Standings after Round 2 of the Tournament. Bosco and PlaySimple are the humans in first place, but the RPI and my Pre-Season RPI (!!, but will not last) are there, too.
It has Southern California getting to the quarterfinals, which obviously will not happen. Perhaps more significantly, it has Duke winning the championship. Of course, if Duke does, which at least is a possibility, then it probably will finish in first place.
With you having Stanford and Southern California both also in the College Cup, it does not look good for you.
An item of interest: Only three of 28 participants (including the Committee and the 3 rating systems) show all of the actual quarterfinalists as still in the Tournament: #1 justdoit #2 (tied) stubifier #4 cpthomas I do not know whether this should be a surprise or not.
I was reliably informed the ACC was down this year. If that's true, then every other conference is even more down. The only ACC team to lose yesterday lost to another ACC team & that's the only reason Notre Dame and Carolina won't both be in the College Cup imo.
The ACC is very top heavy this year. FSU, UNC, Duke and ND are clearly 4 of the top teams in the country. That is without question.
Top heavy??? Every team that made their conference tournament is either still in the tournament or got knocked out by another ACC team. Sounds pretty deep. We kept hearing that the metrics were undervaluing west coast teams… we haven’t seen that play out in the tournament results either. PAC 12 with pretty embarrassing showing by comparison.
I’m sorry. Also add UVA to the list of top tier teams. I agree they are the BEST conference in the country but NC State, Wake and Clemson all went out in the 1st round. I’m just saying that those 3 could have been replaced with 3 other schools around the same ROI and had the same result. I fully agree the ACC is CLEARLY the best conference no question about it but 10 teams in the NCAA tournament is a bit much.
ACC is very popular and hyped here and it shows. Maybe me and that person from Stanford rep the PAC-12 and it means absolutely nothing to you people from the east coast. I'll tell you one thing, Stanford and USC would have beat all of those teams still around right now because they are great teams and have always been consistent and those colleges are top 10 in the nation. They both beat UCLA that is still in it right now and I saw it happen and they had an amazing coaching staff and talent on the field to do it. Quite frankly, they have better personel than UCLA and should beat UCLA every year. I don't know how we do it, we don't get the top 5 recruits. We get the local kids from LA and Orange County... Santa Ana.... Rancho Cucamonga etc. So, I don't feel bad about my stupid picks someone else alluded to when I asked about climbing up the dumb prediction contest because I'll tell you what, he was right about something. They always underestimate the west coast universities. I'll tell you one thing, one of these days, I hope some local Mexican American kid from Santa Ana California that is on the UCLA team gets called to the Nat'l team at some point. Maybe they won't have to resort to the Mexican Nat'l team where they get bullied and get accused of not being a real Mexican. I hope UCLA proves all of you wrong and ends up winning this whole thing because I'm sick of you east coast college snobs thinking you're always the best and always the winners every freakin year and ignoring the west coast threads every freaking season. :ff soap box::
Off topic, but since this is the most active thread here this week... Just one of many reasons for watching the women's game: no flopping. Just got done watching Argentina v Saudi Arabia. Wasn't even as bad as some games can get, but too much Argentinian flopping and rolling for me.
That is a really weird rant at a time that the PAC 12 is awful. They were bad last year too. It isn't a west coast bias. The teams haven't performed. And they seem to be going the wrong direction. The ACC has top tenured coaches who have been there for a long time. Swanson, Anson, Church, Radwanski, Pensky. The SEC is spending big money and hiring proven winners. The PAC is hiring cheap, young, unproven coaches. You do the math.
Well, there is more ACC bias here because there are more ACC supporters here. We have several UNC and FSU fans here so their threads are way more active. A couple of folks from Duke. If it's just you and cachundo here repping the big west coast guys, well, there isn't going to be much convo. As for ACC bias, well, the proof is in the pudding. Five ACC teams are in the quarter finals. If UCLA is really the class, they'll get a chance to prove it. Virginia was the 5th best team in the ACC this year, so it starts off easy you guys.
I'm a Chicagoan and at heart, I'm as Midwestern as you can get. The Midwestern teams tend to disappoint me year in and year out. That said, I hope that UCLA wins it all also because I picked them to win it all in this contest. Notre Dame is the only Midwestern team remaining and although I picked them to the final eight, I despise all things Notre Dame.
Not to drift from this thread too much but I would tend to agree with you. The flopping is one of the worst things about the men's game and they do it a lot more than the women. It happens in men's basketball also. Shaq was one of my favorite players and I liked him as much for the way he candidly spoke his mind as I did for his play. I recall him being interviewed after a game and making a comment about he has never seen so many grown men flopping around before. Of course, the comment was more than likely in a bit more colorful language as Shaq had a tendency to do when being interviewed. When I read your post, though, I was immediately reminded of Erika's flopping and fake injury during the 2011 World Cup. Ericka ended up getting booked and Wamback hit the equalizer. The funniest and most ridiculous flop that I think I ever saw was Neymar in the 2018 World Cup. The flop was so ridiculous that it even inspired a hilarious KFC commercial.
Well the USC/UCLA/Stanford group seem to be trending in the right direction at least. None of them made it past the second round last year! Stanford has gone from not making the tournament to getting knocked out in first round to making it to the round of 32 this year. That’s progress! In all seriousness, they all look like dangerous teams and I wouldn’t have wanted to meet any of them in this tournament. Reality is the results, on the field, in the only tournament that matters nationally have been sorely lacking in recent seasons. also a reminder that when acc had six teams in elite eight in 2013 UCLA walked away with the crown. Plenty of soccer to still be played.
In 2018 the ACC had 11, and NC State as the 11th beat Northwestern and then Arkansas. You can't just leave three schools out because "ten is a bit much." There are metrics for getting in and they had them. Others have to make a better case.
They play direct but they’re fast and dangerous. One of their forwards, Anna Podojil, is one of the fastest, if not the fastest, players in the NCAA. Podojil always needs to be accounted for and because of that she opens up teammates. She is a scorer but there are others that can also score. Her sister, Ellie, plays in the midfield and is almost as fast and is dangerous as well. It will not be an easy W for the ‘noles.
Scores and standings after Alabama 3 v Duke 2. A bunch missed on that one, but not PlaySimple who has opened up a 3 point lead: