courtside

Lane is a very experienced, versatile 4 year player, already on campus at SLU. He has played a lot of wing back (similar position to Murana and Vaughn) for SMU, much of it on the right side. But he’s played both. He’ll get up and down the wing and defend. Has a long throw in the offensive third of the field. He’s played in 3 games vs SLU in his career.

2023 SLU Soccer commit, Tanner Anderson, will be playing in the ECNL Boys National Selection game, Saturday night in Orlando. (Message me if you need weekend game times/field numbers)

Congratulations to Mujeeb Murana for signing a homegrown deal with Houston. This covers some of the ongoings. https://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/slu/slu-approaches-spring-soccer-season-without-bulk-of-elite-eight-roster/article_a29dedcb-d42d-5504-9ca5-6b137fdd25c8.html

Webster Groves Boys High School Hoops Head Coaches…their two long time head coaches going back to the 1980’s were Jay Blossom and Tim Moore. (Both were successful, and both won state titles). Blossom retired a few years ago after taking over the program in 1999. Justin Mathes is their current head coach. Moore became the AD there a while. After stepping down as hoops HC, Blossom works now with the younger players at Knights Basketball Academy. Ramey has been doing various forms of AAU ball and hoop events for a few decades. He currently has Ramey basketball teams in various ages, has the Ramey Fall League, and a couple of showcase team events going. He also has worked at Cardinal Ritter several years.

What I can say is AJ came close to being drafted in the 3rd round, and, he’d be a good signing for any team, including the local team. And, SLU has had a player strongly considered for a homegrown signing elsewhere.

Drafted players can and do have different outcomes and signings. A team can sign a player to various types of contracts, or, put a drafted player on its college protected list, (unless claimed off of waivers), or a team can part ways with a player entirely. The protected college list goes to Dec 31st of the following year a player is drafted. example: 2021 draft, player will remain that list until Dec 2022. SLU played against a few 2021 drafted players this season. Brandon Terwege (SMU), Diego Gutierrez (Creighton). A couple of others, Brandon Hackenberg (Penn St.) Justin Malou (Clemson) were first rounders who went back to school. There’s also the new MLS Next Pro league. Patrick Schulte for example was drafted to play a lot here, as Columbus is pretty set with its first two keepers. There are also other types of non drafted signings as previously mentioned in the thread.

Congratulations to Chandler Vaughn 60th overall to L.A. Galaxy, and, Chase Niece 66th overall to Dallas.

Yep. She does prefer being an attacking player but she can play several positions at a very high level. It’s 9 years after she won the MAC Hermann Trophy at North Carolina. She’s one of the favorites of multiple SLU Soccer players and commits. Her baby is due in May. SLU of course has had recent college success at outside back with both the Men and Women’s teams. And both teams have good ones committed for the future too. One of those had a strong weekend in Florida this past weekend.

Bracketville had SLU 88 prior to Saturdays games. Lunardi today does not have SLU in his list of 76.

Big Day for SLU Soccer. SLU has 7 draft eligible players. They also have a few current and future homegrown candidates. …………………… Just getting around to posting this… MAC Hermann Trophy Banquet in St. Louis, Georgetown’s Dante Polvara and Florida St.’s Jaelin Howell (her 2nd straight) took home top honors for Men and Women’s Soccer. (Both have been discussed in the Men and Women’s Soccer threads here during the season.) Two defensive midfielders. Polvara signed with Aberdeen, Scorland. Howell was the 2nd overall NWSL draft pick for Racing Louisville. USWNT player Crystal Dunn was the featured speaker. Great opportunity for many young local Stl Soccer players who attended the banquet.

Annie played at UMSL. (She’s a nurse.) She played high school ball for SLU Women’s Soccer assistant Chris Allen. Shields recruited Allen to coach at SLU after getting to know him better during Maddie Pokorny’s recruitment. Ellie Paloucek previously played for Lou Fusz (both USYS and Girls Academy) club ball with current SLU players Emily Gaebe, Madelyn Smith, Xavier’s Chloe Netzel. Some of them won the U16 USYS National Title a few years back. Some of the players graduated this past year, and, some, including Ellie switched to Sporting Stl, (Girls Academy). Several of their teams had a nice showing at the recent big California Winter Showcase. Lou Fusz is strong in the younger teams right now, U15 and U14 in particular. Former SLU assistant Bry McCarthy is one of their coaches. They made the National Finals and National semis last season in Girls Academy. Sporting has a local U12 player that won all 4 games for USA Futsal in Madrid, Spain over the recent holiday. Ellie Paloucek is a very good pickup for SLU’s Women’s Soccer team. She’s a multi sport baller. She’ll play high school soccer for Webster after the basketball season. Her soccer club team at Sporting Stl finished in first place in the Texas heavy Frontier Conference with a 10-0-3 record this past fall in U19. (2023 SLU commit Nina Preusser plays on her club team)

Six SLU Women’s Soccer commits (and other SLU recruiting targets) are playing this weekend in the ECNL National Showcase in Florida. (Wolterman, Nichols, Lutz, Jackson, Gary, Schwartz) Lakewood Ranch, near Sarasota. As always, message me if you need game times, field numbers, and players to watch. 3 games, one game per day, Jan 8-10. SLU staff will be there recruiting. On the local front, 2022 SLU soccer commit Ellie Paloucek has helped lead her Webster Groves basketball team to the top ranked spot in Stl girls large schools rankings, with several 20 plus point games, and, several double digit assist games. (She had 29 in the state semifinals last Spring vs Kickapoo) They have a nice mix of D-1 hooper commits, K-State, Eastern Michigan, and younger players.

It’s a pretty good number Skip. Remember, we are talking about roughly 5 to 7 players a year. Signing a GA deal means the player is likely often to be a high first round pick in the draft. The past few years for example…a few higher profile ones people would know, local St. Louisan Jack Maher (Nashville 23 appearances) and Daryl Dike from Virginia (35 appearances for Orlando before his Barnsley loan.) These examples are starter caliber players. Some have played a lot on expansion teams too. There can be and has been a few USL loans for some of these players.

This year’s Generation Adidas players will be announced soon prior to next week’s draft. GA is an underclassman contract with the league, giving up remaining college eligibility to go pro. (The rest of the college players are Seniors/out of playing eligibility) If a GA player’s professional career does not pan out, they still get their college paid for by the program. Typically, 5 to 7 college players annually have been MLS GA players. The draft is 3 rounds. Expansion teams pick first, then non playoff teams etc.. An MLS Team can have up to 30 roster players (18 dress). The first 20 are considered Senior Roster Players towards the salary budget. 21-30 are variations of Supplemental players. GA players are in this category. GA players typically make more than league minimum players (who are also included in this group). And home grown players (including reserve players) are in this group of 21-30 as well, but can also be counted in the Senior roster group. A homegrown player is a player that has played at least one full season on your MLS team’s youth academy team. And that player goes directly to the MLS Senior team. For example, 2025 Aaron Heard is the number one ranked recruit in the country in his class. He plays for stlCITY academy. He could potentially be a home grown signing in the future. A different random example would be SLU’s Mujeeb Murana. He played at Houston Dynamo Academy. He could potentially be a future home grown signing for Houston because he played for their academy. Each team gets up to 8 International roster spots. However these spots can be traded etc…so typically teams have about 7 to 9 International roster spots. There are a few other things but you get the general idea of roster construction. And, for reference, 28 of 76 players drafted in 2019 made MLS rosters. 3 of those players played in 20 or more games that season. SLU has several highly sought after players who have performed well both at SLU, and at the MLS College Showcase. Part of program success is producing professional players.

Walker Kessler 16 pts, 9 rebounds, 11 blocks for Auburn.

Top Drawer Postseason Men’s Top 100: Simon Becher 6 Kipp Keller 16 John Klein 29 Freshmen Postseason Top 100: Isaiah Parker 2 Seth Anderson 66 https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/college-soccer/college-national-top-100/men

I think it’s more effective to compare one vs your peers as opposed to different eras, because different eras are played under different circumstances. So that will always be apples to oranges. What Majerus did (under Biondi) was to get SLU to be a 3 straight year NCAA Team, finishing 2nd, 1st, 1st in a row in the league. Those 3 teams had a KenPom of 14, 19, 35. (No KenPom isn’t the be all end all, but it is one reasonable objective measure of evaluation) Obviously Rick got sick and passed away preventing him from continuing what he built. But I think it’s pretty clear he had the ability to have SLU as a top of the league annual NCAA team. Travis is in his 6th season. He has yet to get SLU to a top 3 league finish, and, he has yet to crack the top 50 in KenPom. The SLU team that won the conference tourney under Travis was 106 KenPom. But it counts. It checks a box. Just as regular season league finish checks a box, NCAA Tourney invites and results check boxes, and so on. SLU is sitting at 80 KenPom now. They were 53 and 62 the prior two seasons. Travis doesn’t need to be Rick, but he does need to finish inside the NCAA bubble more often. COVID-19, missing players, all things to take into consideration just as Majerus was missing players his 4th season during his time at SLU. Getting those 50’s and 60’s KenPom teams down into more of an NCAA invite range. Part of that is non-conference. Part of that is the league. When people say this person is or is not a good coach. The list is long. Game prep, in game adjustments, x’s and o’s, recruiting, marketing, fund raising, player development, and several other things go into being a coach. And other staff can have various strengths in those areas. They all represent one program.

Top Drawer Soccer 2021 Men’s Postseason Awards: Best 11 First Team: SLU: Simon Becher Best 11 2nd Team: SLU: Kipp Keller Best 11 3rd Team: SLU: John Klein Freshman Best 11 First Team: SLU: Isaiah Parker National Player of the Year: Dante Polvara, Georgetown National Freshman of the Year: Alex Lopez, Tulsa (John Klein didn’t get the 3rd team All America from United Soccer Coaches, that many thought he deserved. But he received it from Top Drawer Soccer.) https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/college-soccer-articles/2021-mens-division-i-postseason-awards_aid50326

The team will be good next season. AJ Palazzolo and Patrick Wilkinson have both played 5 seasons. For everyone else, it’s too soon to say. I may sometimes know some things in advance, but, I don’t always post them until I am comfortable doing so. For example, if I post that a recruit commits to SLU, but perhaps there is no public announcement about it, it’s because I am comfortable that particular recruit would be okay with it, and/or it’s something they decided to make public. This could be recruits committing, players going pro, transfers, a variety of things.

I think this is more of a College Soccer News thing than it is an Isaiah Parker thing. The two places that are often used for college soccer players, coaches, recruits, are United Soccer Coaches, and Top Drawer Soccer. Top Drawer Soccer will release its end of year, Freshmen Top 100, soon. Parker was ranked 2nd Nationally in their midseason rankings. (Seth Anderson was 20th) 7 College Freshmen were invited to the MLS College Soccer Showcase recently out of the 44 players invited: Isaiah Parker, SLU. Shak Mohammed, Duke. Aboubacar Camara, Louisville. Joran Gerbet, Oregon St. Erik Centeno, Pacific. Luke Hille, NC State. Danny Flores, Virginia Tech. Josh Bolma from Maryland was also invited. He is a Redshirt Freshman. So, it’s fair to say that plenty of other places are well aware of Isaiah’s play and potential. Different programs do things differently. As for International players, SLU recruits locally, regionally, nationally, internationally. No stone unturned. Even locally, SLU recruits Academy players, ECNL players, USYS players etc… SLU has a nice balance geographically. 10 players from St. Louis, or roughly one third of the team. 11 different states represented. 3 International players. This includes players from several different backgrounds. As for high minute players, the same or similar balance holds up as well. SLU will add to that diversity in next year’s class.

Top Drawer Soccer named SLU’s Emily Gaebe to its postseason Freshmen Top 100 list.

United Soccer Coaches named SLU’s Simon Becher, First Team, Scholar All American. https://unitedsoccercoaches.org/2021-united-soccer-coaches-ncaa-division-i-mens-scholar-all-america-team/

Oh, I see what you were trying to say. I was trying to understand what you were saying, as much of what you wrote was the same or similar. Yep. That was a tough one. Missed opportunity there. Obviously, I still think of that one whenever Roth’s name comes up in a topic, lol.

United Soccer Coaches released the 3 finalists for the MAC Hermann Trophy: Oskar Agren, D, Clemson Dante Polvara, M, Georgetown Dylan Teves, F Washington

Since I was there, my memory is just fine. Sometimes its okay to say the other team did something well, and won a game. Roth hit a good shot. 11 seeded SLU played well enough to win, but the Billikens ouldn't get a goal. https://nusports.com/news/2006/11/16/Wildcats_Upset_11th_Seeded_Saint_Louis_1_0.aspx https://slubillikens.com/news/2006/11/16/205253026.aspx https://www.socceramerica.com/publications/article/20580/northwestern-rolls-into-sweet-16.html