Marquette and NCAA Soccer

[Pakuni]

It brings me no joy bringing this up, but yet another titan of soccer journalism weighs in on the developmental signifance of soccer at the university level.

https://x.com/boldesttruth/status/1628163938138439688?s=46&t=el-XnIMOEDcxAw3lmg3L5A

Not saying he's wrong or right, but the dude has 86 followers after nearly 10 years on Twitter. Not much of a titan.

[panda]

Not saying he's wrong or right, but the dude has 86 followers after nearly 10 years on Twitter. Not much of a titan.

That must be his old account. He has at least 200 followers on his new one. He’s been a college soccer stalwart for eons.

[shoothoops]

Not saying he's wrong or right, but the dude has 86 followers after nearly 10 years on Twitter. Not much of a titan.

Several people initially engaged in the discussion in good faith including Panda. Once Panda was struggling in the discussion, he tried to save face by pretending he was trolling all along. That’s why he posted a 2nd random twitter person, to say see guys it was all a joke. It gives him an out to try to save face and to not be embarrassed about his Nico post among others. That’s why he’s chasing in different threads.

And there is also sometimes a common but incorrect misnomer that recipients of trolls somehow look worse than the people that have to troll in the first place. That’s on them.

[shoothoops]

What's going on with MU men's and women's soccer?  A shadow of what they once were.

That’s a good question. Come for the short answer. Stay for the longer answer. The short answer is MU doesn’t care enough about having more competitive soccer programs in my opinion. And it’s important to note that Men’s and Women’s Soccer are apples and oranges with regards to their landscape. I’ll give you a more detailed response when I get a chance in a little bit.

[panda]

Several people initially engaged in the discussion in good faith including Panda. Once Panda was struggling in the discussion, he tried to save face by pretending he was trolling all along. That’s why he posted a 2nd random twitter person, to say see guys it was all a joke. It gives him an out to try to save face and to not be embarrassed about his Nico post among others. That’s why he’s chasing in different threads.

And there is also sometimes a common but incorrect misnomer that recipients of trolls somehow look worse than the people that have to troll in the first place. That’s on them.

Trolling? What are you talking about? I try and engage in a genuine discussion and this is what you accuse me of ? How dare you.

Still waiting to hear the countless names of college soccer players who logged minutes last year in the big four leagues in europe last year.

[panda]

Trolling? What are you talking about? I try and engage in a genuine discussion and this is what you accuse me of ? How dare you.

Still waiting to hear the countless names of college soccer players who logged minutes last year in the big four leagues in europe last year.

Fear not folks - I have the answer for you. Jack Harrison and Matt Turner. Harrison is extremely unique as he left Manchester United’s academy because his mom, strapped for cash, wanted him on a full academic scholarship at a big time prep school here. So without an unfortunate economic situation, he probably doesn’t spend the one year in college. So Matt Turner is your answer...

There you have it sports fans.

[shoothoops]

What's going on with MU men's and women's soccer?  A shadow of what they once were.

The Marquette Women’s program has been the much more successful program historically than the Men. So, let’s begin there.

Under Markus Roeders, Marquette was one of several programs to begin play and/or elevate their program in the mid 1990’s. 13 NCAA’s in 24 seasons, but it you look more closely it was 12 of 15 in the middle. It took a few years to get it going, and it faded the last several years. Snd MU was essentially an NCAA 1st or 2nd round type of program during much of that time. 3 3rd rounds.

Hideki Nakata was an assistant during the highest success stretch of the program in that middle period. He left to be an assistant for Kat Mertz for a year at Oregon, then 7 at Stanford before becoming the Head Coach at Utah. Frank Pelaez, the current head coach was a previous long time assistant. But he left in those final 5 years of Roeders to help Loyola Chicago become a dominant MVC program. When the MU job opened, some hoped for Nakata but he was going to have some Power 5 opportunities , and unlike the Men’s game, it’s a much bigger thing in Women’s Soccer.

MU went with the familiarity of Peleaz and his past recruiting success as an MU assistant as well as at Loyola.

Leagues are changing fast. Prior to the most recent changes, The Big East has been roughly the 9th best league, in the 2nd tier of 6-9 but closer to 9. The goal of the Big East would be to keep and support its successful head coaches (DePaul coach left for Minnesota recently, and to raise the floor of the bottom of the league. Then you want to make it more than a 2 team league. By this I mean Georgetown and Xavier are the 2 annual NCAA teams right now. Neither has an exceptionally large budget/operating expenses/salary etc…by any means, compared to say Wisconsin, which does.

Xavier made a good coaching hire and then hired 2 good assistants. You need a good head coach and at least 1 good assistant to be competitive with recruiting etc…So for MU they need Peleaz and a good recruiting assistant. They have a newer one at the moment. Paul Sikinger is a bit green with regards to college work, 2nd year, and he came from FC Wisconsin youth program. He needs some time. FC Wisconsin and SC Wave are the 2 highest profile local youth club programs for girls in SE Wisconsin.


A good approach would be an inside out approach of state, region, national, international. MU spends a lot of time recruiting in Chicago and they should, and elsewhere in the region.

Women’s Soccer gets 14 full scholarships, and these are often combined with academic and others types of scholarships to get as many good players as close to a full as you can.

Getting MU to be more successful, and to get back to being an almost annual NCAA team is a doable challenge. Beyond that, requires being able to go toe to toe with more Power 5 schools in recruiting and with some other things. Ceiling would be once in a while Sweet 16. Floor would be make NCAA Tourney. There is a group of non-Power schools out there that have and are establishing themselves as soccer powers. These are the Santa Clara types. MU will need to recruit and coach up good players, re-establish as an NCAA team, and then they would have more of a chance to elevate recruiting at thar point. Right now, they have a largely recruiting identity head coach based on his historical work.

It’s helpful to have and build an identity, a strong culture as a program. MU doesn’t have as much of this established as some other programs. Being organized, efficient, disciplined.

Have the support of the University, boosters, etc…be competitive with facilities, budgets, travel, staff salary, etc….especially when things come up from time to time.

Power 5 schools sell Power 5. They sell football, yes, football, and they will take recruits on the field at 90k football games. Many will have and use indoor football practice facilities when needed, and they will sell a niche in a large school experience. They sell charter flights when needed. Many are located in geographies where this is necessary. They sell international team trips every few years. All kinds of things.

Wisconsin was able to lure a great coach away from Penn State during Marquette’s good NCAA run. They have a strong program. They recruit nationally. Northwestern also developed a strong program in the region when they were not competitive prior to that, and they did it with a Milwaukee person. They even added a 2nd good assistant in recent years. They sell academics. Many of the better programs have very strong academics as a destination. So you also have some other programs that improved and developed as increased regional competition.

This will give you a good start re: MU Women’s
Soccer. I can follow up and get to the Men when I get a chance.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Fear not folks - I have the answer for you. Jack Harrison and Matt Turner. Harrison is extremely unique as he left Manchester United’s academy because his mom, strapped for cash, wanted him on a full academic scholarship at a big time prep school here. So without an unfortunate economic situation, he probably doesn’t spend the one year in college. So Matt Turner is your answer...

There you have it sports fans.

Could it be you have the cause and effect mixed up?  That there aren't former college players in the big four leagues because the more talented players just skip college altogether, and not because the college game doesn't develop them enough?

[panda]

Could it be you have the cause and effect mixed up?  That there aren't former college players in the big four leagues because the more talented players just skip college altogether, and not because the college game doesn't develop them enough?

You're correct as it stands currently. The days of Clint Dempsey or Oguchi Onyewu leaving college to play in Europe are over. The american player stigma that existed forever in Europe is gone. The best players in America are going pro right when they turn 18 or earlier if they can secure a passport through family lineage.

My original point was that college soccer ruins the depth of our national team pool because it halts the development of many 18-22 year olds. Instead of training and playing professionally like the rest of the world, they're stuck playing like 18 games with strict NCAA limits on practice time. I think that if the majority of our talent that is not leaving for europe when they turn 18 played pro (Hello growth of USL), instead of wasting valuable developmental years playing low quality college soccer, the depths of our national team would grow stronger.

[shoothoops]

The Marquette Women’s program has been the much more successful program historically than the Men. So, let’s begin there.

Under Markus Roeders, Marquette was one of several programs to begin play and/or elevate their program in the mid 1990’s. 13 NCAA’s in 24 seasons, but it you look more closely it was 12 of 15 in the middle. It took a few years to get it going, and it faded the last several years. Snd MU was essentially an NCAA 1st or 2nd round type of program during much of that time. 3 3rd rounds.

Hideki Nakata was an assistant during the highest success stretch of the program in that middle period. He left to be an assistant for Kat Mertz for a year at Oregon, then 7 at Stanford before becoming the Head Coach at Utah. Frank Pelaez, the current head coach was a previous long time assistant. But he left in those final 5 years of Roeders to help Loyola Chicago become a dominant MVC program. When the MU job opened, some hoped for Nakata but he was going to have some Power 5 opportunities , and unlike the Men’s game, it’s a much bigger thing in Women’s Soccer.

MU went with the familiarity of Peleaz and his past recruiting success as an MU assistant as well as at Loyola.

Leagues are changing fast. Prior to the most recent changes, The Big East has been roughly the 9th best league, in the 2nd tier of 6-9 but closer to 9. The goal of the Big East would be to keep and support its successful head coaches (DePaul coach left for Minnesota recently, and to raise the floor of the bottom of the league. Then you want to make it more than a 2 team league. By this I mean Georgetown and Xavier are the 2 annual NCAA teams right now. Neither has an exceptionally large budget/operating expenses/salary etc…by any means, compared to say Wisconsin, which does.

Xavier made a good coaching hire and then hired 2 good assistants. You need a good head coach and at least 1 good assistant to be competitive with recruiting etc…So for MU they need Peleaz and a good recruiting assistant. They have a newer one at the moment. Paul Sikinger is a bit green with regards to college work, 2nd year, and he came from FC Wisconsin youth program. He needs some time. FC Wisconsin and SC Wave are the 2 highest profile local youth club programs for girls in SE Wisconsin.


A good approach would be an inside out approach of state, region, national, international. MU spends a lot of time recruiting in Chicago and they should, and elsewhere in the region.

Women’s Soccer gets 14 full scholarships, and these are often combined with academic and others types of scholarships to get as many good players as close to a full as you can.

Getting MU to be more successful, and to get back to being an almost annual NCAA team is a doable challenge. Beyond that, requires being able to go toe to toe with more Power 5 schools in recruiting and with some other things. Ceiling would be once in a while Sweet 16. Floor would be make NCAA Tourney. There is a group of non-Power schools out there that have and are establishing themselves as soccer powers. These are the Santa Clara types. MU will need to recruit and coach up good players, re-establish as an NCAA team, and then they would have more of a chance to elevate recruiting at thar point. Right now, they have a largely recruiting identity head coach based on his historical work.

It’s helpful to have and build an identity, a strong culture as a program. MU doesn’t have as much of this established as some other programs. Being organized, efficient, disciplined.

Have the support of the University, boosters, etc…be competitive with facilities, budgets, travel, staff salary, etc….especially when things come up from time to time.

Power 5 schools sell Power 5. They sell football, yes, football, and they will take recruits on the field at 90k football games. Many will have and use indoor football practice facilities when needed, and they will sell a niche in a large school experience. They sell charter flights when needed. Many are located in geographies where this is necessary. They sell international team trips every few years. All kinds of things.

Wisconsin was able to lure a great coach away from Penn State during Marquette’s good NCAA run. They have a strong program. They recruit nationally. Northwestern also developed a strong program in the region when they were not competitive prior to that, and they did it with a Milwaukee person. They even added a 2nd good assistant in recent years. They sell academics. Many of the better programs have very strong academics as a destination. So you also have some other programs that improved and developed as increased regional competition.

This will give you a good start re: MU Women’s
Soccer. I can follow up and get to the Men when I get a chance.

Another thing I recommend is watching some of the better programs or more attractive styles of play to get an understanding of the landscape.

If you have ESPN Plus the BYU Cougars play tonight, so does Texas. They have two of the better attacks nationally. It’s even better when they will play at home in the NCAA Tourney. Tonight is part of the. Ig 12 Tourney in Austin.

Anyway, the Cougs play a 4-4/2 diamond. They get good spacing, and they play through their central defensive midfielder (Shepherd) through its wings (Mozingo, Bailey) to Katoa, Fryer. And Vaka makes plays in  back.

This will give you a snapshot of the pace, size, physicality, technical ability, level for other teams to which to aspire.

If you don’t have ESPN Plus, SEC Network, ESPNU, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, etc…all have their conference tourneys going this week and next week.

And yes FloSports is a negative in recruiting. It doesn’t help if potential recruiting targets can’t watch games. Most recruiting targets have access to ESPN Plus.

[MUfan12]

Louis Bennett "stepping away" from MU Men's Soccer.

https://gomarquette.com/news/2023/11/1/louis-bennett-stepping-away-from-mens-soccer-program

[shoothoops]

Louis Bennett "stepping away" from MU Men's Soccer.

https://gomarquette.com/news/2023/11/1/louis-bennett-stepping-away-from-mens-soccer-program

Yep. This is why I wanted to wait before answering the above inquiry about the MU Men’s Soccer program.

[lawdog77]

Statement from Bennett:
After nearly 30 years, 18 at Marquette, it's time to step away from college soccer," Bennett said.  "I've been fortunate to have the privilege to work with so many quality young men and colleagues, thoroughly enjoying the ups and downs of the crazy, beautiful game of soccer in the academic setting. Unfortunately, College Soccer is not conducive to developing players, so I am going to coach in Europe."

[panda]

Statement from Bennett:
After nearly 30 years, 18 at Marquette, it's time to step away from college soccer," Bennett said.  "I've been fortunate to have the privilege to work with so many quality young men and colleagues, thoroughly enjoying the ups and downs of the crazy, beautiful game of soccer in the academic setting. Unfortunately, College Soccer is not conducive to developing players, so I am going to coach in Europe."

That’s funny because I heard that too

[panda]

Interesting take from one of our neighbors to the south on college soccer. Manuel has always offered reasonable takes in the age of shock opinions.

https://x.com/elpibevv/status/1713584577355325695?s=46&t=el-XnIMOEDcxAw3lmg3L5A


also I cant say this isn’t slightly biased but good to hear from the low country from time to time.

https://x.com/rjnhuskies/status/1700656617211973716?s=46&t=el-XnIMOEDcxAw3lmg3L5A

[Uncle Rico]

Interesting take from one of our neighbors to the south on college soccer. Manuel has always offered reasonable takes in the age of shock opinions.

https://x.com/elpibevv/status/1713584577355325695?s=46&t=el-XnIMOEDcxAw3lmg3L5A


also I cant say this isn’t slightly biased but good to hear from the low country from time to time.

https://x.com/rjnhuskies/status/1700656617211973716?s=46&t=el-XnIMOEDcxAw3lmg3L5A

The post by rjnhuskies is spot on.  Basketball development in this country is terrible and why we’re seeing the best in the world come from foreign nations.  College basketball, save a few exceptions, is not a place where top talent is getting developed.  Grassroots development is about assembling talent, not developing it.

I won’t speak on soccer, but I don’t doubt that’s the case either.  Once women’s soccer internationally gets on the level of men’s soccer, I’ll be curious how successful the USA remains in international play

[panda]

The post by rjnhuskies is spot on.  Basketball development in this country is terrible and why we’re seeing the best in the world come from foreign nations.  College basketball, save a few exceptions, is not a place where top talent is getting developed.  Grassroots development is about assembling talent, not developing it.

I won’t speak on soccer, but I don’t doubt that’s the case either.  Once women’s soccer internationally gets on the level of men’s soccer, I’ll be curious how successful the USA remains in international play

Women’s soccer is the canary in the coal mine. USA dominates before most traditional soccer countries acknowledge women can play the game. Then in the last ten years, those traditional countries begin developing players through academies and results are beginning to show. Will be interesting to watch.

I also believe we’ll see even more foreign players dominating in the nba because of the early introduction to professionalism abroad. What do you think about the hoops aspect uncle Rico ?

[Uncle Rico]

Women’s soccer is the canary in the coal mine. USA dominates before most traditional soccer countries acknowledge women can play the game. Then in the last ten years, those traditional countries begin developing players through academies and results are beginning to show. Will be interesting to watch.

I also believe we’ll see even more foreign players dominating in the nba because of the early introduction to professionalism abroad. What do you think about the hoops aspect uncle Rico ?

I agree with the basketball part and tend to think women internationally will erode American soccer dominance

[panda]

Interesting conversation between two American World Cup players, Herc Gomez and Omar Gonzalez, on youth player development for US players. Conversation starts around 10 minutes.

https://x.com/herculezg/status/1720547397225582609?s=46&t=el-XnIMOEDcxAw3lmg3L5A

[shoothoops]

And that will do it for the MU Women’s Soccer Season. Mentioned the opportunity to make something happen in their last 3 games against good teams. Final scores of those games were a combined 3 losses of 11-0. Ouch. Year 5 for Frank P next year.

Xavier and Georgetown are co champions, with X getting the 1 seed for the conference tourney. Nate Lie was a strong hire for them as he has had them as an annual top 25 caliber program the past 5 years, after inheriting a mess. UConn is a bubble team. They will probably need to get wins over Butler and Georgetown in the conference tourney to get an invite.

Another exciting week of conference tourneys in the books for Women’s Soccer.

Despite being outplayed for much of the game for a 2nd time, Georgetown has claimed the Big East Tourney Title over Xavier. Both of those teams along with Providence will represent the Big East in the NCAA Tourney. UConn was unable to make it in off of the bubble.

NCAA Women’s Tourney begins this weekend. Georgetown received a #3 and they will host Old Dominion. (upset league winner over James Madison. Both made the tourney). And Xavier is a 4 seed. They will host Tennessee in a rematch of last year’s NCAA 1st round game which X won in OT.

2023 NCAA bracket:

https://www.ncaa.com/brackets/soccer-women/d1/2023

[panda]

[shoothoops]

Women’s College Coaching Carousel has changes at Creighton, Purdue, Miami FL, Boston College among others.

An interesting one is Marisa Kresge surprisingly is out after just 2 struggling seasons at Illinois State. The former Badger player and assistant was a high level recruiter at Wisconsin in recent years)

Speaking of the Badgers, they will host Milwaukee in an NCAA 1st Round game. Good season for the Panthers, as Kevin Boyd’s program makes the NCAA’s in jist his 2nd season. Coaches change but success continues at UWM. Troy Fabiano may have Kentucky in the NCAA Tourney by his 3rd season next year. Michael Moynihan has had some good, if uneven success at Northwestern. (that’s the previous 24 years at UWM)

And the Badgers have been good most of the 17 seasons under Paula Wilkins.

[panda]

[Pakuni]

The post by rjnhuskies is spot on.  Basketball development in this country is terrible and why we’re seeing the best in the world come from foreign nations.  College basketball, save a few exceptions, is not a place where top talent is getting developed.  Grassroots development is about assembling talent, not developing it.

I won’t speak on soccer, but I don’t doubt that’s the case either.  Once women’s soccer internationally gets on the level of men’s soccer, I’ll be curious how successful the USA remains in international play

Right, because no college coach's job is dependent on developing players into good pros three years after they leave school. The job is dependent on winning now. So, there's no incentive for college coaches to prioritize that. Even programs that take a longer-term approach toward player development - Marquette under Shaka, for example - the goal remains winning college games, not developing future pros.

[shoothoops]

Right, because no college coach's job is dependent on developing players into good pros three years after they leave school. The job is dependent on winning now. So, there's no incentive for college coaches to prioritize that. Even programs that take a longer-term approach toward player development - Marquette under Shaka, for example - the goal remains winning college games, not developing future pros.

Let’s take professional pathways to the professional pathways thread. This is not a professional pathway thread. Thanks.