Why Stanford?

I know absolutely nothng about soccer except that it is thrilling to watch and the UP women play the game the right way. So I asked myself why Stanford? I looked at their 2008 schedule and then compared it with the UP schedule. I wasn't impressed with the Stanford schedule; after all, UP beat Florida, Penn State, USC and other PAC 10 opponents only losing to UCLA. Stanford played mostly conference opponents and then some other non-rated teams. Can I be paranoid? Are the UP women getting disrespected?
I guesss the only way to show the "NCAA experts" is to win the whole thing all over again.

Look at the RPI rankings. They only go through Nov 2 when Stanford was in the top 4. I don't think they used the latest data to do the seeding.

See Latest NCAA RPI ratings

The RPI order was:

1. North Carolina
2. Stanford
3. UCLA
4. Portland
5. Notre Dame (if I have the bonus amounts wrong, it is possible Notre Dame was 4 and Portland 5).

As soon as I saw the NCAA gave Notre Dame the top #1 seed, I knew we were going to get the top #2 seed. They simply leap-frogged the other teams based on their undefeated and untied record. That left the Pilots at #5. I could have argued it differently, but I can see why they did it, given their criteria.

And, to be honest, we have to get to the quarters and travel to Stanford to beat the Cardinal, but if we do, I like our half of the bracket better.

What probably doomed UP was their record on common opponents vs Stanford. Both teams lost to UCLA and beat SMU by the same margins. However, Stanford did better than UP against SCU 5-0 v 4-0, OR 3-0 v 3-1, UW 5-1 v 1-0, and USC 3-1 v 1-0. It is worth noting that Cat Whitehill has become a big UP fan after watching the SCU game. She actually predicted UP would beat Stanford and make it to the College Cup.

powerfan wrote:What probably doomed UP was their record on common opponents vs Stanford. Both teams lost to UCLA and beat SMU by the same margins. However, Stanford did better than UP against SCU 5-0 v 4-0, OR 3-0 v 3-1, UW 5-1 v 1-0, and USC 3-1 v 1-0. It is worth noting that Cat Whitehill has become a big UP fan after watching the SCU game. She actually predicted UP would beat Stanford and make it to the College Cup.

I don't think a score comparison did it, because I don't think the Committee pays much attention to scores. The RPI did it. Their's was significantly better than ours.

I don't think we worry about Stanford. That's three weeks away. A lot can and does happen in the first two weeks.

Geez is right, one thing at a time. First, we whup on Northern Arizona. Then we get the WSU/Texas winner. WSU/Texas will be a real battle as will our game against the winner. I'm picking WSU, although they'll be losing a player to the U20s (Kiersten Dallstream).

No disagreement. It's hard not to think NAU is in the bag, but UP definitely has to bring it's A game for the WSU/Texas survivor. It will be a huge game for this young squad.

Can you believe the Pilots' 7-0 whacking of NAU was just 2 months ago? All 18 Pilots who suited for that game played. (That's the game Ellie Reed went nuts with a hat trick.) The Pilots can't and won't take their opening game lightly; they worked too hard to get back home to Merlo and here's where their work starts to pay off. I'm looking forward to a big weekend.

Think about the travel (fingers crossed) its only to Stanford. That is less of a trip than San Diego or L.A. last year. You know how Garret feels about traveling so I think we will get off pretty good in that department provided we take care of business to get there. What is the flight to the bay area? About 3 hours? We will just have to make the Tree stand still and quiet the crowd. Nothing does that like putting up an early goal. So thats what I am dreaming about.