school" - and just as it is with New Mexico, it's debatable - this is the first time two "western" teams have made the FF since 2006 when UC Santa Barbara and UCLA made it. It's the second straight season the ACC has had two teams in the FF and the 12th time since 1987 they had at least 2 ACC teams in the FF. If both UNC and Wake fail to win the title next week, it will be the first time since 03-04 the ACC has gone two seasons without a national title. I'll post more when I think of it. But with an undefeated team, the reigning national champs and two recent national champs representing the dominant conference in the sport, it has the makings for a pretty interesting Final Four." I guess poor @Sandon Mibut couldn't think of anything else to add, but thank him, not me, for the above.
Only if they played a team we cared about. In the time when I was trying to watch on TV or internet every UC Davis game I could not attend, I signed up for a pay-per-view of the game at Denver, not realizing that they would start billing me for every game they streamed. I eventually managed to get all the charges reversed, even the charge for the game I watched.
This one that I'm hoping for in this college cup is that each of the teams play their best games. Most of the time when the final four comes around, teams play way too tight, touches are off and games are ugly due to the pressure involved. In the Wake vs Denver game, what I expect to see is Wake to dominate possession for most of the game and it be a game of attrition. The way that I see Denver having a best chance of beating Wake is through a set pieces. Wake has had a tough time scoring most of the year, (they have been better in the postseason) so one goal against them could be more than enough to beat Wake. If Denver tries to play a possession game, especially through the midfield, they will get beat. I haven't Stanford play much, and have only seen a couple of UNC's games. In UNCs last game, they had a couple of injuries on some big players. The one on Alan Winn looked pretty bad, so I dont expect to see him playing. When I've seen UNC play, they have been sloppy all around. In possession, on defense, it's been pretty sloppy, but somehow they have found ways to win. Should be a pretty back and forth game. Looking forward to 3 good games this weekend! Just wish I had the chance to make it down to Houston for them.
I should be home just in time to catch the second game. Don't have a rooting interest but I do like the Denver story so I hope they make it to the final. Being in the SF bay area, I guess I should pull for the Stanford team although I can't say I'm a true fan of the team. Whomever wins I just hope we get to see great soccer. I will be plopped on my couch this evening watching the game with my young son who is probably a bigger soccer fan than me. As someone else said, I hope they workout the nerves early in the match, settle down and play quality soccer. This is probably the biggest matches most of these kids have been a part of in their young lives.
I'm rooting for Denver. Got a bit of a soft spot for the Pios. Hope they can finish their historic run with a national championship.
I'm rooting for Wake, because, as I re-posted the PDL articles in the "General PDL" thread, my Michigan Bucks have Brad Dunwell going for two national championships this year.
Tough way for Denver to go out but anything that lets us avoid a dreaded shootout (particularly on national TV) is OK for me. Wake was clearly the better team and should have won in regulation but Denver was very solid and obviously well-coached and has 2-3 players who will likely play in MLS. They had a great year. Wake, meanwhile, makes its first final since it won it all in 07. Also, it's the fourth straight year and ninth in the last 12 the ACC has had at least one team in the title game.
Talk about serving up a counter-attack. Yeesh! OTOH, Wake Forest had three golden chances in the last 15 minutes of regulation (one shot off the crossbar, one cleared off the line by a Denver defender and a point blank shot with 17 seconds left). I'm proud of Denver. They just came up short.
Horrible CKick when you have all your height moved foward anticipating service. Bad GKeeping on Harkes' mediocre shot. Wake was the better side, more and more as the match wore on. Denver tired out from all their long runs. Congrats to Pioneers for crashing the party. I hope they stick around. For years, the Mountain Time Zone had only one program. Perhaps there is now three. WF deserved to win.
Scoreless after 90, we once again head to Oooooooooovertime. If you're keeping track, that's 5 straight SFs that have gone to OT. I thought UNC had the better of play for a little bit more of the match, but not by much. 2014 - UCLA over Providence. 2015 - Stanford and Clemson advance on PKs. 2016 - Wake beats Denver in 2OT and now UNC-Stanford are playing extra soccer.
Shootouts suck but, damn, that was an epic one. Stanford makes all 10 of their PKs, advances when UNC blinks and shoots high in round 10.
What a wild set of PKs. I don't think I've ever seen 19 straight PKs made. Epstein was great in the game and terrible in PKs. I like Pyle. I thoughthe could have stopped 2 or 3 just couldn't enough arm on them. Feel terrible for the kid who missed. Hate seeing it end on an unforced error. He'll remember that one forever. Great to see his teammates support him afterwards tho.
I didn't fill out a bracket, but Wake was my pick to win it all during the regular season. Definitely would have had them if I filled out a bracket. I agree about the GKing in the penalties -- one guessed every time, the other just couldn't get more than a finger or two to keep a ball out. Surely, Wake is favored. To me, they played the best soccer out of all 4 teams tonight.
Ufortunately, I won't be able to catch the game live. Great storyline tho with the defending national champ against a worthy opponent. Hope it'sa great game with more offense than tonight's late game.
Wake-Denver highlights. http://www.ncaa.com/video/soccer-me...rest-denver-college-cup-semi-final-highlights Wake's second goal is really a collective failure by Denver (even if WF well handled the break). First, Denver's terribly poor corner kick, Then the defender committing himself while he should only slow down the forward towards the outside, then the GK not having the angle and again committing himself too far, thus not being balanced to have a chance to stop the ball (the forward's kick seemed tame). Al this created by an overall defense positioning allowing the counter attack to develop, while at this moment of the match you must keep enough defensive resources to be at least one more defender vs. forwards. We can imagine that tiredness decreased Denver's lucidity.