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#IUMS - 2017 College Cup

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Selection Monday! NCAA.com will have a stream @ 1 pm. First round starts on Thursday and second on Sunday. #Q49!

2nd Round: 11/19 vs Old Dominion - W 3-nil

3rd Round: 11/25 vs New Hampshire - W 2-1

Elite 8: 12/1 vs Michigan State - 1-1,  W 3-2 PKs

College Cup Semifinal - 12/8 on ESPNU

#5 Akron vs #9 Stanford @ 6:00 ET
#2 IU vs #3 UNC @ 8:45 ET

College Cup Final - 12/10 on ESPN2

#2 IU vs #9 Stanford - L, 1-nil 2OT

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I have said all of this in other threads but will repeat it here for anyone who has not seen it. We are a virtual lock for a top 4 seed and home field all the way to College Cup (a 1,2,3 or 4 seed are virtually the same) given our no. 4 RPI. I predict a 2 seed behind Wake (which is what the committee had us as in the mock selection a couple weeks ago and little has changed).

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Ok after looking at the matchups NC State scares the tar out of me. They have beaten very highly ranked Clemson and Louisville teams and 4 of their 5 losses have come to top teams (one of which was UNC who they battled to a 1-0 loss) so they are very battled tested and will be unafraid of us. The positive is they are not particularly good or bad at anything with an average offense and defense much like OSU. Some days their D plays really well and others they give up multiple goals. Same with their offense where sometimes they get shutout and others they explode for 3 goals.

I would much rather ODU take care of them as that is a team we should have very little trouble with. They have a pretty decent offense but have played a lot of bad teams and managed to lose to 2 teams ranked 84th and 113th. They also have a defense that is pretty mediocre. They are basically Wisconsin but at a much lower level of competition. This is definitely who you want given the choice but hopefully can take down either opponent.

As for the 2nd game if we win I am totally unafraid of Dartmouth. Their numbers look great but they have played absolutely no one. This happened to a Butler team back in the Horizon league several years ago that got a 15 seed, had great looking numbers but as soon as they hit the tourney they were upset in the 1st round. Dartmouth fortunately for them gets the winner of another paper tiger matchup so I like Dartmouth to probably win although you never know. I expected a plucky decent power conference team and am actual quite happy we got the 'elite' mid major.

Overall we will never have a better chance to get back to College Cup (assuming we avoid or can take down NC State) and were given about as favorable a draw as possible. Elite 8 would almost certainly be a home rematch with Maryland or MSU (Western Michigan is another paper tiger who probably isn't going anywhere). I honestly think Maryland despite their struggles will get it together given their talent and end up facing off with MSU in Sweet 16 for the right to face us assuming we prevail. That won't be easy but beats the heck out of having a top ACC team coming here which was probably the alternative.       

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36 minutes ago, Aaron said:

Ok after looking at the matchups NC State scares the tar out of me. They have beaten very highly ranked Clemson and Louisville teams and 4 of their 5 losses have come to top teams (one of which was UNC who they battled to a 1-0 loss) so they are very battled tested and will be unafraid of us. The positive is they are not particularly good or bad at anything with an average offense and defense much like OSU. Some days their D plays really well and others they give up multiple goals. Same with their offense where sometimes they get shutout and others they explode for 3 goals.

I would much rather ODU take care of them as that is a team we should have very little trouble with. They have a pretty decent offense but have played a lot of bad teams and managed to lose to 2 teams ranked 84th and 113th. They also have a defense that is pretty mediocre. They are basically Wisconsin but at a much lower level of competition. This is definitely who you want given the choice but hopefully can take down either opponent.

As for the 2nd game if we win I am totally unafraid of Dartmouth. Their numbers look great but they have played absolutely no one. This happened to a Butler team back in the Horizon league several years ago that got a 15 seed, had great looking numbers but as soon as they hit the tourney they were upset in the 1st round. Dartmouth fortunately for them gets the winner of another paper tiger matchup so I like Dartmouth to probably win although you never know. I expected a plucky decent power conference team and am actual quite happy we got the 'elite' mid major.

Overall we will never have a better chance to get back to College Cup (assuming we avoid or can take down NC State) and were given about as favorable a draw as possible. Elite 8 would almost certainly be a home rematch with Maryland or MSU (Western Michigan is another paper tiger who probably isn't going anywhere). I honestly think Maryland despite their struggles will get it together given their talent and end up facing off with MSU in Sweet 16 for the right to face us assuming we prevail. That won't be east but beats the heck out of having a top ACC team coming here which was probably the alternative.       

Actually, I live out in Hampton Roads. ODU is not a bad defensive team. They have nine shutouts on the season and four in a row. That said (or written), the competition is nowhere near the caliber of what we play. 

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22 minutes ago, LamarCheeks said:

Actually, I live out in Hampton Roads. ODU is not a bad defensive team. They have nine shutouts on the season and four in a row. That said (or written), the competition is nowhere near the caliber of what we play. 

When you give up 24 goals in 19 games especially at that level I don't consider you a very good defense. When you give up 5 goals to St. Francis, Coastal Carolina and 3 to FIU and South Carolina you are certainly vulnerable. They have gotten it together recently against weak competition but clearly this is not a team that is hard to score on.  

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Here is the preview:

http://iuhoosiers.com/news/2017/11/13/indiana-mens-soccer-earns-the-no-2-seed-in-ncaa-tournament.aspx

Leave it to IU athletics to make yet another mistake saying the 2 seed matches the highest in History with 04. We got a 1 in 1997 which was my first year watching. I remember going to the Elite 8 game that year in the freezing cold and blowing out USF 6-0 to go to College Cup. We then took our first loss (or tie) to UCLA in semi's. That was probably the best IU team in history but we made up for it next 2 years winning the title.  

Update: We also got a 1 in 94 it looks like so the article is more off than I thought.

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Thank you Old Dominion for dumping NC State for us. NC St was the only team on our side of the bracket that scared me. We have abolutely no excuse to not get to at least get to the elite 8 and if we don't it may be time to put Yeagley on notice for next year. We will never have a better draw to move on and try to win a title and need to take advantage.  

ODU looks good with their record but have also conceded a good amount of goals and lost to a couple teams ranked below 75. Ironically last NCAA tourney game I attended was in 2011 when we smacked ODU 3-0 in a rain storm and will attend this weekend so hopefully that is a good sign (circumstances of either work or thanksgiving travel have prevented me each year since from attending).  

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Maryland's nightmare finish to the season is finally over. 0-0 tie against Albany in regulation despite dominating than St. Clair their goalie who is one of the most athletic, talented and energetic goalies I've seen as just a freshman made a couple really nice saves in PK's but the Maryland kickers kept whiffing and finally were beaten by Albany in 8th round. Maryland was actually a really scary team with all their talent but just had no composure in last few games down the stretch (reminded me of a Freitag team). Their coach Sasho Cirovski said a few weeks ago he wanted USMNT job and his team has tanked since. Don't think he'll be getting it now. 

In other games of some interest:

1. Butler won 2-0 over Lipscomb to move on and face VCU next round

2. New Hampshire dominated Fairfield 3-0 for right to face Dartmouth and winner takes on us in Sweet 16 if we beat ODU

3. Wiscy won 4-1 against UIC and will face Notre Dame next round

4. Va Tech beat Air Force 2-0 on the other side of our bracket and will face MSU next round  

5. That San Francisco team who we beat 5-1 early in season won 2-1 Over cal tonight to advance and face Louisville next round

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This is unrelated to IU per se but Bob Warming has 'retired' (more like he was forced to retire due to lack of production like Bob Morgan many years ago at IU) as head coach at PSU. It was time.

Both him and Tim Lenahan at Northwestern are the coaches I hate with their less talent and park the bus style. It was effective for them several years ago but as other teams around them have improved they have fallen off using that style and are finally paying for it which is good to see. Hopefully PSU (and eventually Northwestern assuming they don't improve) can get coaches who play the game in a way that is a more watchable and effective style.

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I live in Virginia -- not too far from ODU, in fact. The last time we played a smaller Virginia school in the NCAA playoffs, I ran my mouth off about how we were gonna kick a** and take names and how there was no way the opponent could even compete with us. And what happened? Radford eliminated us from the NCAA baseball tourney. So this time, I'm keeping my yapper shut -- other than to say I hope we win and move on to the third round. And that I hope we don't have another game like against PSU and Bucky in the B1G tourney -- in which we dominate, but really struggle to score. I hope we play more like we did against OSU! Go Hoosiers! 

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