Newest member of the MAC

[UAZippers]

Welcome to SIU-Edwardsville! 

The MAC is back to automatic bid territory. 

 

They have only been D1 since 2008, but won the MVC tourney last season and made it to the Sweet 16 in the college cup, knocking off multiple ranked teams in the process. It looks like they might enter the MAC as our biggest competition. 

Edited June 2, 2017 by UAZippers

[Steve1982]

Back in the 70's and 80's SIUE soccer benefited greatly from the big St Louis soccer scene. They will be a great addition.

http://www.siuecougars.com/sports/m-soccer/2016-17/releases/20170602ekhbew

[TennZip]

SIU-E won 2 matches last year in the NCAA's and made it to the round of 16.  I believe that they defeated Michigan State on PK's.

   They will help Zips soccer in the RPI.   Tremendous upgrade over Buffalo.

 

Edwardsville is 525 miles away from Akron.  I do hope that the mens soccer team will be able to fly to St. Louis when they play at SIU-E.

[Zip_ME87]

This is good news for the MAC and Akron. Maybe SIU-E could get involved in the "Akron Tournament" like WVU did last year. With 4 teams and only playing 2 games, there's always a team that Akron doesn't play. Maybe SIU-E could set up a similar situation at their place.

[Steve1982]

I'm going to go slightly off topic here but SIUE coming over for soccer got me thinking. Their "normal" league for athletics is the OVC. They were playing soccer in the MVC and now are moving to the MAC. It seems pretty haphazard to me which schools play in other conferences for sports their league does not sanction. Would there be anything to gain if these three conferences (MAC, OVC, MVC) made an agreement regarding taking in members from one another for what are traditionally non-revenue sports? For example the MAC has 6 mens tennis teams (one being Binghampton) and the MVC has 5 (one being Stony Brook). It seems like going together would help scheduling, maybe travel, etc...

 

I'm not sure if there is anything to gain but I would think it would be worth looking at. Any thoughts?

[skip-zip]

1 hour ago, Zip_ME87 said:

This is good news for the MAC and Akron.

 

Beyond maybe having another competitive team (I have no idea how good they are) in our conference in soccer, please help me out here on the "good news for the MAC" part.

 

I see long distance away.  I see completely unknown school.    WVU got me a little excited because they have some notoriety.  This one just made me say, "Who?"

[Zip_ME87]

SIUE is a good men's soccer program and has been consistently working to better themselves.  Better soccer program than U@B. Made it to sweet 16 last season. I think they've been in the Tourney at least of years in a row. Seem to being going up while many are stagnant or dropping. 

[Zip_ME87]

It's also good news as has been stated that the MAC is back to the minimum number of teams required to maintain Automatic Qualifier, and SIUE is a division 1 team, so there should be no worries about losing AQ for a year as the MAC had happen with Hartwick. 

 

As as far as the travel, it's once every 2 years. Stop going to UCSB for a single game and find a closer opponent; fly to St Louis/SIUE instead. 

[TennZip]

50 minutes ago, skip-zip said:

 

Beyond maybe having another competitive team (I have no idea how good they are) in our conference in soccer, please help me out here on the "good news for the MAC" part.

 

I see long distance away.  I see completely unknown school.    WVU got me a little excited because they have some notoriety.  This one just made me say, "Who?"

SIU-E last year....knocked off Michigan State (which akron did not last year)...they tied in regulation and won on PK's

they went to top 16 seed Butler....and won on PK's....

then in the round of 16, they lost 2-1 to a very good Wake Forest team.

   St. Louis ....has always been a hot bed for excellent junior soccer....Edwardsville gets a lot of kids from the St. Louis area.

 

They are not an unknown school for soccer.  SIU-Edwardsville will raise the bar for other teams in the MAC.  Having the certainty of a 6th team in the MAC and having another consistent top 30 RPI team in the league to compete with Akron will help coach Embick in recruiting.   

 

 

[ZipsVoice]

2 hours ago, Steve1982 said:

I'm going to go slightly off topic here but SIUE coming over for soccer got me thinking. Their "normal" league for athletics is the OVC. They were playing soccer in the MVC and now are moving to the MAC. It seems pretty haphazard to me which schools play in other conferences for sports their league does not sanction. Would there be anything to gain if these three conferences (MAC, OVC, MVC) made an agreement regarding taking in members from one another for what are traditionally non-revenue sports? For example the MAC has 6 mens tennis teams (one being Binghampton) and the MVC has 5 (one being Stony Brook). It seems like going together would help scheduling, maybe travel, etc...

 

I'm not sure if there is anything to gain but I would think it would be worth looking at. Any thoughts?

Stevey Me Boy, I like this idea.  I mean, I didn't "Like this", I mean I think the MAC Men's non-rev sports could benefit greatly from this.  Track and Field is getting close to being a 2 team sport.  Men's swimming and diving like-wise.  Who knows about wrestling, gymnastics, etc.?  You might make a good AD some day afterall....

[TennZip]

as zip_me87 stated, SIU-E is definitely a program on the upswing....

they hired a Ken Lolla assistant in January 2015 - Mario Sanchez.....

Their last 2 years have been excellent.....

I expect that 2017....will be another very good year for them

 

Sanchez has agreed to restart their matchups with St. Louis University.  They used to draw some great crowds at Busch stadium for the battle of St. Louis.

SIU-E stadium seats 4,000.    Soccer is very important to SIU-E. 

[skip-zip]

Guys, Thanks for the additional info. on SIUE.  That helps.

 

1 hour ago, TennZip said:

They are not an unknown school for soccer.  

 

Ok, maybe not.  But in general, nobody knows that this school even exists.  And I was comparing the overall impact on our visibility as a college athletics entity to the previous acquisition of WVU.  In that context, I would have been much more excited if it was a "big" school.  

[fknbuflobo]

1 hour ago, skip-zip said:

 

Beyond maybe having another competitive team (I have no idea how good they are) in our conference in soccer, please help me out here on the "good news for the MAC" part.

 

I see long distance away.  I see completely unknown school.    WVU got me a little excited because they have some notoriety.  This one just made me say, "Who?"

This is a very welcome turn of events for MAC MSOC. 

SIU-E is a significant upgrade over Buffalo. 

Zips RPI just shot up!

Over the past few seasons, the Cougars have been just as good as Zips, perhaps better.

Such cannot be said of other MAC teams, as much as we all want WVU to regain their national prominence.

Beginning in 1967, SIU-E has nearly as much American soccer tradition as does Akron.  Read.

They won the College Cup in 1979, which gives them one star, just as many as some other squad I follow closely.

Look at the list of All-American players. 

Coach Bob Guelker:  216-67-21 .745 - Good enough for Soccer HOF.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIU_Edwardsville_Cougars_men's_soccer

 

http://www.siuecougars.com/sports/m-soccer/index

 

Buffalo is 215 miles away.  Edwardsville is 540 miles away.  Hartwick was 445 miles away.  NIU is 430 miles away.

[fknbuflobo]

I am not sure who is responsible for this happening, but adding SIU-E to MSOC is much better than we could have hoped for.

[Zip_ME87]

21 minutes ago, skip-zip said:

Guys, Thanks for the additional info. on SIUE.  That helps.

 

 

Ok, maybe not.  But in general, nobody knows that this school even exists.  And I was comparing the overall impact on our visibility as a college athletics entity to the previous acquisition of WVU.  In that context, I would have been much more excited if it was a "big" school.  

 

I get where you were coming from now, skip-zip. For MAC and Akron Mens Soccer, SIU-E joining is a plus up. As far as overall bump for the MAC, no.

 

When I first saw this news that SIU-E was joining the MAC for Mens Soccer, I couldn't help but immediately think of Billy Berger, may he rest in peace.

[skip-zip]

14 minutes ago, Zip_ME87 said:

I get where you were coming from now, skip-zip. For MAC and Akron Mens Soccer, SIU-E joining is a plus up. As far as overall bump for the MAC, no.

 

Alright.  Glad someone got what I meant.     But I still hope it's great for soccer.  

[ZachTheZip]

Buffalo -> SIUE = Major upgrade for Men's Soccer.

 

Interesting that they're also joining in Wrestling. No real reason for them to want to join the MAC in either sport over their current options, aside from reducing the number of conferences they're affiliated with by one.

[zippyfan34]

We now can't slip up in MAC play like we did last year or we might not host the MAC tourney!  When was the last time that happened?  I am too lazy to look it up.

[Z.I.P.]

SIUE??  SIUE.  Yes!!  This is the best thing to happen to MAC men's soccer in a long, long time!  For one thing, it automatically doubles the league's number of NCAA champion teams (I think Hartwick also was a one-time champ, but they're gone, and they were never a real addition).  They (SIU-E) won the national title in 1979, and were a perennial top-20 team in the 70s-80s.  That was one of the greatest stories in collegiate soccer history -- and I remember the season.  (I'm old enough, believe me!) 

The Zips, under coach Bob Dowdy played the Cougars in mid-Sept., I recall, and they were about a .500 team early in the season.  We defeated them at the Lee Jackson -- on the same day the Browns beat the Steelers, and the Nanchoff Brothers were there cheering on both teams, as I brought my transistor radio along on the bike ride from Green that day.  I think it was a close game, but what is remembered by history is that that was SIUE's last defeat of the season.  The team's coach, I think it was Bob Guelker, mentioned above by fknbflobo suffered some kind of illness -- possibly a heart attack -- just after playing Akron, and the team rallied around him and went on to win the NCAA title that season.

 

And Mario Sanchez is their coach.  I've heard really good things about Mario -- who I believe was Ken Lolla's goalkeeping coach.  He got really screwed over after leaving Louisville to take the HC job at UNLV, and the school almost immediately dropped men's soccer out of the blue.  Not sure how long he's been at SIUE, but after UNLV he was coaching with a youth club in Vegas that provided 3 or 4 girls players to Akron.  I knew another (GK) coach from that club, who really liked Mario.

 

Bottom line is, this addition will give instant RPI points to every MAC school.  And a very real possibility of a second NCAA berth.  Great move!

 

Edit:  To add a little to what skip and Zip_ME87 were discussing, Edwardsville had a good D1 athletics program (they were as good or better in many sports than the OTHER Southern Illinois U.) that was reduced to D2 status sometime in the 1980s, and I know their men's basketball program just returned back to D1 about 3-4 years ago.  I read this on the wiki page that fknbuflobo linked:  "Toward the end of Guelker's tenure, scandal in some of the university's other sports programs brought about a major reduction of funding for all sports, and the program went into a period of decline."

Edited June 3, 2017 by Z.I.P.

[fknbuflobo]

1 hour ago, zippyfan34 said:

We now can't slip up in MAC play like we did last year or we might not host the MAC tourney!  When was the last time that happened?  I am too lazy to look it up.

2006?

 

http://www.gozips.com/sports/msoc/2006-07/releases/676449_1

[fknbuflobo]

1 hour ago, Z.I.P. said:

SIUE??  SIUE.  Yes!!  This is the best thing to happen to MAC men's soccer in a long, long time!  For one thing, it automatically doubles the league's number of NCAA champion teams (I think Hartwick also was a one-time champ, but they're gone, and they were never a real addition).  They (SIU-E) won the national title in 1979, and were a perennial top-20 team in the 70s-80s.  That was one of the greatest stories in collegiate soccer history -- and I remember the season.  (I'm old enough, believe me!) 

The Zips, under coach Bob Dowdy played the Cougars in mid-Sept., I recall, and they were about a .500 team early in the season.  We defeated them at the Lee Jackson -- on the same day the Browns beat the Steelers, and the Nanchoff Brothers were there cheering on both teams, as I brought my transistor radio along on the bike ride from Green that day.  I think it was a close game, but what is remembered by history is that that was SIUE's last defeat of the season.  The team's coach, I think it was Bob Guelker, mentioned above by fknbflobo suffered some kind of illness -- possibly a heart attack -- just after playing Akron, and the team rallied around him and went on to win the NCAA title that season.

 

And Mario Sanchez is their coach.  I've heard really good things about Mario -- who I believe was Ken Lolla's goalkeeping coach.  He got really screwed over after leaving Louisville to take the HC job at UNLV, and the school almost immediately dropped men's soccer out of the blue.  Not sure how long he's been at SIUE, but after UNLV he was coaching with a youth club in Vegas that provided 3 or 4 girls players to Akron.  I knew another (GK) coach from that club, who really liked Mario.

 

Bottom line is, this addition will give instant RPI points to every MAC school.  And a very real possibility of a second NCAA berth.  Great move!

 

Edit:  To add a little to what skip and Zip_ME87 were discussing, Edwardsville had a good D1 athletics program (they were as good or better in many sports than the OTHER Southern Illinois U.) that was reduced to D2 status sometime in the 1980s, and I know their men's basketball program just returned back to D1 about 3-4 years ago.  I read this on the wiki page that fknbuflobo linked:  "Toward the end of Guelker's tenure, scandal in some of the university's other sports programs brought about a major reduction of funding for all sports, and the program went into a period of decline."

I remember that match.  I remember that day.  Wow.  Thanks for reminding me of that.  I think Steve Frick scored.

 

[Zip_ME87]

Thank @ZIP for the great info.

 

Thanks @fknbuflobo for the link...my guess was that NIU hosted in 2006 (last time Zips did not; CP's 1st season).

[skip-zip]

15 hours ago, Z.I.P. said:

I brought my transistor radio along on the bike ride from Green that day.

 

Dude.  Thanks for reminding me how old I am.  I think I might even still have one of those radios in the bottom of a box somewhere.  But I think my Huffy Banana-Seat bike ended up in a junk yard somewhere.  

 

Now you're going to probably reply and remind me that you couldn't even catch a bus in Green during those days.  There was nothing there but farms back then.  

[Z.I.P.]

On ‎6‎/‎3‎/‎2017 at 7:52 AM, skip-zip said:

 

Dude.  Thanks for reminding me how old I am.  I think I might even still have one of those radios in the bottom of a box somewhere.  But I think my Huffy Banana-Seat bike ended up in a junk yard somewhere.  

 

Now you're going to probably reply and remind me that you couldn't even catch a bus in Green during those days.  There was nothing there but farms back then.  

Dude!  They have (other than school)buses in Green now??  I refuse to believe my home township has been destroyed by development!   

[skip-zip]

54 minutes ago, Z.I.P. said:

Dude!  They have (other than school)buses in Green now??  I refuse to believe my home township has been destroyed by development!   

 

Maybe using "dude" shows my age too?

 

Ok....would you be surprised if I told you that Massillon Rd. is almost completely developed all the way down to Greensburg Rd?  I remember when the Shops of Green was pretty much the only "development" on that entire strip.  After that, you drove into nowhere land.  There's now multiple plazas, medical centers, etc.    It's probably taken 30 years, but it's mind boggling.