So Wrong

With 9 common opponents between UCLA and UP, UP clearly has the edge.

Result vs UCLA Result vs UP
San Diego 1-1 2-0
Gonzaga 2-0 7-0
Pepperdine 2-0 6-0
California 1-0 4-0
Oregon 5-0 3-0
Oregon State 5-1 1-0
Washington 2-1 2-0
Washington State 2-0 2-1

Goals for/against 20-3 26-1
Record 8-0-1 9-0
What was the committee thinking???

Frankly, there have been many times where I've wondered the same thing. But, it is what it is. Time to make a run....!

Eh. Control what you can control. The Pilots will go where they have to go and take care of business. And UCLA has to win three games as well to get to that matchup...

Nice research, powerfan!

Here's what I don't get. Check out the RPI the NCAA released on Nov. 3:

http://web1.ncaa.org/app_data/weeklyrpi/2009WSOrpi1.html

You'll notice UP is #3 and UCLA is #5.

So something must have happened over the last weekend. Portland beat San Diego (RPI #43) while UCLA beat Washington (RPI #23) and Washington State (RPI #13). Did those last two games give UCLA a big enough push to pass us? Maybe. But think about it this way - we beat a team that UCLA tied, while UCLA beat teams that we also beat. Really, the results from this past weekend should have been in our favor, not UCLA's. Maddening.

Mid-majors getting dumped on: It's not just for basketball anymore!

i'm just grateful we get to host the 1st three rounds after so many years of having #1 or #2 seeds an still having to go on the road for the 1st two rounds.

like ppt said, ucla has to get through its three games an the potential 2nd round match up for them is san diego which they tied earlier in the year.

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:Mid-majors getting dumped on: It's not just for basketball anymore!

I noticed that two of the #1 seeds are not even conference champions. It's great to be a major conference.

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:Mid-majors getting dumped on: It's not just for basketball anymore!

If I counted correctly, there were only four at-large bids to teams outside the "power conferences," to use the hoops term (the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pac-10, and SEC).

Two of them were SCU and USD from the WCC. There was also BYU (Mountain West) and UCF (C-USA). I know you can't compare soccer with basketball directly, but you see my point.

Did anyone else notice that the WCC member on the selection committee is the coach at University of San Diego? hmm... http://web1.ncaa.org/committees/committees_roster.jsp?CommitteeName=1WSO

Nothing doing there. Committee members have to leave the room when the discussion turns to their school, or even a school in their conference. I think it's safe to say the USD coach had nothing to do with where Portland, SCU, or USD were seeded.

Looking at the bracket it appears that the committee wants an east coast/west coast show down at the College Cup. While that might be interesting for some, I don't think that the committee members were justified in totally dismissing RPI and rankings in setting up the brackets. UP gets screwed again!

UP was overlooked again in the seeding, no doubt. But, looking at the bigger picture, I think we actually have a good seed in regards to getting to the college cup. First, we must take care of business at home. Then, assuming we meet UCLA, I have no doubt that we can beat them. I have seen them play a number of times, and we are a better side for sure. Let's get past the first couple of rounds at home and see what happens.

Stonehouse wrote:Nice research, powerfan!

Here's what I don't get. Check out the RPI the NCAA released on Nov. 3:

http://web1.ncaa.org/app_data/weeklyrpi/2009WSOrpi1.html

You'll notice UP is #3 and UCLA is #5.

So something must have happened over the last weekend. Portland beat San Diego (RPI #43) while UCLA beat Washington (RPI #23) and Washington State (RPI #13). Did those last two games give UCLA a big enough push to pass us? Maybe. But think about it this way - we beat a team that UCLA tied, while UCLA beat teams that we also beat. Really, the results from this past weekend should have been in our favor, not UCLA's. Maddening.

What happened is TAMU's pod getting the easiest road to the finals, RPI -wise. They took care of the host.

also, we didn't get screwed as bad as SCU did. They have the hardest RPI road, we only have the second hardest

I've become convinced: The NCAA thinks they can give the Pilots the shaft. Here are team records over the last two years:

Stanford 38-1-1 Two #1 seeds. Well deserved, in my opinion.

Portland 35-2 No #1 seeds.

UCLA 35-2-3 Two #1 seeds.

Notre Dame 39-3-1 One #1 seed.

North Carolina 37-4-3 Two #1 seeds.

Florida State 33-7-4 One #1 seed.

By itself, what's happened this year is bad, but not massive. It's the cumulative result over the years that's indicative. The NCAA thinks it can get away with shafting Portland, year after year.

I, for one, don't think the school administration is doing enough to make a stink about this. We fans are working our tails off to support the Pilots. Where's the reciprocal effort from the AD, his staff, and the higher administration? If they're making a stink, I sure haven't heard about it.

This hurts the team, but it hurts the fans too. Why isn't the administration standing up for us?

The year we got the shaft despite being ranked #1 in every poll, I challenged the Pilot member of the selection committee via email and all I got was a weak, weasel response about the process. He really gave me the impression that he had no interest in rocking the boat. How do these people advance in today's world?

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:I've become convinced: The NCAA thinks they can give the Pilots the shaft. Here are team records over the last two years:

..............etc.

I remember back in the early 90's we fans had the same complaint, and a couple of us brought it up with Clive. His answer was that you can't leave the decisions up to the committee. You have to go out and schedule the toughest teams and beat them, and not allow the selection committee a choice. We aren't a BCS power. We will always be bucking the big conferences and we have to learn how to play the scheduling game against them again.

This year, I think we have ourselves at least partially to blame. We scheduled Montana and SMU, two schools that were death traps, RPI-wise. We gambled that TAMU was going to be good, and maybe a couple years ago when we scheduled them we probably thought CAL would be a power on the National Stage as well. As it turned out, they didn't help us much either with RPI. We had no other teams with a consistent record of excellence on the schedule.

It's time to get he Stanford's, UNC's, FSU's, and UCLA's again on the schedule, and insist that we won't play anyone who doesn't have a prospect of being higher than in the bonus categories (top 80?). We should be playing 2 or 3 or even 4 of these teams every year. Even if we lose the games in the regular season, it will be better than playing the Montanas of the world.

We won't be getting a pass from anyone. we will have to force a 1 seed down their throats.

Well, you're probably right. I knew right away when I saw Montana on the schedule that it was a problem. Whoever was responsible for that needs a good talking to, to say the least.

On the other hand, I don't believe in lying back and enjoying it. The school needs to make as much of a stink as it can. Larry Williams is on the Championships Cabinet and Father Beauchamp (I hope I have it right) is in the NCAA hierarchy. They need to stomp around and make some peoples' lives uncomfortable.

"UPSoccerFanatic said,

I, for one, don't think the school administration is doing enough to make a stink about this. We fans are working our tails off to support the Pilots. Where's the reciprocal effort from the AD, his staff, and the higher administration? If they're making a stink, I sure haven't heard about it.

This hurts the team, but it hurts the fans too. Why isn't the administration standing up for us?

Perfectly stated, my good friend! Maybe PN should band together with an email campaign, and let the big boys at UP have it. Dare them to make a stink about this.

Our leaders at UP need to get on a national sports program where they can begin to put some real bright light on this sad state of affairs.

It justs keeps happening every year. So all of the great RPI work that UPSoccerFanatic and others involve themselves in is literally just flushed down the toilet on Tournament Selection Day.

And it will never end until our leaders make a real national stink-bomb to throw at the NCAA Committee. I will send an email to the brass. But I am unable to put something like that together, en mass.

Will the leaders of this forum and others please band together and set up a plan, and then tell we average joes/janes what to write and who to write to? It's got to be organized to work. Obviously UPSF, Geez, Stonehouse, PilotNation and others jump out to me as leaders. (I know there are others, but I don't go on this site as often as I used to, and my short term memory is not good.)

But I will follow you folks and your direction. And I'm sure there are hundreds more that will do the same.

Otherwise, we're going to deja vu in 2010 and on and on.....

Please, Please, Please!!!

(And yes, Geez, we need to schedule some stiffer competition and no more Montana's!!!)

On an only slightly brighter note, and as much as I hate to say it, credit to Cat Reddick (Whitehill) for calling out the Women's Soccer Committee on the air for not giving the Pilots a #1 seed and for saying she still expects to see the Pilots in College Station.

Losing Michelle and then getting dissed once again???? What a pooh pooh weekend!

Does the team need any more motivation to kick ass in this tourney? Time to unleash the dogs....No mercy Garrett! No Mercy! Let's get #3!

There's only one way to prove the committee wrong: to win our way through to College Station. I agree with those who put part of the blame on our scheduling. The weak teams not only impair our RPI rating, they don't help much to prepare us tournament play. Plus, tight contested games are much more fun to watch than routs of weak teams. One problem we face, at least for now, is that (with the exception of a few teams) our conference is not strong.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/columns/story?columnist=hays_graham&id=4640285

To pull a quote from the selection committee chair Paul Bradshaw from Hayes' article:

"We spent a good amount of the time laboring over seeding, and in particular, the team that you mentioned and certainly for that last No. 1 spot," Bradshaw said in response to a question about Portland. "I think the committee, when it comes to seeding, is really looking at what those teams have done against the very best teams. That's truly how you really earn a seed is really proving yourself against the best of the best.

"And ultimately, the committee just felt like the four teams that earned the No. 1 seeds had done more against the very top of the field than anybody else."

Um... so UCLA getting blasted 7-2 by UNC and losing 2-0 to Stanford was the reason they got the one seed?

If that's the logic, we may as well just go ahead and agree to travel to UNC or Stanford every year... we'll never need to win a game, as long as they're on the schedule it will guarantee us a #1 seed. Good to know.

One of my partners just faxed a copy of Graham's article to Paul Bradshaw.

Phone : 254-710-3074
Fax: 254-710-2823

Let him know how we feel.

I just received this email from Paul Bradshaw, Division I Soccer Committee Chair (in response to my email to him sent earlier this morning):

"Mr...

Thank you for your note. Please know that geography and travel costs played no factor in the seeding of teams. Those are large factors in determining 1st /2nd round hosts. I would also note that Portland is hosting a 1st/2nd round site with two teams (Denver and Mississippi) being flown into Portland for the tournament.

With regard to the decision to seed Portland #2, the committee felt that the four teams selected as #1 seeds had done more against the top teams in the field.

Thanks again and best wishes.

Paul Bradshaw
Baylor University
Chair, NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Committee"

To: Bradshaw, Paul S.
Subject: Illogical and worse than the BCS Garbage

Mr. Bradshaw,

You and your committee should be ashamed to call yourselves “representatives” of the championships committee for the NCAA. Your illogical seeding process that gives Portland a number 2 seed in order to save money on some flights makes a season worth of hard work seemingly pointless. There is absolutely no way to justify why UCLA or Florida State would get a number one seed over Portland. Your group makes the BCS people look like Rhodes Scholars.