Aaron

Charlie Creme has IU ending its 15 yr NCAA Tourney drought with a bang, hosting as a three seed (1-4 seeds host first two rounds just like women's basketball): https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/46605009/ncaa-womens-college-volleyball-bracketology-top-teams-predictions-2025

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/46615055/us-soccer-stretch-men-ncaa-season-full-academic-year Yeagley been pushing for this for a long time and now it's backed by US soccer who wants major and much needed reforms to dollege game.

Agreed on all of that. Offense is championship ready. Defense could prevent you from advancing out of first NCAA Tourney game. Just as IU did in 2013 and 2019, its time to replace the veteran goalie in Brown who is not getting job done with a developing freshman. In those years Michael Souderland and Sean Caulfield were not getting job done and young but raw hot shots Colin Webb and some guy named Roman Celentano took over to turn season around. It might not change a huge amount this yr, but for next 2-3 years you will have an elite goalie as he develops on field which i’d rather. This guy is Judwelin Michelle who started against Clemson and while raw has all the tools. Browns instincts just are not there. He’s bigger than Harms (who started last few yrs) which helps, but lack of reading ball well cancels that out. Either way though, Hoosiers have to get this backline fixed regardless of who is between the pipes. Way to many easy shots and runs without resistance by opponent getting behind defense far to easily.

I think the biggest issue is that IU can usually play defense effectively with four men and allow the midfielders to attack with the offense. The back line is so weak right now that midfielders are having to sit back to help defend, and it's still not enough. It's also making the attack far less dynamic. Don't confuse poor back-line play with a lack of answers to not playing hard. Opposing sides can just sit back and defend Oduro and Ault with multiple men, while the middle has to help the backline. I think Yeagley is really struggling to come up with answers to stop the other team, but given history, he will have some answers soon. This is quickly shaping up to be the 2014 season all over again, with multiple signature wins out of conference and one or two in conference, but also bad losses in the league. Means a higher NCAA seed but also a mid-pack Big Ten finish.

Signature win at ranked USC tonight to move to 3-0 in Big Ten! After losing the first set, IU dominated its opponent for the rest of the match for 3-1 victory. It's early, but this team absolutely looks like a tournament contender right now and is on pace to break its 16-year postseason drought.

I actually was much more upset about the Michigan and Michigan State match against inferior teams, where IU gave away valuable points. While the Hoosiers could have played better. Washington is actually that good, and the Huskies have the best offense in the league for a reason. Washington is on a roll right now, and don't be surprised if they make a College Cup run with that attack. Indiana's defense just isn't there to be elite right now. Time for a couple of get-right games against the conference's worst teams at home next, though. IU has a lot to figure out with its backline right now, but tonight was as much about what the Huskies did as what the Hoosiers didn't do. Those Michigan and Michigan State games are what we will look back on as the ones you wanted back against squads IU is far better than. Tonight, you just had a really good team, at least on your level, hit you with a sledgehammer, and little could be done about it.

Big win over Washington tonight in a close sweep. While this is a game the team really needed, it was also against a relatively equal squad that was far from certain.

Offense is championship level. Defense needs some work. Still was hoping for more from Holden Brown, given his larger frame and more athleticism, but not seeing it yet. On the plus side, Palmer Ault is the dynamic scorer the team has been looking for the last several years.

NW will almost certainly finish near the bottom of the league. Winning games against this level of opponent in the league is a must if they are even going to match the last few seasons of decent but not great. More interested if they can take down some of the better teams, especially at home and compete for NCAA Tournament.

Not quite. With 11 teams now and 10 games in Big Ten play, it is still too early to say that. If they catch fire and win out, they have an excellent chance. Doesn't look likely right now. However, said the same thing the last couple of seasons in the same position, and a perfect October won them the league. The difference is that this time, the non-conference was so good, another near-perfect October means a much better NCAA seed with multiple home games, if not all three in Bloomington, before the College Cup potentially. With all that said, I didn't see these struggles coming, and it's really disheartening to say the least. Need the calendar to hit October, where squad is always perfect.

Took our great start and threw it straight in the garbage to begin conference play. It's as if the team thinks they can give a half-hearted effort because they are in the top five. Right now, they are the hunted and appear to be a squad that thinks they can win simply by showing up and giving minimal effort, which is obviously not the case. That might be the worst offensive performance I have seen in my 30 years of watching, and I am being dead serious. MSU's goal was a bit unlucky, but they certainly had enough chances and deserved to put one home. With that said, I thought the backline was mostly fine, and this result rests solely on an attack that looked completely dead. Once October hits, they will probably catch fire as they always do. However, I thought this slow start issue was fixed after the non-conference, but it has just hit to begin Big Ten play instead. Computers still seem to love IU, and a mediocre conference season with a great RPI can still get you a really solid NCAA seed, as happened in 2014 and 2016. With all that said, the team better do some soul searching and give 100% effort every night, which has been lacking recently outside of the second half of PSU. Maryland still awaits later on, as does a solid Ohio State and UCLA squad, not to mention a trip to Washington. Those are all winnable if the Hoosiers we saw pre-league play start showing up again. Otherwise, it could be a rough conference slate if this performance from the first three Big Ten matches continues. We can definitely drop the 2017 and 2018 comparisons for good. This goes even if Indiana catches fire again going forward.

All the goodwill the team had built up to this point early in the season was set on fire tonight, getting swept by Western Kentucky. Every time a coach goes on the Hysterics Podcast, their team immediately suffers. The Hilltoppers are likely to win Conference USA and are not bad. However, the Big Ten is much better, and if you can't beat them, it raises questions about whether the team can compete with the better squads in the conference. This program has come a long way and will likely win 8-12 games again in the league and dominate the bottom. However, this defeat almost certainly puts the NCAA Tournament as a bit of a long shot and cancels out the good win against Miami (FL). This program appears to have ceilinged out at the moment as a mid to lower pack squad in an elite league, which is not good enough to make the postseason (and with no conference tourney in volleyball, getting in is that much harder). We might as Hoosier fans have to be OK with where the program is now at this plateau. It will not take the next step until it wins matches like tonight and doesn't suffer a competitive sweep to elite mid-majors.

That's more like it, and it shows why IU's offense has not been this dangerous since the 2017-2018 season. Palmer Ault and Collins Oduro give you a dynamic scorer and speedster combo for 2025 that fully unlocks Yeagley's offense at its best. Have not had that since the Rennicks and Dorsey combo in those aforementioned years. I still have some small concerns about the backline, and Holden Brown is unfortunately showing he is a solid but not elite goalie, similar to Harms recently, but bigger. I was hoping he was closer to Muse or Celentano, but that does not seem to be the case. Also, not IU related other than tonight, but what in the world has happened to PSU's program? For years, IU, Maryland, and Penn State were head and shoulders above the league. While the Hoosiers and Terps have gone nowhere, the Nittany Lions have looked like one of the very worst squads in the league the last couple of seasons. Good job taking care of business, and they need to continue that in every game besides the Terps. Outside of IU, Maryland, and Michigan, the league appears really bad, and Penn State might be the worst of everyone.

Maryland is amongst the worst in the Big Ten. Going to be another rough year. As I discussed this program is here solely to satisfy Title IX. Not win as coaching hire made clear. I totally get it from administration standpoint given the lack of interest and influx of money needed for college sports now for rev sharing. Someone has to get short end of stick and for IU its women's soccer. Just take all this into account when analyzing results and following this program.

Total failure to perform. I'm not sure if IU got fat and happy at number one, but that was the worst performance I have seen from the Hoosiers in a VERY long time. IU scored first against the run of play, but were dominated for 90 minutes from start to finish in a way that should NEVER happen to this program. Very lucky Wolverines didn't end up running away with this, and it's a minor miracle Indiana had a chance at the end. IU's missed PK at the end to tie was total sweet justice from the soccer gods, as they had no business taking anything but a terrible loss. The team went from looking like the best in the country to one that doesn't even deserve to be ranked. Hope the Hoosiers enjoyed being number one because they won't be there anymore if they play like that again this season. This team, which I thought had regained the 2017 and 2018 form, can't be said to be that again in 2025. Those teams' off nights turned into ties or a loss to the very top of the country, which Michigan is not close to. IU can still have a relatively special fall if they make sure this is a one-off, but the best Hoosier soccer teams don't give efforts like that and get dominated on their home field. Now I am not sure if this is a top-five squad or another borderline-seeded team, as they have been since COVID. We will find out quickly after some soul searching from Yeagley and players if this is one of the special Indiana teams or another pretty good one. I really thought we were headed towards special, but after tonight, that is very much in the air. One note that shows metrics can be questionable: IU is somehow still number one in RPI, and Michigan vaulted to six. Guess the computers like the Hoosiers so much that they only reward the squads that beat them and don't penalize them for the loss. Lucky, the computers essentially gave them a mulligan, but won't again, as everyone else in the league outside Maryland and now Michigan has horrific metrics. This is a quad one loss, but everyone else in the league outside of Maryland is a quad three, so I would recommend taking care of business if you want a high NCAA seed. The committee showed two years ago that when the league was terrible, they would penalize accordingly, giving Hoosiers who were Big Ten Champs no seed and not inviting a single other squad from the conference.