bisbee

Apparently the mascot of the Dunn School is the Earwig Wonder who has the joy of wearing that mascot costume

Wow! That's the school that shares the parking lot with the Los Olivos Grocery, the stop-off for picnic supplies on the way to wine drinking! It's a very small school from appearances. Now I know what kind of "boarding" takes place there. I think most of the soccer players are from Ghana. Coincidental trivia (Sorry -- non-soccer related!): About three miles away -- believe it or not, across the street from Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch is another high school. In 1948 a former Akron Central HS, and Can't State basketball star hired an agency to find him a basketball coaching job. They sent him to that school, which was just starting up, and he spent several years coaching HS ball there, but went further afield, and essentially invented the modern method of scouting college basketball teams. He created in his house in Santa Barbara, a coaches guide to every Div 1 college team in the nation, for which he was paid well, and he was able to hire a small army of scouts across the nation. Because of his acumen at scouting teams and basketball prospects -- especially centers, he was hired in the 1960s as an assistant coach and scout by the Los Angeles Lakers. He would go on to coach for the Lakers for over 40 years, coaching every center between Wilt Chamberlain and the guy the've got now. His name is Bill Bertka, and I had the pleasure of meeting him in Hawaii, in 1994 when he was scouting the North Carolina-Michigan game. I knew who he was, because he wore a T-shirt for the Akron Awnings semi-pro football team from the 1930s-40s. My dad and uncle played for the Awnings. True story! The Akron Awnings

Just looked at their roster and they look like a basketball team. Is this typical? More than 2/3 of their field players are 6'00" or over.

The west coast teams also suffer from geographical problems. They are relatively isolated from the vast majority of mens soccer programs and thus don't get the same media coverage as teams to the east. additionally,it is tough for them to play teams from midwest and east because of the travel expenses involved. I definitely agree with your assessment about the California youth soccer programs. UCSb also has a significant number of foreign players on their roster (9 I think). There is a local private school that seems to supply them with a never ending number of African players. Not an excuse,just a fact.

We all agree that they looked terrible yesterday.This is still only a one loss team with 3 freshmen starting. 6 of remaining 9 regular season games are at home. I think we will be OK come playoff time. No way this team ought to be as good as Zips teams from past few years. But lets not panic at this point. I am sure Porter will get them back on track.

After watching most of UCSB game in which they lost to Irvine I was absolutely shocked by how good they looked. Granted this was helped by our poor showing defensively but they are certainly ,far and away,the best we have seen so far. With most of our remaining games at home lets hope they turn it around after this one.Still a long way to go.

Best way to get a bad game like this out of your system is to come back on Saturday and do a number on NIU,

10 PM EST on Fox Soccer Channel.

They arrived at hotel at about 9:30 PST

GauchoDan's RPI, etc. Hararea Sorry that link from previous post doesn't appear to work. If you go to BIG Soccer and then to College Section there is a thread showing this guys projected playoff picture based on his current RPI calculations. He has the ZIPS at #4 RPI.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...76&output=html Check this out.

I am confused about the RPI. I know how it is calculated but how is it used? Does the Final Poll position play a role or is totally the RPI? Help! It's a tool used by the selection committee. Same with the polls. The RPI plays a bigger role than the polls, however. The polls can be influenced by the RPI (voters may look at the RPI and change their votes) but the RPI isn't influenced by anything but wins and losses. So in order to earn "home field" for playoff run a team has to finish in top 4 RPI-wise?

I am confused about the RPI. I know how it is calculated but how is it used? Does the Final Poll position play a role or is totally the RPI? Help!

I probably overreacted, but I feel like there's too much discussion of this subject. I wish that I would never have added to it in the other thread. We have a very successful team with a great coach at the helm...be happy. EDIT: I love our team for all they do and the pride that they bring to Akron. I'm lucky that in a few hours I'll be sitting in the front row at the Home Depot Center...hopefully seeing Ben Zemanski, Zarek Valentin, and Blair Gavin in action (if all are healthy and get into the game). In a few days, I'll be back at Harder Stadium to see the defending National Champions back at the site where they won it all. It's all positive. GO ZIPS! Whoops! Sad to say that only Blair saw action -- in the second half of the draw with Philly Union. I left the house with about ten minutes to play, as Chivas was playing so poorly -- assuming they had no chance of scoring. What happened?? Anyway, Zarek was suspended, apparently got a red card the previous game. And Ben was not used. Robin Foster seems to have a totally different lineup each game. Zip_ME87 -- was the crowd at HDC as small as it looked on TV? The side cross from the cameras had maybe 3-4 thousand tops. I will be in Phoenix watching on the TV

and... #3 in Soccer America: http://www.socceramerica.com/article/44052...ens-top-25.html Go Zips ! Big Poll tomorrow... look for another #3 Big game Wednesday for the Polls... could get us up there a notch or two. Can't blame the voters for showing UConn and Maryland a lot of respect for the top teams that they played over the weekend. They deserve to be #1 and #2... right now. Here it is! And here's a link to the Goal.com poll. Sounds like this guy likes our chances

UCSB is a pretty wildly inconsistent team. When they are "on", they're capable of beating anyone in the nation -- particularly in the Locos' Den. I'm looking forward to it -- hope the team doesn't arrive like Wednesday morning or p.m. That would be a bad sign. Somebody check the various twitter accounts. Where are our boys right now? They leave Akron tomorrow. Do you know the hour? 2PM

Weather forecast calls for rain and much cooler than normal temps. UCSB poster on BigSoccer predicts 5k if rain and 8-10K if not. No where close to record. Maybe fans have given up as they already have 3 losses.

UCSB is a pretty wildly inconsistent team. When they are "on", they're capable of beating anyone in the nation -- particularly in the Locos' Den. I'm looking forward to it -- hope the team doesn't arrive like Wednesday morning or p.m. That would be a bad sign. Somebody check the various twitter accounts. Where are our boys right now? They leave Akron tomorrow. Do you know the hour? Will let you know when I find out.

UCSB is a pretty wildly inconsistent team. When they are "on", they're capable of beating anyone in the nation -- particularly in the Locos' Den. I'm looking forward to it -- hope the team doesn't arrive like Wednesday morning or p.m. That would be a bad sign. Somebody check the various twitter accounts. Where are our boys right now? They leave Akron tomorrow.

Totally agree

The kid is definitely a player as evidenced by his prior years of play.

Any thoughts on this one?

He definitely is the final piece we need to make run for another title

We are currently sitting at Number 3 on Top Drawer and at Number 5 on CSN.

Just finished watching UCSB lose at home to UC Irvine 2-0. Have never seen them play before and I was far from impressed. They don't seem to have anyone who can finish and their defense seems quite slow. They have given up 5 goals and scored one over past two games and have allowed 12 so far this season. I obviously don't know if this game is typical for them. If it is we should return for the NIU game with a 8-0-2 record.