Jump to content

Thanks for visiting BtownBanners.com!  We noticed you have AdBlock enabled.  While ads can be annoying, we utilize them to provide these forums free of charge to you!  Please consider removing your AdBlock for BtownBanners or consider signing up to donate and help BtownBanners stay alive!  Thank you!

Aaron

#IUMS vs. Wisconsin 5:30 p.m. Friday

Recommended Posts

Due to TV, this is an early game at 5:30pm.

What will make this game a bit interesting with the start time is the sun is going to be a factor for the team trying to score in the goal on the near entry side that faces west each half.  

With that said Wisconsin has been horrible so far and by far the worst team we have faced as of yet with a sub 100 RPI (IU is 22). Wiscy's offense has been anemic being shut out and out shot by mediocre teams in Portland, Butler, UC Davis and Bowling Green. They were even out shot in their two wins over mediocre UAB and Lehigh. We need to be careful and their coach John Trask being from IU always has this game circled. With that said unless something changes fast this looks likes the worst team in the Big Ten. The one player they had last year who I thought was pretty good was Mitch Guitar but he is (presumably) injured and has not played yet this year.

This is a game we need to put away early with a goal or two and we dumped them early last year on the road with 2 quick goals and won easily 3-1.  Wisconsin was solid two years ago when they had the three great goal scorers in Tom Barlow (who is now on the New York Red Bull with Rece Buckmaster and has 23 goals between their USL and MLS team last two years including two with the big club), Mike Catalano (who played professionally last year but is a free agent now) and Mark Segbers (playing professionally for Swope Park in the USL). Since they left after 2017 its been hard times in Madison and we need to make them continue to feel pain.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The bus has been parked so hard by Wiscy and we have only done a mediocre job of moving them. We got a goal because of Endeley's speed drawing a PK. This was right call but you can't rely on ref to call that.

Besides that we have not gonna a good job of converting that final pass and have had limited opportunities. This is very 2016ish and is going to lead to a lot of ties if we don't figure out how to break this down. The reason we were so dominant the last couple years is we got a couple early goals to get teams out of sitting back. This year this appears to be an issue again. With that said part of the problem in 2016 was our forward was Rashad Hyacinth who was to slow for this level which led to a lot of the issues. Josh Penn certainly is not slow and is more than capable of playing at this level and it looks to be more of a frustration/youth issue and once he figures it out I am hoping we can get these defensive minded teams out of parking the bus early like we have last couple years. Teams will sit back until you make it 2-0 and so far we have not been able to do that this year..

1-0 IU at the half. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

First off Ian Black didn't play tonight but is fine and should be available Tuesday (if anyone wants to know how I know that feel free to DM me and I'll explain) so nothing to worry about there. '

Without Black though it allowed Endeley to start and he's the reason we finally jumped to an early lead using his speed to draw a PK. Without that it would of been a long scoreless night against a heavily parked bus. We have got to get better breaking down teams that sit back and didn't do a very good job of it tonight constantly failing on our final passes. If it were up to me Joe Schmidt would play off the bench with both Black and Endeley starting all the time but I am not the coach and maybe they want a top notch fresh player off the bench. 

Also giving up a goal against this offensively challenged team was inexcusable, especially since they had two good chances all night (and converting one) if you don't count the times they kept bumping into Caulfield when he would make the saves and draw fouls. That is two games in a row where we have limited opponents opportunities but let them score on one of the few chances they did have and that has to be fixed.

Now I am very impressed the team came back and scored immediately after giving up the goal which I didn't think would happen but we need to grow up and learn to be more dominant against inferior park the bus teams. That was the big difference the last two years is that we finally were scoring early multiple times on these defensive minded teams and screwing up their strategy and need to get back to that.

I complained about low attendance last game but tonight was the largest crowd of the year with nearly 3,000 which is impressive on Friday for such an early game. The two games I thought would be high drawers (Pitt, ND) drew lower than I expected and the two I thought would struggle for attendance (UCLA, Wiscy) drew surprisingly well. Go figure.

I am not going to preview Butler yet but we just need to continue to grow with all this young talent. We have every bit the talent of the last 2-3 yrs and just need these elite freshman to develop some experience and this team should be as special as the last couple.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
13 hours ago, Aaron said:

First off Ian Black didn't play tonight but is fine and should be available Tuesday (if anyone wants to know how I know that feel free to DM me and I'll explain) so nothing to worry about there. '

Without Black though it allowed Endeley to start and he's the reason we finally jumped to an early lead using his speed to draw a PK. Without that it would of been a long scoreless night against a heavily parked bus. We have got to get better breaking down teams that sit back and didn't do a very good job of it tonight constantly failing on our final passes. If it were up to me Joe Schmidt would play off the bench with both Black and Endeley starting all the time but I am not the coach and maybe they want a top notch fresh player off the bench. 

Also giving up a goal against this offensively challenged team was inexcusable, especially since they had two good chances all night (and converting one) if you don't count the times they kept bumping into Caulfield when he would make the saves and draw fouls. That is two games in a row where we have limited opponents opportunities but let them score on one of the few chances they did have and that has to be fixed.

Now I am very impressed the team came back and scored immediately after giving up the goal which I didn't think would happen but we need to grow up and learn to be more dominant against inferior park the bus teams. That was the big difference the last two years is that we finally were scoring early multiple times on these defensive minded teams and screwing up their strategy and need to get back to that.

I complained about low attendance last game but tonight was the largest crowd of the year with nearly 3,000 which is impressive on Friday for such an early game. The two games I thought would be high drawers (Pitt, ND) drew lower than I expected and the two I thought would struggle for attendance (UCLA, Wiscy) drew surprisingly well. Go figure.

I am not going to preview Butler yet but we just need to continue to grow with all this young talent. We have every bit the talent of the last 2-3 yrs and just need these elite freshman to develop some experience and this team should be as special as the last couple.

Interesting comment on the crowd because I thought it looked thin on tv but have no reference point.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, Alford Bailey said:

Interesting comment on the crowd because I thought it looked thin on tv but have no reference point.

You have to remember our stadium is cavernous and seats 6,500 so even if its a third to half full you are still looking at 2-3k. Its when it gets less than that its a problem. Also the TV always shows the much less full side which makes it hard to judge from that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Largest home crowd YTD.

Date Opponent Score Att.
08/30/19 PITTSBURGH W ot2 3-2 2847
09/02/19 UCLA W ot2 2-1 1877
09/06/19 vs Denver W ot 2-1 686
09/08/19 vs Seattle U T ot2 0-0 641
09/17/19 #16 NOTRE DAME T ot 2 1-1 2392
09/20/19 WISCONSIN W 3-1 2926

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×