PonyFans.com

Terry Webster wrote:Looking at NU's schedule, they had some good wins, and some pretty bad losses...Valpo and others. That hurt the sos quite a bit I imagine.

Yeah. Their RPI was 41 last week. They moved up to 34 this week with their tournament win. Akron is 30.

We did move up to 6 this week as expected based on our seed.

MustangSTATS wrote:How would this team fair in the BE? I don't know too much about SMU's soccer team, from what I understand we used to be won of the best and have been building back up since losing our HC.

I would think we would be very competitive in the Big East. We played a legitimate national schedule this year and wouldn't have an RPI of 6 if we weren't able to hang with the top teams.

Obviously we have the one example this year where we lost to UConn 1-0 on a late goal - so we can definitely play with them and they are a legitimate Top 5 team in any rankings you look at.

In theory, SMU would get even better recruiting classes than we have been since some of the regional players who might have gone to schools like Tulsa before would now be more likely to come to SMU to be on a bit bigger national stage.

FYI - The Big East put 7 teams in the field this year, and Notre Dame was the second team left out based on the RPI rankings which would have been the 8th BE team.

The 7 teams that made it all have an RPI in the top 26. Wow.

We really didn't get a favorable draw. In looking at the rankings per the NCAA coaches, Akron is ranked 10th, NW is ranked 16th. We're ranked 19th in that poll. The good news is that we are playing them at home and it will be useful to get a tough match out of the way from the gate.

http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/soccer-men ... aa_coaches

EastStang wrote:From what I've heard, both Akron and Northwestern are physical teams. I suspect they'll be a bit black and blue after they play each other. But be prepared for rough tackles and lots of shin shots when we play the winner. This will be no easy match-up for us. The BE tends to have physical teams as well. Remember our game with St. Johns a few years ago in the NCAA tourney? We have a finesse game, and will have to utilize our speed against these hard tackling teams.

I hope so. That's why we get the benefit of the bye, right? To rest and heal up?

Just thought I'd lend my congratulations for winning CUSA and getting back to the tournament.

A great accomplishment and good luck on Sunday.

Go Ponies

Go Ponies