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ccgeneral

#IUMS - 2017 B1G Tournament

By ccgeneral, in Other Indiana Hoosiers Athletics

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Aaron    4,627

Aaron
Posted

Back from a freezing and wet game.

First of the good is that NCAA sees that this game as a tie for seeding tomorrow and could care less how we do in PK's (only Big Ten interested in that) so we go into tourney undefeated at 15-0-5 and probably a top 4 seed (not 100% but a pretty good chance we do). Will probably go in B-Town next week but prefer the games at Grand Park being 15 minutes from my house as oppose to 1.5 hours depending on traffic. 

Second the uncontrollable today was the weather. You may have to play in that again during tourney as November gets a lot of days like this but hopefully not. Players were slipping everywhere. Wiscy did not really park the bus until OT and game was scoreless more because of conditions than anything. With that said a pretty nice IU crowd despite the weather.

Now I will move to the bad and its the PK's. Twice we hit the post and did not look confident taking them while Wiscy did. I am also not sure why we went to Caulfield to guard the PK's but I'll defer to Yeagley on that.

Lastly I want to talk about the uncertain and its the same struggle I've had the last 5 years with Todd on board. We are a very good program overall but not quite where we should be. All this year team kept talking about how they wanted trophies in Big Ten and the moment looked to big for them (whether it be the PK's today or the Michigan game at home or even the MSU game). The program is not in a bad spot but every time we have a chance to do something big we fail in the moment (save the 2012 title). We screwed up the Big Ten championship mostly of our own doing in 2012, 2015 and 2017 and the tourney title in 14 and 17. We have also lost terrible games in the NCAA tourney in 14 and 16. We have been past the 3rd round of the tourney exactly twice since 04 when Jerry retired. The good is we have several a national title, have made the tourney every year and are constantly among the best teams. Is this enough given how much more competitive college soccer is now or should we expect more? This is a question I don't quite know the answer to but its one that really needs to be asked hard by Glass, the fans and the athletic department if we don't win our first 2 NCAA tourney games.  

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Aaron    4,627

Aaron
Posted

RPI back at 4 for now and teams around us already done (and 2 of the 3 above us lost much earlier in their conference tourney) so we may stay there or fall back 1 spot where we started the day. Either way given results around us I expect us to be the 2 seed behind Wake (who won the ACC on PK's) when announced tomorrow. Remember NCAA had us as 2 behind Wake in mock selection several weeks ago and don't think anything happened either way to change that since. Also 1, 2, 3 or 4 Seed makes no difference as all of those carry 3 home games before College Cup in Philly.     

mamasa, ALASKA HOOSIER and Class of '66 Old Fart reacted to this

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Aaron    4,627

Aaron
Posted

If anyone wants the irony of all irony by Wiscy playing us to a tie it moved them inside the top 25 in the RPI and gives us a second top 25 RPI win (along with Notre Dame) against them earlier in the year. If we had beaten them today we would have 1 top 25 RPI win but because they played us to a tie we got a 2nd with them moving inside the top 25. Weird. Doubt it matters much in terms of seeding (think we are 2 or at worst 3 seed either way) but NCAA measures 1-25 opponent wins and 26-50 wins. We are now 2-0-5 against the RPI top 25 because Wiscy forged a tie against us instead of 1-0-4. We however, are a healthy 5-0 against teams 26-50 (would of been 7-0 with 2 wins against Wiscy who would be sitting in upper 20's instead of 24 if we beat them today). Probably them tying us is overall better to have that extra top 25 win but the ideal result was us winning in PK's to get the trophy. 

Our RPI is still 4 (and the NCAA just released on twitter that this is the final RPI before selection so we will stay there) all but guaranteeing us a coveted top 4 seed I would think. Remember 1pm tomorrow on NCAA.com for selection show, 

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Aaron    4,627

Aaron
Posted

Jeremy Price finally put on paper the record I knew was bad but did not know the exact number. According to the article we are 2-7 in PK's since 04 title. I know off the top of my head what the 2 wins are without looking. One was in Chicago in 14 against Northwestern in first round of Big Ten Tourney and I was there. We absolutely did not deserve to win in PK's as NW goalie made a beautiful save but fortunately they blasted their 1st and last kick over the goal so we won. The other was in 13 when we beat PSU in PK's to advance to BTN finals. That is our only big time PK win in that time as without that we would of missed tourney in 2013 and not have our long NCAA appearance streak alive.

I don't remember all 7 losses but I remember a few and they were terrible. The fact that we have lost a Big Ten tourney game on PK's 3 straight years (all of which featured multiple bad takes where we just whiffed on shots either high or off the post) tells me we need to work a bit more on our PK approach.

Now the good news is we have not gone out in PK 's or even faced them in NCAA tourney since 07 with Bradley so hopefully that continues. 

Let's recap our NCAA tourney losses and most are not that bad or unexpected with Yeagley but were a travesty during Freitag era which is why he is no longer here.

Freitag

04 National Title-Success 

05- Notre Dame 1st game-Complete no show and embarrasment

06-Santa Clara 2nd game-PK's where we hit the post on game winning PK

07-Bradley 1st game-Played terrible game and ended in PK's where we hit crossbar on one of the PK's 

08-St John's 3rd game-We actually had 2 really nice wins in first 2 rounds but erased it all with a blown 2 goal lead in final 5 minutes in by far the worst loss of the Freitag era. I would of fired him after the game but we kept him for another year and were even worse the next year

09-UNC 3rd game (only time we had to play as an unseeded team and did not receive a bye besides 13)-Expected result on road against a better team but damage was done at this point and Freitag was ousted for his repeated failures.

Yeagley

10-Akron 2nd game- Battled in a game we played a better team on road and lost 2-1

11-UNC 2nd game-Battled in a game where we played a better team to the wire and lost 1-0 in OT

12-National Title-Success

13-Akron 1st game-Were lucky to be in tourney at all after 7-11 regular season and getting in winning Big Ten Tourney and lost a close 3-2 game

14-Xavier 1st game-This is the only tourney in the Yeagley era where we have truly failed losing 2-1 to an inferior team at home including a missed PK early in the game and XU had a goal keeper on one leg and he had to let a defender take all the goal kicks. 

15-Wake 2nd game-Lost on a late goal against a better team.

16-Va Tech 2nd game-This was a close game with a heartbreaking 2-1 OT loss at home last year. Teams were pretty evenly matched overall and could of probably won but certainly not embarrasing.

My point is with Yeagley for the most part in 7 tourneys (Unlike with Freitag who gave us embarrassing results in pretty much every tourney after winning whole thing first year on job) we have gotten about as far as you would expect in 5, overachieved with the title in 12 and underachieved in 14. I hope I am not eating my words but given we have gotten pretty much where we are suppose to under Todd I am hopefully we can at least get to the Elite 8 which will be our best showing in every year but two since 04. We will probably draw a pretty weak conference winner in first game then have the script reversed as the 1, 2 or 3 seed against a plucky but inferior 14, 15 or 16 in 2nd round like we were in 09, 10, 11, 12 and 15 where we battled to end but lost 4 of the 5 games so its time to flip that being the far superior team now. Also interesting to note if we get a top 4 seed (likely) it will be the first time since the 07 Bradley debacle where we are seeded that high when we were the 4. If we get a 3 it will be highest since 05. If we get a 2 it will be the highest since 04 when we won the title (hopefully we get that which would be a really good omen). Last Number 1 seed (doubtful we get that) was in 97 but as I have said the difference between a 1, 2, 3 or 4 seed is virtually nothing. 

  

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