Time to get this thread going as we are already into the spring schedule. Here is the departmental blurb on the incoming players (so far) for the upcoming season: http://www.umterps.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=29700&ATCLID=211700051
If they don't succumb to the lure of the sorority, they'll outlast Ray. Interesting only one in-state. This tends to be the trend for all UMCP sports, primarily the revenues. But in this case, with all that guaranteed Federal employee cash (and by extension, high concentration ECNL), only one in-state?
I'm hearing more bad than good about Leone. He Is not a very likeable person and MD is not playing attractive soccer. Maybe he's at the wrong stage of his career for this kind of rebuild. My bet would be that MD floats around in the bottom half of the BIG10 until he moves on without much fanfare. I do not see MD suddenly becoming a contender for conf titles and that's what they expect in most sports at MD so I'd be shocked if there's a contract extension. Could be the perfect example of the Peter Principle. He should have stayed in the Ivy. MD kids will have to grin and bear it in the short term and just be happy with nice UA gear.
They will be an interesting case next year. Their ARPI rank for 2017 was #91. Statistics say next year they will be #191 (average of last 2 years' ratings + next year's trended rating based on last 8 years). My suspicion is they are a case where the stats won't do the job. But, the stats, on average, put teams within about 20 of their ultimate ranking positions.
"UA gear" sucks. It literally falls apart, the clock struck twelve for that fad, reflected in their equity. Kids have come back from Ray's camps with bad tidings. I've heard things such as disorganized, the assistants don't know the drills, tumbling cones during demos, etc. Lots of transfers out of there under his regime. That is a tough jI-95 money corridor job to totally blow but he's done it. UMCP should be mining PA and NJ ECNL easily. It's always been a popular out of state but close enough school for LI, NJ and PA wealth.
Maryland athletics are not good, overall. Needing money, the school joined the Big10 or whatever it is called these days. Even if they are making a bit more cash, it was stupid to leave the ACC and UM will regret it.
What? Look at the Big10 standings across teams sports. UMD has top25 teams in several sports. They won both lacrosse titles last year and have won titles in Field Hockey, mens soccer and women's basketball. That's National Titles. MD is in the NCAA tournament in several sports, most years and competing for titles. This year a few sports have trended down for sure but overall, one of the problems at UMD for Leone is that coaches around him are kinda kicking ass. Now- Big10 move I did not like. Pointy football should have done there own thing years ago (been discussed on BS here before). BUT, UMD went from dropping sports to having state-of-the-art facilities upgraded, in progress, or planned for every sport and cash everywhere. Most coaches in most sports have had their salaries doubled! (Cirovski makes over 400K, crazy but look it up) Not sure there's much regret there. They can now compete for the best coaches in every sport. And the Big10 is committed to soccer for women and men so they get decent soccer crowds around the conference. And don't forget, the Big10 almost got UVA and UNC and put the ACC out of business. That stuff is not over yet I don't think.
Where it really counts, revenue sports, UMCP obviously stinx. The local basketball and football talent doesn't want to play in the same crappy, mid-atlantic urban armpit environs they grew up in. Ray's problem is that that for non-revs, as the guy above points out UMCPs success in pay to play sports, the bar is high as they are a B10 rarity, and public, in the heart of I-95 corridor wealth. In other words, those non-rev championships...meh*. They're nothing. Revenue sports, where guy's have a choice and coaches and schools actually have to sell, are the only barometer for athletic "success".
yeah, its ridiculous. With UMCP, they don't need UVA for expansion as it's redundant for DC. They are competing with the SEC salivating for UNC. The B10's not even on UNC's radar. Gee, who will win that bidding contest? For example, the B10 sent a feeler to Vanderbilt, they were soundly and swiftly rebuffed. So, the target schools for B10 expansion, knowing their academic criteria, are... Vanderbilt (B10 told to jump in a lake) UNC (fat chance if SEC is keen to any move by UNC) Duke (being private and national, doesn't give them anything in North Carolina) Georgia Tech Texas The B10 would toss Nebraska out today and replace with Kansas if they could since Nebraska lost AAU membership. But with Nebraska, Kansas offers nothing in terms of expansion. One loooong shot...University of Buffalo. They've been pumping money into sports for some reason....the hoops tournament was no fluke...and the B10 took Rutgers. So it's not crazy. It would have been Syracuse instead of Rutgers at the last expansion but Syracuse bowed out of the AAU. UB gives them a little what Syracuse would have, Not NYC but state unique school with a contiguous gateway to the northeast and Ontario Realistically, I'd see Georgia Tech and Buffalo. Texas does regret giving A&M the SEC, they're now dwarfed by A&M! Amazing. The B10 won't solve that problem, UT now has to grovel to get into the SEC over A&M's objections...the SEC would target Virginia Tech for DC (UVA pales as a regional, passionate, raucous alumni school to Tech), UNC and UT. I'd go for Tech and UNC if I were them.
All this talk about UNC and UVA leaving the ACC is so much jibberish as far as I can tell. If I understand correctly, all of the present members signed away their TV rights to the ACC until 2036. Why would the SEC or Big10 want any of the ACC schools if they were not able to get any of their broadcast rights? Maybe in 2036 there will be a complete re-shuffling, but nobody is going anywhere from the ACC until that time.
That's what lawyers are for. It didn't stop the NC Legislature from pondering a bill to leave the ACC over the bathroom boycott. Not once has a school been stopped from exiting a conference by some buyout or binding agreement. The same with coaches. If the SEC wants UNC and UNC wants the SEC, it'll happen. I do think the B10 will be the aggressor/trigger mechanism as it always is in realignment.
Why do you say that Pensky cheats and is dishonest to recruits? In what ways? Are you the father of a player he recruited?
Absolutely ZERO chance of Buffalo to the ACC. Don’t understand how they are seen as ‘investing’ in athletics when theyjust cut four sports. https://www.buffalo.edu/ubnow/stories/2017/04/UB-sports-reduction.html Football kills heir budget. But they keep football because they need to have that sport to remain in the MAC. One of the sports they cut was men’s soccer. To be in the ACC you need to have men’s and women’s soccer. So no chance of Buffalo and the ACC.
I think this is referring to how he handles players that he recruits. Known for bringing them in and just running them off after one semester. This was talked about a few years back when his asst left with no job in place and was pretty vocal about leaving because he just couldn't treat the players they recruited like that anymore.
I couldn't agree more that they will not be going to the ACC but not because they don't have mens soccer. Miami & FSU do not have it. Plus the men's two 6 team divisions would be out of whack if you added just one team.
Every recruiting class will have players who are going to struggle to get playing time. It is the nature of the game--and also a result of over-recruiting. Coaches communicate this sad fact to the players--I'm pretty sure that most coaches, in most major-college sports, do this, and this is why nearly every major program has transfers every year. It's not unique. It's a hard thing for a player to hear who came into the program with high hopes, but major-college athletics is tough. I'm not sure it should be described as "running people off." Maybe the coach is giving the player a chance to find a program better suited to her skill level and where she can get on the field, which is what most players want.
Eddie, with all due respect to you, I just don't know how you get this. Here is the truth: 1) Maryland lost two highly regarded, fast rising coaches in the last nine months: Baseball's John Szefc who was hired away by Virginia Tech and Steve Aird who was hired by Indiana. Maryland couldn't or wouldn't spend the money to keep them. And both were replaced by asst. coaches with no previous head coaching experience. Maryland didn't want to spend the money to make a major hire. 2) When Randy Edsell of Football was ditched, the university president, Wallace Loh, tells the Baltimore Sun not to worry because "we have the resources to make a major hire". OK, so DJ Durkin was a good hire and IMHO the right hire, but no way he was a major hire. He was a former asst. coach at two big-time programs (Florida, Michigan) but had never been a head coach. 3) You say Maryland used to be cutting programs. Right. And when the move to the B1G was announced, the good Dr. Loh said "we are already looking at bringing back some of the teams" that were eliminated. Great. Where are they? He said this more than six years ago and there has not been a single word about any of the eliminated sports. So where is all the money that was supposed to allow them to do that? 4) Cirovski's salary has not doubled in recent years. I covered this sport from five years before Cirovski got there until 2011. His salary rose after the national titles in 2005 and 2008. I see no evidence membership in the B1G has affected his salary. He hasn't won a title in ten years now and has had some dissapointments in the last two years going one and done in the Show. 5) Where are all the new facilities you are talking about? Yes on the Cole Field House renovation which mainly benefits Football; and the new sports medicine institute under construction, thanks partially to Kevin Planck of Underarmour. OK, where else? I see no major (or minor) plans for any changes or additions to the Xfinity Center; Field Hockey/Lacrosse Complex; Kehoe Track and Ludwig Field; Turtle Smith (baseball) Stadium; Golf Course; or Tennis Facility. And the only thing they did to the football stadium is change the name. 6) In the background of all this lurks the questions about where the money is supposed to come from. The move to the B1G was predicated on a huge revenue stream from BTN, the league television network. The problem is the phenomena of the "cable cutters". People who are ditching their cable because it is too expensive. Yes, there is still money to be made by way of the streamlined cable packages which offer a select "buffet" choice of stations, but the effects to this point have been catastrophic for stations like ESPN which has been bleeding money and has had to shed over a thousand employees in the past two years. How does anyone expect the B1G and other leagues to continue to make the same kind of money they have been basing their projections on? Some experts say college sports are going to revert back to the old model: its all about putting butts in seats at Football and Men's Basketball games. Maryland can do that in hoops; however, Maryland is pathetic in Football when it comes to attendance. At the last home game last year there were more Penn State fans than Maryland fans and it wasn't even close. It was an embarrassment. So what does all this mean for Ray Leone? Even if he is not successful, Maryland will be slow to act. They absolutely do not want to have to pay the rest of his salary and that of the next coach. I don't know how long his contract is, but he will likely get all of it before they would make a move. And if he is successful, Maryland then has another problem: how do you hold on to him? The track record is that, as with baseball and volleyball, another school rolls out the red carpet and takes him away and then his asst. coach with no previous head coaching experience, Manya Makoski, would be elevated to the head job. Her bio indicates an excellent record as a player with much experience in NWSL, Europe, and the national program, so it might be a good move. Vamos a ver....
Fekula, you are dead on. I believe Ray has two more years of going nowhere. Makoski doesn't know what's going on, according to several camp attendees I've spoken with. These players brought back a very unfavorable impression, totally opposite vibe from Morgs. I can't figure out why Morgs lost. Many players and recruits did not like Laurie George which may have contributed to it. Some things though...didn't they replace the northside trailers at Ludwig with a concrete/brick structure? I know, maybe a couple hundred grand after overruns, but, "something", I guess. The training bubble is a joke. Also, didn't they do some "wow" window dressing at Byrd (have they stripped that name yet?), like banners for the football HOFers? Woo-hoo! I was wondering if some of the money went into that high-rise hotel across the Route and the Knox Box demo/replacement. There have been good campus things in recent years. If you don't wander far, you can almost forget you're in CP/PG. But my guess is the typical sustained tuition and fee/parking gouging. Great points. I think even more than PT are player's iphone alarms going off while peers roll in from greek parties. Time to make the doughnuts gets old. Your circle of friends limited to the team gets old. "I am in college once, do I want this to be my college experience?" Hello, foreigners. I am impressed with the top-tier programs identifying this flight risk even in the most talented high-schoolers. They don't have to haul in 11, 12 recruits. From after the top 25 or so down, however, attrition devours the rosters.
I have to agree. My kid went to their ID Camp. I was not impressed with the camp or the coaching staff. Felt very bush league. The Big10 has a number of programs lead by more qualified and likeable coaching staffs, RU, PSU, NWU and now with the new hire at MI, I can’t see them competing.
I understand no decisions will ever be made based on what is best or women's soccer, but I said from day 1 that this would hurt the program drastically. Tough sell to East Coast & Mid Atlantic kids close to UMD to go play in the Big10. Have to play all your away games in places that may not be easy for family to come watch as compared to the 6 or so drivable games in the ACC. Plus you are trying to sell the Big10 conference over the ACC, which is hard enough as it is. Have to focus on positives. I heard Big10 pays for student athletes to attend grad school after they are done playing, can anyone confirm? If that is true I would be selling the crap out of that to every girl that came on campus and every club coach I called about their players.