soccer NCAA

[Terry Webster]

Mustangs have Gonzaga in the first round Saturday. Hope they can get things together quickly!

[George S. Patton]

It's getting pretty pathetic with these early round exits in the conference and NCAA tournaments.

Can any soccer officiando point out why this club looks so good during the regular season and then implodes in the postseason. It seems like when they have expectations, they tank. And when they don't have any expectations, they take off.

[Pony4Life]

Are you serious? Did the Buffalo Bills of the Jim Kelly/Thurman Thomas/Andre Reed/Bruce Smith era "implode"? Of course not. What they did — winning over and over and over again — was extraordinary, and justifiably planted their coach (Marv Levy) in the Hall of Fame, where is is accurately portrayed as one of the greatest coaches ever. What Coach Hyndman has done — 23 NCAA appearances in 24 years at SMU, and 30 overall — is ridiculous in its impressiveness.

The fact is that winning it all — in any sport — is flat-out hard to do. You need:

• Great talent — we've got that again.
• Great luck — we've had some, and this would be a great time to have some more
• A great tournament draw — hard to say. Gonzaga is beatable. Creighton (round 2) is beatable. If we get as far as Boston College, they're beatable, but it would require a near-perfect game to do it (there's a reason the Eagles are the No. 1 overall seed)
• Great health — we do not have it. One of our best scorers (Paulo da Silva) and one of our best defenders and a physical beast on the back line (Leone Cruz) are out for the season. We have capable guys in their place, to be sure, but you never can have too much talent
• Great leadership — no question. Bruno Guarda doesn't talk a lot, but plays hard in every game. Ben Shuleva seems pretty quiet, too, but he's a smart, physical player that every team needs. Adrian Chevannes trained with a pro team and it shows in the way he goes about his business.
• Great coaching — duh. Coach Hyndman has the second-highest number of wins among active coaches in the whole country. He could coach 11 golden retrievers into the tournament.

We've had far from a perfect season. Losing Cruz and da Silva sucks. Ryan Mirsky has been great, but would we have beaten Kentucky (and therefore won the Conference USA title) if he hadn't gotten himself suspended from that game with his fifth yellow card? Maybe — I say yes. Shuleva needs to control the middle of the field to let Guarda roam free and do his thing creating on the offensive end. We need to be patient, as Gonzaga plays excellent defense. Might be one of those games where we have to contain their offense and counter-attack. I say the speed of Dane Saintus and Scott Geppert up front proves key in the win:

SMU 2, Gonzaga 0

[mustangbill67]

Whatever respect SMU and Conference USA had during the season went into a taildive with our losses to Kentucky and FI. Tulsa won both the conference and the tournament and only picked up the last of 16 seeds. Hope we both come on strong during the dance.

[mustangbill67]

Also SMU and Tulsa are the only Conf USA teams in the dance. We are also both in the same bracket with the number 1 seed. It is possible that SMU and Tulsa could play in a quarterfinal knockout. That would be sweet.

Overall no respect for Conference USA.

[Pony4Life]

Kentucky was an excellent team this year that lost a bunch of games when they had a lot of guys hurt. Probably more than any team in the country, they were MUCH better than their record. It was still an upset that they beat us, but it wasn't the total shocker some seem to think.

[EastStang]

Leave to the selection committee to figure out new and inventive ways to keep CUSA down. Did they put all of the BE teams in the same bracket? NO. Did they put all of the ACC teams in the same bracket? NO. But they made sure that only one CUSA team has a chance to go to the final four. Suffice it to say, that really is chicken guano.

[PonyPride]

As long as it's SMU that reaches the College Cup, I'm OK with that.

[EastStang]

That's a given, but I'm sick and tired of the ACC and BE getting so much love from the selection committee and CUSA getting hosed. I will take great joy if SMU beats Gonzaga, beats Creighton, and then beats either Tulsa or BC. I hope its Tulsa just to flip a great big screaming eagle at the NCAA.

[jkflamebo]

there are a lot of potential dark horses that are unseeded in this tournament, ie SMU, duke, ucla, new mexico. i think we may be have set ourselves up with a good situation being unseeded. i think we'll beat gonzaga, but i think we'll struggle with creighton. if we get past creighton, anything is possible with this team

[PonyPride]

I also hope it's Tulsa, for a bunch of reasons:

1 - We almost beat them on their field - playing 10 on 11 after a red card.
2 - They think they're the best team in C-USA, which is humorous at best.
3 - They think they have bragging rights, when a supposed "champion" shouldn't give up a tie on its home field.

With that said, it's going to be BC. The Eagles are absolutely awesome. Tulsa isn't. BC knocked off Wake Forest, which is as good a team as I've seen in years (and, I would say, the most talented team in the field .... possibly by a wide margin). Assuming Tulsa wins its first game, they'll have to go up to Boston - BC will be extremely tough to beat.

There's a reason so many Big East/ACC teams get in - they have a lot of exceptional teams.

If we get that far, and if it's against Tulsa, I assume it would be up there. I'll do that road trip in a heartbeat. Anyone else?

[mustangbill67]

I will be there. Will miss this weekend as I am out of town until Sunday. No way around it if I want to stay married. (which I do )