Well, week one of the new season has nearly been completed. So who were the big winners and who disappointed? Here's a few of my picks, they're based on the teams I pay attention to and are listed in no particular order. Who's Hot *American The Eagles stomped Howard 5-0 and Georgetown 4-0 to win the DC College Cup. *Peter Philipakos - American Tallied 3 goals and 2 assists as American cruised this weekend. *Arnar Johannsson - George Washington Icelandic forward tallied 5 goals and 1 assist at the DC College Cup, including all 4 goals in a 4-0 victory over Howard. *Chad Severs - Penn State Last year's Big Ten freshman of the year scored 3 goals this weekend. *Navy Beat Manhattan 3-0 and a highly regarded UMass squad 3-2 in OT to claim the Navy Classic. Who's Not *Penn State's defense Surrendered 2 goals each to Richmond and East Carolina. Considering the Nittany Lions return 3/4 of their backline and their top 2 keepers, PSU should be better than this. They also had yielded 4 goals in an exhibition with Syracuse. *Rutgers Tied #1 Indiana 0-0, a good result. But followed it up with a disappointing 3-0 loss to Butler.
Rutgers Not sure I agree with Rutgers in the 'Who's Not' category. From what I understand that expended a lot of energy, on the road, against the #1 team in the country, played well, and drew 0-0. Then played the next night. Not that it's an excuse to lose 3-0, but my bet is that they put all their effort into the IU game. If anyone, put IU on that list. They drew 0-0 and 1-1 in their own tournament as the #1 team. I would have expected more from a team returning so many players from a Final Four team and playing at home. And yes, I know 2 of their players didn't get back to Bloomington until Thursday...
I would've put Indiana on the list, but both opponents were ranked in the top ten. I hesitated to but put Rutgers in that category because they were ranked in the top ten and shouldn't lose 3-0 to anyone if they're as good as that ranking. Nearly every other team in the nation plays in these 2 game a weekend tournaments, and you have to be fit enough and deep enough for them. NCAA soccer is not a one game a week endeavor, and I think Rutgers was the highest ranked team to lose this weekend.
Actually, St John's, and UConn (both ranked higher than Rutgers) also lost. I was thinking the Big East should have been added to the list after these results. The only problem is St John's and UConn both lost to other Big East teams.
Re: Rutgers From what I saw, Rutgers is "Not". Against Indiana, Rutgers played to not lose, with at least 6 defenders behind the ball at all times, unlike Clemson, who played IU straight up. Rutgers tried to play against Butler, but woefully underestimated them, giving up 3 early goals from the run of play inside 18 yards. Lack of offensive prowess is going to cost them as the season progresses.
Re: Re: Rutgers I wouldn't call committing 4 players to the attack "playing to lose". If there were 8 or 9 men behind the ball then I would start to think that way, but only six is still fairly aggressive against a team like Indiana.
What's the problem??? I see no problem defending with 6 or more. I've seen teams drop their forwards back to help defend, but then push numbers forward when they won the ball. Granted, your team has to be fit and you probably couldn't do this for 90 minutes, but why not max out your defending? I think that's a bit different from packing numbers inside the 18 and just having 1 lone forward up top. If I could defend with 6 or 7 and then attack with 6 or 7 I would definetely do that... I didn't see either of the games, so I really don't know how any of the teams played. I also didn't realize that Rutgers was a preseason top 10, but I never give that much thought so early in the season...