Leaderboard

On the postgame radio show after SDSU Dave mentioned something about the team not being full strength and Groce responded "We will leave it at that". And he later said "We are trying to get Ali back"

I was referring to the JMU game. A blind squirrel found a nut last night.

Congratulations to Walsh Lady Warriors who are yet again state champions. One would sincerely hope that someone from that squad would play for Zips next year.

Zips started with an 8-0 run to cut it to 12 early in the 3Q, but were down 25 near end of 3Q. If that's a rally it fell way short. Not a surprising outcome considering the slow start and a young squad on the road against a good team.

As I am typing this, New Hampshire and Bryant are starting Overtime New Hampshire is currently 6 in RPI...Bryant is 20 both teams in ...no matter the results, both teams in scoreless ...8 minutes into first overtime #25 Charlotte leads #4 SMU with 4 minutes left ...both teams in (as I tyoe....Charlotte jsut won) for this purpose, I assume that Charlotte and UNH win.... using RPI rankings as of 4:15 23 league winners (current RPI shown to left for teams above 45) 1. Marshall 6. New Hampshire 8. Hofstra 12 Western Michigan 15 Clemson 16 UCLA 21 Indiana 25 Charlotte 32 San Diego 33 Xavier 38 SIUE 40 Yale 45 Lipscomb 10 teams get automatic bids from the smaller league their RPI's are irrelevant since they got automatic bid Boston U Omaha Green Bay High Point Cal Baptist UC Irvine Mercer Rider Long Island U. Dayton 25 at large selections current RPI shown to the right 1. Georgetown (RPI of 2) 2. Notre Dame (RPI of 3) 3. SMU rpi 4 4. N. Carolina rpi 5 5. West Virginia rpi 7 6. Virginia rpi 9 7. Portland rpi 10 8. Central Florida rpi 11 9. Wake Forest rpi 13 10 Missouri State rpi 14 11. Duke rpi 17 12. Stanford rpi 18 13. Louisville rpi 19 14. Bryant rpi 20 15. Memphis rpi 22 16. Vermont rpi 23 17. Loyola Marymount rpi 24 18. Fla Intl rpi 26 19. Seattle rpi 27 20. Syracuse rpi 28 21. Oregon State rpi 29 last 4 in (if only RPI is used) 22. Dever rpi 30 23. Pitt rpi 31 24. VCU rpi 34 25. Kentucky rpi 35 last 7 out (if only RPI is used) UIC 36 St. Louis 37 James Madison 39 Akron Zips 41 Cal 43 Penn State 46 Loyola Chicago 47

From what I can tell, the 2 best players on Walsh's teams this year are not seniors. The first article is from a few years ago. The 2nd link is an article from this morning's beacon...showing the all state teams for both boys and girls Walsh Junior Hannah Pachan was selected as the best player in the state for division 1. Ms. Pachan is a junior and she had 33 goals and 11 assists this year. Walsh had one other player selected to the second team all state. That player is also a junior. Her name is Reagan Pentz. Yes, that last name is familiar. Reagan's older sister , Morgan played for both Walsh Jesuit and the Akron zips. https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/sports/high-school/soccer/2022/09/03/ohsaa-walsh-jesuit-girls-soccer-reagan-pentz-hannah-pachan-look-to-lead-warriors-back-to-state-final/65411144007/ https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/sports/high-school/soccer/2023/11/11/ohsaa-all-ohio-boys-and-girls-soccer-walsh-jesuits-hannah-pachan-reveres-dylan-halm-nick-depompei/71518167007/

KSUcks won last night.

I was laughing when Toledo was down. When I saw they won, my only thought was, "It's the regular season which means it's Tod K's Super Bowl. Wonder how much he cheated in the offseason to eek out this important regular season win."

Kent blows 2 leads in 8 days, OU loses to CSU for the first time since the late 90s/early 00s, and Akron beats both SDSU & Southern Miss. Helluva ~10 day stretch.

Agree with this. A Thanksgiving-weekend double-header rotation would be great, along with this Sun Belt Challenge would put some spice into the non-con schedule. Add in a strong holiday tournament somewhere and a P5 road by game and the schedule would be pretty solid.

I’d love to see CSU and YSU because it’d be a fun road games possibilities !

I'm a bit torn. I used to hate CSU but they've been so irrelevant for so long, and have refused to play us for so long that now I just feel nothing about them. But rivalries are fun and I think I kind of miss that rivalry... so maybe I hope they turn their program around? The old UA-KSUcks-YSU-CSU coaches for cancer(?) thing was a nice event... and so easy to organize. If CSU would schedule us again maybe we could bring it back?

The other teams just wanted it more

All the games I watched were quite good! That was fun!

The Flag is for wins over power conferences. Will not be happy for Tod K either, nor would I expect any long time Zip fan to be.

TOLEDO WINS. THE MAC TAKES THE FIRST HALF OF THE SUN BELT CHALLENGE 7-5! FLY THE FLAG

NIU pulls off the win! MAC 6 Sun belt 5. Toledo has a chance to give the MAC the win for the home slate of games in the challenge

Marketing and social media has done a nice job with the team this year I think. We bash them a lot, so credit where it's due. No clips that look like they're screen grabbed from a RAZR last night

Congrats to coach Groce on his 300th win. Admittedly up until this point, I've also more so associated his identity with Ohio (much like most would with KD and Akron), but the reality is he spent 4 years at OU, 5 years at Illinois, and is now in his 7th(!) year at Akron. Time sure does fly. We are lucky to have his coach and staff. Great representatives of the University whose teams conduct themselves the right way (and have been really fun to watch).

Great stuff from Z88 Sports here!

Two games in and he's already doubled his 3-point count from last year!🤯 🤯😂 But seriously, wouldn't it be great if his defender had to respect his 3-point shot? That'd open a whole new world for Greg.

the other day, fknbuflobo directed the group to read Gaucho Dan's Analysis on Big Soccer.com Gaucho Dan is the great Cal Santa Barbara fan...that created a real time RPI measurement page....that soccer fans from all colleges use.... Gaucho Dan has forgotten more about Soccer than I will ever know Gaucho Dan did a great post this morning....showing that the cut line....is currently at 36.....and he also shows the finals that could lower the cut line... he mentions Akron a few times in his post TennZip update to his post...only 1 game completed so far today...Yale won its Ivy league semifinal game. As I predicted on Monday, that helped Yale move up in RPI Yale moves up from 49 to 44.....This causes Akron to drop from 44 to 45 this would mean that Akron is the 6th team out of the mix....if there are no more upsets , Penn wins the Ivy League and if the committee strictly follows RPI Gaucho Dan post on big soccer.com Friday morning update Syracuse (rpi 28, 8-4-7) -- lost in ACC semifinals Oregon State (29, 7-5-5) -- will finish 2nd in Pac-12 Denver (rpi 30, 11-2-5) -- lost in Summit semifinals Pittsburgh (rpi 32, 6-6-4) -- lost in ACC 1st round San Diego (rpi 33, 10-4-3) -- host Gonzaga, tied for WCC lead UIC (rpi 34, 11-5-3) -- lost in MVC semifinals Kentucky (rpi 35, 7-7-4) -- lost in SBC semifinals Saint Louis (rpi 36, 7-4-5) -- lost in A10 1st quarterfinals James Madison (rpi 37, 8-4-5) -- lost in SBC quarterfinals California (rpi 38, 7-5-5) -- visit Stanford, will finish 3rd or 4th in Pac-12 Xavier (rpi 39, 9-3-5) -- meet Georgetown in BEC championship Penn State (rpi 42, 10-3-5) -- meet Indiana in B10 championship Akron (rpi 44, 9-2-7) -- lost in BEC quarterfinals Fordham (rpi 46, 6-4-7) -- lost in A10 quarterfinals Loyola Chicago (rpi 48, 8-2-5) -- lost in A10 quarterfinals Yale (49, 8-5-3) -- meet Harvard in Ivy semifinals For every team below the cut line, a team above the cut line must be dropped. So if you believe Akron, for instance, deserves to be in the NCAA Tournament, make a case for someone else NOT to make the Tournament. I think Saint Louis will probably get bypassed. Kentucky is probably in based on their October play and significant wins vs. SBC powers. UIC is really good, but they may not have the resume of the others. USD can win its way into the field, but that just pushes sure-thing Portland onto this list. Pitt could be snubbed...they played a tough schedule but performed poorly against it. Denver, OSU and Syracuse are in. Below the line, Cal, Xavier, Penn State and Yale still have opportunities to improve their fate and/or grab their conference's auto bid. James Madison has a strong conference resume but questionable out-of-conference defeats. Akron chose to play a weak non-conference schedule this season and it may cost them an at-large bid. Fordham and Loyola Chicago will not move up after losing in the A10 quarters. There are still 3 potential bid stealers out there, all in conference championship matches: A10: Dayton (69) at VCU (25) CAA: Monmouth (61) at Hofstra (9) OVC: UIW (165) at SIUE (41)

The current problem for UA football is "3. The Product."

That's certainly the right approach but closing the sale is a different story. Moorhead and the assistants out on the recruiting trail need to be great salesman as kids and their parents can see the record and watch tape. John Groce came into an essentially bare cabinet when he took over Zips basketball and he came in late. He and his assistants worked and scrambled to bring in a group of transfers, jucos, overlooked freshmen and a kid from the rec center (Lucas Smith) to keep the program competitive until he could build the program he wanted. I realize this is a different sport and situation but I'd like to see the same approach and success from the football staff.

Riley is going to have to pick up some of that slack as the season progresses.

Really early in the season for some of this ... as I recall, Zips blew a lead this week as well. We all should wait a couple of weeks before we start pointing fingers. Looking at the other side of the coin, it seems the Zips had their issues with CSU during a recent scrimmage. KSU should have won vs. the early-season Cinderella team, and led a mid-level Mountain West team stem to stern. Both probably better than South Dakota State. Zips chances are coming ... let's focus on that instead of the trials of others.