Marty Beall's Richmond Spiders got a great result last night v UNCG. UNCG won their league championship and made the tournament last year. That is huge news considering the struggles Richmond had last season(2-15-1.) Nice to see them play on grass instead of the Richmond football turf. Good work on Beall's part for that improvement. I actually thought Richmond tried to play an attractive possession style which was refreshing, especially considering they were ranked 301 last season. They looked totally different than they did in the spring. It will be a quick turnaround if they can continue winning.
True, a good result. My historic trend-based system had Richmond with a roughly 10% chance of winning.
Richmond turned around and lost 0-3 to an also rebuilding Delaware team that played with only 10 players the entire 2nd half. I'm rooting for Marty a bit but Richmond decided what their priorities where when they dropped men's soccer and turned that classic grass soccer stadium into plastic for football and lacrosse. Despite it being a solid academic school in a great location, there is work to do for sure. Been lots of debate and discussion here of how turning over the roster of a poorly performing team can be done. Marty portrays himself as a spiritual guy with a character-first approach....but needs to turn over that roster pretty fast to win games. Slight dilemma perhaps. Patience and competitive college sports don't always go together very well. The story you get from a returner now not playing (or off the team) versus a new starter is often quite different. FYI- took a quick look and there were 3 players in the portal from Delaware and none from Richmond to this point.
Richmond was off to a good start. What happened when they traveled to Towson last week? Do they have any players out injured? Richmond is a much better team!
Some donor gave the Univ. of Richmond a big pile of money--millions--a few years ago, but he insisted that the school start a lacrosse program, which it did, opting to jettison men's soccer in the tradeoff. Not a decision I would have supported. The football stadium is nice...for football, but not soccer. There are some at U.of R who think the school should drop down to Div. II or whatever it is called. That is probably true of a lot of schools as it takes considerable money to be even halfway competitive in Div. 1 sports. This is why we see this yawning imbalance between the power conferences and everyone else in Div. 1.
https://richmondspiders.com/news/20...s-over-to-presidents-field-at-river-road.aspx The University of Richmond soccer team opens the 2019 season Thursday afternoon against Longwood and not only will it be a new season, but it will be a new playing surface for the Spiders. This year, Richmond will play its home games at the President's Field at River Road, taking advantage of the natural grass surface there to improve the conditions for the Spider student-athletes. "We are very excited to be playing our home games at our River Road Field," head coach Marty Beall said. "The Bermuda grass is a perfect surface to play on. The atmosphere will be electric for our players as fans will be right on top of the action. I'm very grateful for the generous donations to the Spider Club and the vision of our administration that made this a reality for our girls this fall." Beall and the Spiders requested the move from the artificial turf at Robins Stadium to the natural grass surfaces and the Richmond athletic department worked this summer to bring the facility to life surrounding the grass surface at the President's Field.
I didn't see the game and the replay is messed up on Towson's video portal so I can't comment specifically on that game but Richmond is still a very big work in progress from what I have seen so far. Beall appears to be trying to get them to possess the ball a lot more than in the past. He brought in a very large recruiting class this year to help turn things around. The changes are very noticeable from games even this spring but they have a lot of weaknesses that can be easily exploited in the women's college soccer game. The challenge they face is connecting passes and playing out of pressure. They often get the ball picked and countered easily. I saw some huge mistakes by the keeper and backs early in the season that resulted in easy goals for their opponents. They just weren't comfortable knocking the ball around the back. The beauty of the game is everyone has their own preference on how to play and different styles can win games. I like the changes he has made so far. I like the style of play he is trying to implement. His team is fun to watch when they have time and space (but honestly that is true for every team.) Right now they are 4-3-2. Last year they finished 2-15-1. They appear to be moving in the right direction. Of course, some of their wins were vs very weak teams like Hampton. But they really couldn't get much worse than 2-15-1 so any change is an improvement. They face some tough competition ahead. I expect them to pick up another win or so but could face some adversity vs VCU and some of the other stronger opponents.
A different perspective on how Beall is doing: When he started, Richmond was in a trend of losing about 9 RPI ranking positions per year. That's a steep decline. This year, if you give a team 3 points for a win and 1 for a tie, my simulated pre-season, trend-based ratings indicated Richmond should have 12 points as of today. Instead, they have 20. (The trend-based rating I assigned them was better than their ratings over the past few years.) With 9 games played, that is a performance of 0.89 points per game better than I expected. Of coaches in their second year, only Matt Micros at Sacred Heart and Michelle French at Portland are doing better. In other words, I think Richmond fans should be very happy with what the team is doing under Beall.
So far so good with my earlier assessment(GUESS) that they pick up a win or so and then some tough losses. 3 losses in a row, VCU tonight will likely result in 4. I expect them to bounce back with a win vs Rhode Island Sunday. Beall's first year is a great turnaround from many years of lackluster results.
Big time win for Richmond. Geeze what has happened to VCU? They started the season so well and I thought they would be a big time contender for the A10 this year. Did they have players get injured right before conference or something?
No idea. They won today vs Dayton but Dayton gifted them the win with an own goal off a corner with about 12 minutes to play. Maybe losing their two assistant coaches Schatz and Letts factored into their struggles? On the Richmond front they went and lost to Rhode Island who didn't have a conference win before today. Strange ups and downs for sure with Richmond (ex. RI and Towson losses)