#IUMS @ Wisconsin - 4 pm/BTN

[Aaron 4,147]

Not the best second half and no excuse to give up the goal but we responded well with the goal of our own and won comfortably. I'll say Trask even though he has a vastly inferior team has them playing hard and will rebuild back to what they were last yr eventually but will take some time. I expect the same with Maisonneuve at OSU. That IU coaching tree knows what its doing. 

Being able to score early and often is key. To often in past when we are vastly superior in Big Ten play we have either not been able to put one on the board and either end in a 0-0 tie, lose late on a late fluke goal or get one early but never tack on and settle for a tie late on a fluke goal. This team the last couple yrs is usually putting multiple goals on the board early and ending it quickly so even if we give up something late we still win. The old saying that a 2 goal lead is the most dangerous in soccer is not something I have ever agreed with and particularly with our D once we get that second we bring it home 99% of the time.

The last 2 yrs feels like the talent of the Jerry Yeagley days of IU soccer again for the first time since he was actually coaching. Todd has always been able to develop raw players (Lillard, Gutman, Moore ETC) but when we are finally throwing in 5 star recruits to go with it (Dorsey, Rennicks, Maher) you have the elite talent we had from the Jerry day's instead of a merely solid top 20ish team (much like Wiscy was last year). Last 10-15 yrs up until the last 2 anytime we played a top ACC team I felt like we could hang in there but were just a hair inferior. Now their is no team in the country I don't feel we are as talented is which is a huge difference. Todd has always been able to coach in game well and is a master talent developer but he was missing just slightly recruiting. Last 2-3 yrs he is finally bringing in the top of the top recruits again and as long as he keeps that up we can be this perennial top 5 power again moving forward year in year out (and we have the recruiting to do it to take the hit we will lose after this yr and still be really good) that dominates instead of a solid top 20 program. Both options are good but the latter we are finally becoming again is what should be expected for IU Soccer.

Our soft part of the schedule continues with an even worse Evansville team followed by improving but inferior NW and PSU teams who will try to park the bus on us more than anyone but we need to score early and put the game away as we have been doing recently.

[TheWatShot 13,335]

A win over Wisconsin in anything is such a good feeling, given how rarely it seems to happen across all sports.