Tournament Bracket

On serious note, who is the head of the selection committee.

Got you thinking, Huh?

national committee members (pdf)

I think it is geography. Florida is located in the extreme southeast. Portland is in the extreme northwest. I think they have a misguided preconception that they are saving money by moving "extreme" teams to the middle of the country. I hope it does fire up your women. They got the shaft.

I think it is geography. Florida is located in the extreme southeast. Portland is in the extreme northwest. I think they have a misguided preconception that they are saving money by moving "extreme" teams to the middle of the country. I hope it does fire up your women. They got the shaft.

Friday night at Merlo: I'm loving it already. This is what we've all been waiting for. Time for the playoff Pilots to take care of business. Time for playoff fans to do the same.

FSUfan wrote:Well, we are going to Auburn, and I have no idea why.

I think they put the seeds and other teams into the computer and it came out that FSU traveling was the cheapest way to go. That is what they said they would do.

I will be pulling for you all, go Pilots!

FSUfan wrote:I will be pulling for you all, go Pilots!

Well thanks! And right back at you... go 'Noles!

At least twice in UP's history we have battled the NCAA's thinking about the role of "marginal " teams and have won. other times UP teams have brought glory to UP despite great obstacles. I have to think this makes us automatic allies with the likes of Florida.

I was curious how much people feel like losing our U-20 World Cup players will affect Portland. I'm hoping we don't miss a beat, but, I'm a homer...

Well let me check in on this. I don't like losing the players. But I certainly understand why it is a good idea in the context of the big picture. If an player knows they will be allowed to pursue a chance to earn a spot on the full national team they will be comfortable commiting to the program. So its a trade off we have to bite the bullet to get that kind of player and hope that the scheduling gurus don't hurt us too much. The other side of the coin is when the players return their game is elevated. Its just unfortunate we took a hit for three.

Ignore the loss of the Amigas.

This is still one hell of a team. they have allowed the second fewest goals, and even if you subtract the goals that involved the Amigas, this team would still rank in or near the top 10.

I don't wasn't this season be about "what if" We still have a great team, one I'm willing to stack up against anyone.

Good points, Autopilot. Top players need to know that coming to Portland will not get in the way of their national team aspirations. It is a tradeoff, and this year we will see the downside of the tradeoff. It does sound to me that Garrett is really thinking about the three players' well-being, as well as the team's, and that has also got to help when top players look at Portland.

Reading through this thread, I am extremely jealous that I cannot be in Merlo this weekend. I'll be listening. Go Pilots!!

The playoff Pilots are set to go deep. Veteran leaders are peaking at the right time. Goalkeeping is superb. The starters will play long minutes, and they are fit to do so. We know the team can score goals with any lineup used so far this season. Depth on the bench is an issue; the subs are young. Excellent coach knows wo to put where for maximum results, and he trusts his younger players. Lapses on defense that lead to fast counterattacks are only Achilles heel. All in all, a team worth cheering.

I think that I would put this starting 11 up against anyone, but depth is certainly a concern...

http://www.ncaa.com/brackets/2008/ncaa_bracket_DI_soccer_women.html

The seedings have worked out in most of the groupings as we enter the quarter finals.
2 Florida St and 1 Notre Dame
2 Portland and 1 Stanford
1 UCLA and 3 Duke (Duke def 2 Virginia)
1 North Carolina and winner of 2 Florida vs 3 Texas A&M

No real surprises. It was good to see a couple "new" teams go further in the brackets - like Minnesota and JMU.

Looked like Stanford had a good turnout Friday night - over 2,000 attend. I love to gloat about our 4800+ though.

Just something I noticed - no intended meaning either way on my part.

7 of the 8 Quarterfinalists defeated their third round opposition with a shutout. Portland was the lone exception, allowing 2 goals to JMU last night.

Of course even allowing those 2 goals last night, we still have allowed only 8 goals in 21 games with 14 shutouts.

I guess the bottom line is: as long as we score at least one more goal than the opponent, we advance. (Duh!)

So here's the quarterfinals:
Friday 11/28:
at Chapel Hill, NC: The Auld Enemy v. Texas A&M
at South Bend, IN: Notre Dame v. Florida State
at Tall Stick, CA: Stanford v. Portland

Saturday, 11/29
at LA: That powder blue team v. Duke

I want to follow up and expand upon FANatic's comments about winners and shutouts. My quick tally of tournament scoring for rounds 1-3 from the NCAA bracket pencils out like this in terms of goals for, goals against and the differential (highest differential at the bottom):
Notre Dame GF 7, GA 2, +5
Texas A&M GF 8, GA 3, +5
Duke GF 6, GA 0, +6
UCLA GF 7, GA 0, +7
Stanford GF 8, GA 0, +8
UP GF 11, GA 3, +8
FSU GF 9, GA 0, +9
NC GF 12, GA 0, +12
(Any math errors I blame on being an English lit major.)
So is the Gatorade bottle half full or half empty? Half full: Pilots are 2nd in goals scored and tied for 3rd best differential at +8. Half empty: They are tied for last in goals allowed and had only 1 shoutout in 3 games, matching Texas A&M in both categories. Five teams shut out all foes for three rounds and Notre Dame had 2 shutouts.

Another item of interest: 5 of the 8 third-round games were decided by 1-0 scores.

What does all this mean for the next round? You tell me.

Nice work PH all I can say is get ready for clash of the titans.

A general comment: This year's tournament has been great, I think in large part due to the "no two teams from the same conference can meet in rounds 1/2" rule. It's a shame that rule will be gone next year, with the "no matchups" limited to round 1 as in previous years.

To the present: This is a great bunch of games for next week. I don't think there's a "sure thing" in the bunch, although I'd give a reasonably big edge to UCLA over Duke. One might think of giving UNC a big edge over Texas A&M, but A&M has posed problems for UNC in the past. So, that one, to me, is not a foregone conclusion.

GO PILOTS!