#IUMS - 2017 College Cup

[Brass Cannon 25,430]

1 hour ago, Aaron said:

Are we sure this is what we want? Sometimes having to take on Cinderella is worse than taking on a heavy weight. You are probably right you would rather play Fordham but at the same time we have not played enough teams at the top of college soccer (only top level teams we have played are ND, MSU and Maryland) which I think is part of why we came out so slow last night. To step back and have to play an inferior Fordham team may give us same issue of being shell shocked first few minutes if we make championship against Wake, Akron or Stanford who are all top 5 teams in my mind (we are as well). 

Fair points. I just hate UNC so much

[rebelhoosier848891 9,588]

I think UNC keeps us from having a false sense of security. Bring on UNC—to be the best you have to beat the best. While the basketball team improves—-it’s fun having a soccer power to root for! Changing the spelling from a line in the Monday night football song—-Let’s make it “Are you ready for some FUTbol”? And to that— Hoosier Nation says “Heck Yea” !!!!


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[Class of '66 Old Fart 90,617]

Halftime:  UNC 0, Fordham 0

[ccgeneral 38,084]

UNC strikes first with 29' left.

[ccgeneral 38,084]

Fordham with the equalizer 90 seconds later.

[ccgeneral 38,084]

UNC 2-1 with 15' left.

Stanford up 1-nil on WF with 10' left before half.

[ccgeneral 38,084]

We play UNC on Friday @ 6:00 or 8:45 ET on ESPNU. 

[Aaron 4,531]

Well UNC it is. As I said I think its probably better to take on a heavy weight than Cinderella. First off if we lose to UNC no shame in that but if you lose to Fordham you can't help but feel you took a bad loss to close season should things not go our way. Also as I said you want to be well prepared for a potential championship game against a top 5 team and Fordham does not do that. I will get into a much more Complete preview later in week but I will say UNC has best offense we have faced this season but a defense that is only slightly above average giving up basically giving up a goal a game so if we can shut down their attack which is a tall task they are somewhat easier to score on than MSU's great defense and we managed to do that.

[ccgeneral 38,084]

Stanford 2-nil with 37' left. #1 WF going down again.

 

[Brass Cannon 25,430]

8 minutes ago, ccgeneral said:

Stanford 2-nil with 37' left. #1 WF going down again.

 

Wow. Not that Stanford isn't good but there was a reason they were a consensus #1 in the rankings. Lucky break for us and everybody really

[Aaron 4,531]

Well for all the talk about the ACC they get 1 team and we get a nice balance of 1 Big Ten team in IU, 1 ACC team in UNC, 1 Pac 12 team in Stanford who still doesn't give up goals in the NCAA tourney and 1 MAC team in Akron who is the Gonzaga of college soccer year in and year out that recruits and has the talent of any major program and is well battle tested with an elite out of conference schedule and a decent "St Mary's" in their conference in Western Michigan. All in all you got all top 5 teams in the country in my mind and every team ranked 2-5 in my "power rankings" I posted earlier in this thread. Any of the 4 teams would be well deserving to hold a championship trophy and have had great years with really impressive numbers. Let's hope it's IU. Go Hoosiers!

[Aaron 4,531]

47 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

Wow. Not that Stanford isn't good but there was a reason they were a consensus #1 in the rankings. Lucky break for us and everybody really

Not really. To me Stanford is every bit as good as Wake and the 2 time defending champs who have not allowed a goal in last years tourney or this one and only 9 all year (second to us in NCAA I believe). You lost Wake's high powered offense but gained Stanford's immovable defense. Either one is equally tough in different ways. I didn't necessarily expect Stanford to go into Wake and demolish them but it shows how good they are and either way you are getting a very elite team in the Cup.   

[ccgeneral 38,084]

We play the 2nd game on Friday. Set the DVR.

@IUMensSoccer:  SCHEDULE ALERT: No. 2 Indiana will face No. 3 North Carolina at 8:45 PM ET on Friday, Dec. 8 in the College Cup! The match will be televised nationally on ESPNU.#Q49 #GoIU

[Aaron 4,531]

A little insight into each remaining team's numbers and especially IU's before I preview our match in full in detail later this week.

UNC is only team not in top 12 in both Offense and Defense of the four teams competing. They are top offense in College Cup at number 2 in nation but posses just the 26th ranked defense. Akron is most balanced at 5 in defense and 6th in offense but also going through the MAC have weakest schedule but played extremely tough non conference games. As I have said treat them and form your opinions the exact same way you would a Gonzaga basketball team. As for IU and Stanford they are 1 and 2 respectively in defense and offense ranks 12 and 9 respectively.

Basically UNC's D is only statistic that is not elite among the 4 teams but their offense is the best. If the adage is defense win championships UNC is in trouble but given how good their offense is they have just as good a chance as any.

For IU though, given our defense we are probably better off facing an elite offense and a D that is a little more susceptible to allowing goals. With that said the best offense we have faced so far is no. 14 San Francisco (who's numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt) and Wisconsin at 17 both of which manged to score a goal on us. Next best offenses we saw are ODU at 41 and USF at 48 who we shut out. I trust our D but we will be taking on top 10 offenses no matter what so they will be tested like never before.

As for defenses we have managed to score on some of the better ones putting up a goal each game on no. 10 MSU and no. 44 Notre Dame. We also scored 2 goals on no.7 New Hampshire and no. 31 UK while being shut out by no. 49 Maryland. 

What this shows is while the D is the strong point of our team it has been less tested than our offense by top competition which has succeeded for the most part in scoring on some pretty good defenses.              

[Brass Cannon 25,430]

45 minutes ago, Aaron said:

A little insight into each remaining team's numbers and especially IU's before I preview our match in full in detail later this week.

UNC is only team not in top 12 in both Offense and Defense of the four teams competing. They are top offense in College Cup at number 2 in nation but posses just the 26th ranked defense. Akron is most balanced at 5 in defense and 6th in offense but also going through the MAC have weakest schedule but played extremely tough non conference games. As I have said treat them and form your opinions the exact same way you would a Gonzaga basketball team. As for IU and Stanford they are 1 and 2 respectively in defense and offense ranks 12 and 9 respectively.

Basically UNC's D is only statistic that is not elite among the 4 teams but their offense is the best. If the adage is defense win championships UNC is in trouble but given how good their offense is they have just as good a chance as any.

For IU though, given our defense we are probably better off facing an elite offense and a D that is a little more susceptible to allowing goals. With that said the best offense we have faced so far is no. 14 San Francisco (who's numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt) and Wisconsin at 17 both of which manged to score a goal on us. Next best offenses we saw are ODU at 41 and USF at 48 who we shut out. I trust our D but we will be taking on top 10 offenses no matter what so they will be tested like never before.

As for defenses we have managed to score on some of the better ones putting up a goal each game on no. 10 MSU and no. 44 Notre Dame. We also scored 2 goals on no.7 New Hampshire and no. 31 UK while being shut own by no. 49 Maryland. 

What this shows is while the D is the strong point of our team it has been less tested than our offense by top competition which has succeeded for the most part in scoring on some pretty good defenses.              

All in all who would you rather win that first game?

[Aaron 4,531]

35 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

All in all who would you rather win that first game?

Akron. Either would be equally tough but a Stanford team that has not given up a goal in 10 straight NCAA tourney games over 3 tournaments and 9 all year makes me think our only hope would probably be a 0-0 tie and win in penalty kicks. Akron will be really tough but think we have a decent chance of at least a 1-0 win given they beat Wiscy 3-2 in tourney and Wiscy offense is as good as ours and a much worse D.  

[rebelhoosier848891 9,588]

Love it that the Hoosiers will get national television exposure for the next 2 games—(yes I am being optimistic)This will just continue to help our already good recruiting!


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[Brass Cannon 25,430]

21 hours ago, Aaron said:

Akron. Either would be equally tough but a Stanford team that has not given up a goal in 10 straight NCAA tourney games over 3 tournaments and 9 all year makes me think our only hope would probably be a 0-0 tie and win in penalty kicks. Akron will be really tough but think we have a decent chance of at least a 1-0 win given they beat Wiscy 3-2 in tourney and Wiscy offense is as good as ours and a much worse D.  

Very true. Gotta hand it to Stanford if the pull this off. Three peating isn't easy. Other than St. Louis which I think was a bit of an exception only one team, Virginia has won 3 in a row.  Hopefully instead we are winning and instead St. Louis fans are getting nervous. 

[Aaron 4,531]

Ok lets preview since IU decided to do theirs today and here is the media availability of the players and Yeagley heading into the game:.

https://scout.com/college/indiana/Article/College-Cup-Preview-Todd-Yeagley-IU-players-111783460

I remember saying last spring when I read the press release on the high ranked freshman class that if the one of the forwards could step up and put Hyacinth on the bench (not a knock on him but he is out of his league at this level) we would be the number 1 team in the country and a legit title contender and that's exactly what has happened. I was very optimistic about this season from the moment I saw Dorsey and Toye up top take down a high ranked Louisville at Grand Park in an exhibition game and knew we had fixed our offensive problems. I had questions about the goalie coming out of that game as neither Gruber or Caulfield looked good and basically were the reason we gave up 2 goals in 3-2 win. However, Muse answered that question once the season started taking the job and has been phenomenal. I went to the USF game early in the season and after watching Muse and the rest of the team dominate and put up 3 goals I knew we had our best team in many years and had our first serious shot at a national title since 2012 as this was the first team without a glaring weakness since.

Now fast forward to this weekend where everything has turned out as good as it looked in the first few games and preview the match. UNC will be the best team we have faced particularly on offense. Their attack is on a much higher level than anything we have seen and ranks no. 2 in the nation. Up top they have 3 guys that put up 27 goals combined in Lindley, Pieters and Winn with 7,9 and 11 respectively. Lindley and Pieters are especially dangerous as they also create goals with 13 and 7 assists respectively. This UNC team is also extremely battle tested in the ACC and have taken down elite teams, beating highly ranked Duke and Notre Dame at home as well as a road win at Virginia. They have other good wins as well but those standout as those are all legit top 10 teams most of the year. UNC Averages 2.52 goals per game which is by far the best we have seen this year and ranks no. 2 in nation. In those aforementioned games they scored 2 goals on Duke, 3 on Notre Dame and 2 on Virginia. All these teams have defenses close to IU's so clearly they know how to score on top defenses.

As for things that are good for us, UNC has by far the weakest defense in the Cup at no. 26 in the nation giving up close to a goal a game so we hopefully we can pencil ourselves in for at least a goal as they have only 7 shutouts in 21 games. The key is going to be not to give up a 2 or 3 goals (remember we have not given up more than a single goal in any game and just 6 in 23 games) to a team that has an extremely efficient offense. If our D plays as it has all year we should have a decent shot to get a win. The other thing that stands out is unlike MSU, UNC seems to have an issue finding a good goalie as they have rotated 3 guys throughout the year. I have a feeling some of their D issues rest with the goalie position. If we gave them Muse (which we would never do) the number of goals given up by them may be cut in half and in the high single digits or low double digits like the other 3 teams in this cup.

We have 2 mutual opponents which proves my point. They did beat ND 3-0 as mentioned above but also took a 2-1 loss to them in Big East Tourney and this is a team IU shut out. They also went needed OT to beat the same ODU team 2-1 we dominated and shutout. In other words they have had more success scoring on these teams than we did for most part but have not shut down the same teams attack like we did. In those 3 common games we were 4 goals for and 0 against while they are 6 goals for but gave up 2. UNC's 2 other losses came to Wake which is perfectly understandable but they also have an inexplicable early season 1-0 loss to a very bad UNC Wilmington team.

I predict IU gets a 2-1 win in OT. This is not a confidant prediction but given UNC's defensive issues I have to think we are good for a goal at some point during regulation but also expect us to give up a goal given the level of their offense as Louisville is the only other team that has blanked them (in a 0-0 tie which was only tie of year for them) this year besides that unexplainable Wilmington game. However, in OT I expect their D or goalie to make a mistake at some point and ours to hold strong given precedent this season. Obviously anything can happen when you have 2 evenly matched legit top 5 teams but am optimistic for the best given how far we have come.        

Go Hoosiers!

 

                  

[Brass Cannon 25,430]

31 minutes ago, Aaron said:

Ok lets preview since IU decided to do theirs today and here is the media availability of the players and Yeagley heading into the game:.

https://scout.com/college/indiana/Article/College-Cup-Preview-Todd-Yeagley-IU-players-111783460

I remember saying last spring when I read the press release on the high ranked freshman class that if the one of the forwards could step up and put Hyacinth on the bench (not a knock on him but he is out of his league at this level) we would be the number 1 team in the country and a legit title contender and that's exactly what has happened. I was very optimistic about this season from the moment I saw Dorsey and Toye up top take down a high ranked Louisville at Grand Park in an exhibition game and knew we had fixed our offensive problems. I had questions about the goalie coming out of that game as neither Gruber or Caulfield looked good and basically were the reason we gave up 2 goals in 3-2 win. However, Muse answered that question once the season started taking the job and has been phenomenal. I went to the USF game early in the season and after watching Muse and the rest of the team dominate and put up 3 goals I knew we had our best team in many years and had our first serious shot at a national title since 2012 as this was the first team without a glaring weakness since.

Now fast forward to this weekend where everything has turned out as good as it looked in the first few games and preview the match. UNC will be the best team we have faced particularly on offense. Their attack is on a much higher level than anything we have seen and ranks no. 2 in the nation. Up top they have 3 guys that put up 27 goals combined in Lindley, Pieters and Winn with 7,9 and 11 respectively. Lindley and Pieters are especially dangerous as they also create goals with 13 and 7 assists respectively. This UNC team is also extremely battle tested in the ACC and have taken down elite teams, beating highly ranked Duke and Notre Dame at home as well as a road win at Virginia. They have other good wins as well but those standout as those are all legit top 10 teams most of the year. UNC Averages 2.52 goals per game which is by far the best we have seen this year and ranks no. 2 in nation. In those aforementioned games they scored 2 goals on Duke, 3 on Notre Dame and 2 on Virginia. All these teams have defenses close to IU's so clearly they know how to score on top defenses.

As for things that are good for us, UNC has by far the weakest defense in the Cup at no .26 in the nation giving up close to a goal a game so we hopefully we can pencil ourselves in for at least a goal as they have only 7 shutouts in 21 games. The key is going to be not to give up a 2 or 3 goals (remember we have not given up more than a single goal in any game and just 6 in 23 games) to a team that has an extremely efficient offense. If our D plays as it has all year we should have a decent shot to get a win. The other thing that stands out is unlike MSU, UNC seems to have an issue finding a good goalie as they have rotated 3 guys throughout the year. I have a feeling some of their D issues rest with the goalie position. If we gave them Muse (which we would never do) the number of goals given up by them may be cut in half and in the high single digits or low double digits like the other 3 teams in this cup.

We have 2 mutual opponents which proves my point. They did beat ND 3-0 as mentioned above but also took a 2-1 loss to them in Big East Tourney and this is a team IU shut out. They also went needed OT to beat the same ODU team 2-1 we dominated and shutout. In other words they have had more success scoring on these teams than we did for most part but have not shut down the same teams attack like we did. In those 3 common games we were 4 goals for and 0 against while they are 6 goals for but gave up 2. UNC's 2 other losses came to Wake which is perfectly understandable but they also have an inexplicable early season 1-0 loss to a very bad UNC Wilmington team.

I predict IU gets a 2-1 win in OT. This is not a confidant prediction but given UNC's defensive issues I have to think we are good for a goal at some point during regulation but also expect us to give up a goal given the level of their offense as Louisville is the only other team that has blanked them (in a 0-0 tie which was only tie of year for them) this year besides that unexplainable Wilmington game. However, in OT I expect their D or goalie to make a mistake at some point and ours to hold strong given precedent this season. Obviously anything can happen when you have 2 evenly matched legit top 5 teams but am optimistic for the best given how far we have come.        

Go Hoosiers!

 

                  

I hope you are right. Ugh so nervous