Maroon City Sports

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It’s a pretty ideal situation for Chicago-based fans to see the Maroons in the NCAA tournament this weekend.

The women kick things off against Aurora on Friday at 11 a.m. Jordan Holliday and Ryan Tryzbiak will join Emerald Gao on the call.

We’ll then be heading to Wheaton for the men’s game against Wartburg at 5 p.m. Emerald and I will be back together for that call.

Saturday’s second-round games would be at 1 p.m. for the women and 6 p.m. for the men.

Here are the criteria for tournament assignments:

• Teams shall be geographically paired. Seeding is second in priority to proximity.

• The host site shall be no less than 500 miles from any school.

• Pitting conference opponents against each other in the first round will be avoided when possible.

I’m expecting the men to be along with some combination of Elmhurst (W 3-1), Dominican (L 1-2), Wisconsin–Whitewater (L 1-2), Wheaton, Calvin, Ohio Northern and Macalester.

PREDICTION (purely for entertainment purposes): Wheaton hosts Chicago vs. Calvin in first round. Ohio Northern and Wheaton would be the other matchup. (This would mean Dominican would host Elmhurst among others.)

The women likely will host three of Calvin (W 3-0), Aurora (W 2-0), Wisconsin–Stevens Point (W 1-0) and Wheaton (W 3-1). Other candidates are Ohio Northern and Macalester.

PREDICTION: Chicago hosts Aurora in first round. Stevens Point and Wheaton in other matchup.

It’s a simple case for the Chicago women’s soccer team. They have a strong regional win percentage bolstered by the region’s third-strongest schedule, and they have key regional wins over Wash U and Wheaton.

The Maroons will be the first team to be selected out of the Central region, with Wheaton and Ill. Wesleyan following in that order. I don’t imagine the Central will get a fourth team—Calvin has a decent case but probably too low of a regional win percentage in the national selection.

If you’re interested in seeing the Central’s credentials, click on the link below (will open in a new window):

FINAL NCAA rankings of Central Region

How to read it:

1. Chicago’s win over Wheaton earlier this year was by far their most important until the Wash U victory yesterday. That made up for the loss to Ill. Wesleyan and kept Chicago above those two teams last week.

2. Wash U and Augustana both held onto their conference leads and made this a simple picture in the region, where the top five teams will all make it.

BOTTOM LINE: I’m becoming more and more convinced that Chicago is going to host for the first two rounds. Wheaton would come to Stagg Field and probably be a second-round opponent based on seeding. I could see WIAC champion Wisconsin–Stevens Point coming to Chicago, as well.

The alternative that I see is that the Maroons head to Augustana, which is stretching the limits of travel for the first couple rounds.

Whirlwind weekend for the men’s and women’s soccer teams. Both will be making the tournament: They took care of business against Wash U and—for the first time since I started following tournament selection procedures in 2005—got all favorable results elsewhere.

The men don’t even have to wait for tonight to get confirmation they are in the tournament. They not only tied with Carnegie and Rochester for the UAA championship, but they also got the UAA’s automatic qualifier.

You might have seen my previous post about a potential three-way tie scenario. The breakdown of the tiebreaker changed entirely once ties (all against different teams) were involved.

But everyone—including me—was confused by Chicago getting the auto qualifier. The UAA had a unique interpretation of their tiebreaker, using a process that is not detailed in the soccer handbook.

The third tiebreaker is “record against succeeding teams.” Carnegie, Rochester and Chicago all beat fourth-place Wash U. The UAA’s fifth-place team was Emory, against whom Carnegie tied while Chicago and Rochester won.

So UAA officials eliminated Carnegie and then decided to go back to the first tiebreaker criterion: head-to-head result. Because Chicago had beat Rochester, Chicago took the auto qualifier.

What do you think of the UAA’s determination? Don’t worry: It’s OK to be a Chicago fan and not agree with the enforcement. All three teams were going to get into the tournament anyway, so the net effect is that the distribution of bids between regions will be different. (For example, Hope might get in from the Central now, whereas they probably would have been left out had both Chicago and Elmhurst been ahead of them in line.)

Thanks to Dave Hilbert for the notification of last night’s decision as well as an explanation of the UAA’s interpretation.

Let’s take a look at the official NCAA rankings—the only ones that mean something—from last Wednesday. All records are in-region only.

Central Region
1. Wash U (9-1-1): W vs. Brandeis, W vs. NYU
2. Augustana (14-1-1): W vs. North Central, W vs. Elmhurst
3. Ill. Wesleyan (14-1-0): L vs. Wheaton, TBD vs. Carthage
4. Chicago (9-2-1): W vs. NYU, L vs. Brandeis
5. Wheaton (13-4-0): W vs. Ill. Wesleyan
6. Calvin (10-4-0): W vs. Hope

• The Maroons are going to be in this mix no matter what because they have the strongest schedule (according to NCAA metrics) in the Central. They’re also 3-2-1 against ranked regional opponents.

• As it stands, I don’t see much movement happening unless Wash U and Ill. Wesleyan are upset this afternoon. Augustana will jump Wash U if the former were to happen. (Note: Wash U came back to defeat NYU in OT.)

• At the 3-4-5 spots, we have a difficult triangle of head-to-head results. Chicago beat Wheaton, Wheaton beat Ill. Wesleyan, and Ill. Wesleyan beat Chicago. Wheaton also has four losses, so I don’t imagine them being able to leap Chicago just yet.

• This next week might really shake up the region, however. On Wednesday and Saturday, the CCIW (including Augustana, Ill. Wesleyan and Wheaton) plays its four-team conference tournament. Two of those three teams will have to take losses.

• It’s never a good thing to have just two conferences represented in the top five teams of the region. At this point, it’s probably in the Maroons’ best interest for Augustana to win it all and be taken out of the discussion as an automatic bid. If Ill. Wesleyan loses to Wheaton a second time, Ill. Wesleyan will have to fall below Wheaton. Where does Chicago fit in that scenario? I’ll bet on being above the both of them, but who knows?

• And keep in mind that Chicago can’t rely on Wash U to get an automatic berth this year. If the Maroons beat Wash U next week—and they obviously will want to—Rochester will have a clean look at taking the UAA.

Your head hurting yet?

Carnegie (5-0) plays at Rochester (4-1) this afternoon. Meanwhile, Chicago (4-1) is at Brandeis. The UAA names all teams with the most points as co-champions, but the automatic berth is awarded through the following tiebreaker. It could get a little crazy:

1. Head-to-head: We’d have the perfect scenario of Carnegie beating Chicago, Chicago beating Rochester, and Rochester beating Carnegie.

RESULT: Push.

2. Road results: This is only applied when all teams that are tied have played the same number of road games. Chicago will play four, while Rochester and Carnegie both will play three.

RESULT: Push.

3. Points earned against succeeding teams in the standings: If all three teams finished tied at 6-1 at the end of the conference season, then their only blemishes will have been to each other.

RESULT: Push.

4. Most wins.

RESULT: Push.

5. Fewest goals against: Through five games, here are the goals allowed by each team.

Carnegie – 1
Rochester – 2
Chicago – 3

RESULT: Too early to tell. Carnegie would have to give up at least one goal for this three-way tie scenario to happen.

6. Most goals scored (up to three per game): This is obviously in Carnegie’s favor.

Carnegie – 11 (one deducted because they scored four against NYU)
Chicago – 7
Rochester – 6

RESULT: If it gets to this point, Carnegie is the heavy favorite.

7. Coin flip: Oh dear.

So as a Maroons fan, what do you hope for? The most obvious choice is that Chicago takes two clean sheets, and Carnegie and Rochester get into a high-scoring game this afternoon. But we’ll know much more later today.

Don’t let Whitewater’s 8-5-3 record fool you: This is a tall, physical, pacey side that can score in a flash. We’ve seen the men’s soccer team up to the task against Rochester, and they might want to channel that effort again today.

We’ll be on air with pre-game around 1:40 p.m. CT, with a 2 p.m. kickoff. It’s all on Go Maroons LIVE.

• Many of you might not be aware of the history between Chicago and Whitewater. Back in 2005, we witnessed an absolute thriller at Stagg Field. After Whitewater’s top striker missed a wide-open goal—color commentator Mark Liskevych said it was harder to miss than it was to score—that would have ended the game in overtime. A minute later, the Maroons marched down the field: Palloni, Standerfer (scissor-step), Ehle.

The result? A win and one of the top goal calls in Go Maroons history: 2005 Replay: Chicago beats Whitewater in OT

Omar Al-Ubaydli and Mark Liskevych were on that call. (Note that at the time we were broadcasting from inside the athletic department’s break room, positioned at about the 18-yard box at the south end. We were using a lapel microphone and recording off-mike. We’ve come a long way!)

• The next year, the Maroons marched up to Wisconsin and made it two in a row. It was a back-and-forth, ultra-physical game. Edgar Friloux, as a first-year, came up with the double, both set up by Andrew Hamilton. His second goal was a diving header to break the tie with 13 minutes left.

• The last two years, the Maroons have lost by large margins: 3-0 at home in 2007 and 2-0 on the road in 2008.

So despite the fact that the men’s soccer team has improved in just about every area this year—incremental steps that have helped lead to that big jump in the standings—the burden is on the Maroons to prove that they can take control of this rivalry.

And this is only partly a coincidence: In 2005 and 2006, Chicago made the postseason. In 2007 and 2008, they missed it. This kind of late, quality non-conference game can have a significant effect on a team’s chances.

The buffering fans experienced on Wednesday and during the first half Saturday was our fault: We had purchased a server to stream at 32 kbps, and we were broadcasting at 40k. Our loyal listeners weren’t that far off with their estimates on the stoppages. Doing the math, every four minutes of streaming would need a minute to catch up.

Anyway, it’s behind us, and we don’t expect any stoppages the rest of the way. You can download our new listen file here:

http://stardust.wavestreamer.com:4841/listen.pls