courtside

Big Ten Tourney. Illinois 1 Ohio State 0 Final. Prior to this giveaway goal, shots were 20-3 in favor of Ohio State early in the 2nd half: https://x.com/illinisoccer/status/1984015878111850907?s=46 Playoff Soccer.

Loyola Ramblers Part 2. There were few if any surprises from Loyola when they played SLU last weekend. SLU did a lot of things well except finish in the final 3rd. Loyola changed their formation during their game at Duquesne. They previously played 4 on the back line. They moved to 3. They added an extra central defensive midfielder in front of them. And, they have stayed with that ever since. If anyone watched the Netherlands U17 team defeat the USYNT team in the World Cup round of 16, that game had a few examples of how to attack that type of defense. Several times in the game, The Netherlands played it up the line, then to the middle, then to the opposite side in space for Liv Pennock. She uses her pace and angle to get past Schmidt, while Brewer was late with help defense. It’s how they scored their goal, and nearly how they scored a few others. Execution needs to be sharp. Larson, Simon, Miller, have to win the battles v Case, Perritano, Schmidt etc…in the middle of the field. SLU’s wings need to win the 1v1 wide battles with Lanni and Cryan. Forwards have to win the battles with Sudkamp. Positioning, physicality, pace. Strong on the ball. SLU needs to find the final third pass in traffic more central to the goal. Previous game, Loyola decided they were going to win, lose, or draw by giving up wide to the end line service, and set pieces, corners/fouls. Convert those with more efficient passes and stronger runs inside the 18. And combine it with 2v1 edge of the box combination play to the more central part of the field. Defensively, Loyola is going to take central top of the box shots from 20 yards with Rossie, Schmidt, Pistorious. Have to block shots in that part of the field. Luebbert and Schreiber 1v1 defending with Hevey and Harris. Harris scores in space behind the defense with speed, and being quick to 2nd 3rd chances inside the 18. Hevey will try to cut back the majority of the time on the left wing while playing with pace. Loyola will defend first. 3 then 2 but also both pace wings. Loyola is a bottom of the bubble team. RPI 62. They have a lot for which to play. ………………. A reminder that OT conference tourney wins count as a full RPI win. PK wins do not. PK wins/losses count as a tie/draw for both teams. ………………

Former Billiken Associate Head Coach, Colleen Corbin, has led Kansas State to its best season in program history. And, she has done it in year 1. She has the Wildcats on the NCAA Tourney bubble. They are currently tied for the final spot in the Big 12 conference tourney. This will be the first non losing season in K-State’s brief program history of ten years. It’s also their most wins in a season. Former Billiken Maddie Sibbing has started all 17 games and she has played all 1530 minutes in goal. Colleen was instrumental helping to secure SLU’s 2026 recruiting class.

It’s also officially coaching carousel season. I won’t be posting every coaching change which is usually 40-45 annually. But a few are worth noting here and there. G Guerrieri “retired” at Texas A&M after 33 seasons. 28 NCAA Tourneys in the past 31 seasons, including 26 straight at one point. They missed 3 of the last 5 NCAA Tourneys. 10 Regular Season Conference Titles 8 Conference Tourney Titles. 16 Sweet Sixteen appearances 7 Elite Eight appearances 1 College Cup Final Four In recent years, Texas A&M has had among the largest budgets in Women’s College Soccer. $5 million in annual operating expenses. (more than 50 football four programs are North if $2 million annually with some closer to the A&M range) Texas A&M is also one of several football four programs to commit to fully funding all 28 Women’s Soccer Athletic Scholarships. Guerrieri total compensation, salary plus bonus plus other, was just under $625k

27 This week’s predicted end of season RPI for SLU is 27. SLU is predicted as finishing with the best RPI of any bubble team out of a list of 31 bubble teams. RPI 27 through 57. If SLU can win all 3 games, and be the A10 AQ, they can improve their RPI closer to 20.

SLU is 22 in the United Soccer Coaches Poll. SLU is 25 in the Top Drawer Soccer Poll. O

Not necessarily is the short answer.

Congratulations to SLU’s Izzy Luebbert for making Honorable Mention, Top Drawer Soccer, National Team of the Week. Well earned.

Uh oh, it appears you need to revisit junior high school English. But I do appreciate longtime faithful readers bumping the SLU Women’s Soccer thread.

Bubble Watch: SEC Conference. Arkansas won the SEC Regular Season Title for the 5th time in the past 7 seasons. SEC Tourney, all games are in Pensacola, FL: Eliminated: Mississippi, Missouri, Texas, Texas A&M. First Round, all neutral site games: (30) South Carolina Vs (36) Alabama Alabama is a bubble team. A Bama loss “should” remove them from the bubble. (56) Kentucky vs (58) Florida. Both are bubble teams. But it would be better for Kentucky to win. (35) Mississippi State vs (42) Oklahoma. The Sooners are a bubble team. An OU loss “should” remove them from the bubble. (24) LSU vs (79) Auburn. Auburn isn’t a bubble team yet. Let’s keep it that way. Rooting against Bama, Florida, Oklahoma, Auburn. It would be better for 2 seed (6) Vandy to defeat (40) Georgia, another bubble team in the semis. And it would be better for (5) Tennessee to face Arkansas in the other semis. Bubble teams: Alabama, Kentucky, Florida, Oklahoma, Auburn, (not yet) Mississippi State. (likely in) ”Should” means more likely but not 100% guaranteed.

Bubble Watch: SLU can exclusively focus on its next game, as they have their hands full with that. For those that like to watch the bubble: Big Ten Conference. First, it should be notes that in 2 years of adding new West Coast teams to the Big Ten, a West Coast team has won the Big Ten both years. Last year was USC, with 3 of the top 5 being West Coast teams. This year Washington won the Big Ten, with UCLA not too far behind. Big Ten Conference Tourney: Eliminated: Indiana, Purdue, Minnesota, Rutgers, Maryland, Oregon. 10 teams made the conference tourney. 2 play in games for the Quarterfinals to be played on campus. The semifinals and finals of the Big Ten Tourney will be played at Energizer Park in St. Louis, Missouri. Play in game number 1: (46) Illinois at (37) Ohio State. They are both bubble teams. It would be better for both to lose. First year Illinois HC Katie Hultin is having a strong season. SLU defeated Illinois in a Spring game. The expectation is Ohio State will win, and Illinois will be eliminated from the bubble. Either way the loser “should” be out of NCAA bubble contention. Play in Game number 2: Parenthesis=RPI (60) USC at (31) Northwestern It wouldn’t take much for the committee to want to add USC to the field. They are out as of now. Better to keep it thet way. Northwestern has already done enough to be in the NCAA Tourney after previously being a bubble team. Quarterfinals: (37) Washington hosts the winner of Illinois and Ohio State. (16) Iowa hosts (25) Wisconsin. (Always root for the teams you play against, and SLU played against Iowa.) (8) Michigan State hosts the winner of USC and Northwestern. (20) UCLA host (27) Penn State. (Always root for the teams you play against and SLU played against Penn State) It would be best for SLU to see Iowa meet Penn State in the finals. Bubble teams at the moment are Illinois, Ohio State, USC.

2027 SLU Soccer Commits Mia Berardi. Algonquin, Illinois (Chicago) Roslyn Doherty. Kirkwood, MO Maren Gansner. Des Peres, MO Vada Goss. Glendale, WI (Milwaukee) Lila Megyesi. Brownstown Township (Detroit) Sofia Scego. Arnold, MO Lyla Schenck. Rochester, NY Charlotre Wilson. Ladue, MO

2029 Top Drawer Soccer Rankings. Ainsley McGuire is 5th nationally. It is the 6th straight class that St. Louis has had at least one player ranked in the top 10 nationally.

33 SLU’s RPI is 33 heading into this week. A few conferences still have regular season games this week before they begin their conference tourneys. Many have moved on to conference tourneys, later this week. SLU will host Loyola at 2pm Saturday in the A10 Quarterfinal. The A10 re-seeds during conference tourneys depending on results. RPI’s SLU 33 Lpyola 62 Duquesne 73 Fordham 124 Dayton 29 La Salle 141 Rhode Island 72 VCU 157

Not necessarily. It’s too early yet today to say where SLU will end up with RPI tonight. At the moment it is at 30 despite the draw. It was 33 before the game. But that has only taken into account some games today, not alL As long as SLU wins its next two games, it will have an RPI in the 20’s. That’s pretty good. It would be 50/50 at large if they lost the A10 Final. The question is whether or not they would get slighted or bumped for not having 1 or 2 RPI too 50 wins. Their RPI will be good enough. Some believe it is only about RPI Top 50 wins. Some believe a strong RPI can overcome that. Win the tourney and leave no doubt. This year it was more about not having a couple of more of those types of games on the schedule. They usually do. SLU finished making its schedule a little earlier than usual this past year as well. Hopefully that will get adjusted and strengthened a little bit more for next season. It likely will.