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Man what a game ... and then to come home and see the Cards win with 2 outs, 2 strikes again in the 9th. Couldn't possibly be a more exciting sports night for me.

I'll disagree a bit with the UNews article when it basically said SLU came out and dominated the 2nd half. I thought the best of play in the 2nd half went to VCU for the first 30-35 minutes. SLU had a few chances, but the reality of it was SLU clearly had the better of play and created far more chances in the 1st half beginning with Robbie hitting the post in the 1st few minutes. VCU had few real chances maybe just the 2 goals, but in the end they converted both of their chances and SLU was probably 1 for 5 or 6 in dangerous chances.

In the end SLU kept working and knocked in a scrum goal off a free kick as the clock wound down. (despite me screaming advantage should have been played as we had possession 20 yards out after the foul. The official let the clock run from 15 to 9 seconds before stopping it. With the fans screaming for more time he decided to reset the clock to 15 (correctly) Kristo leaves the field with the injury, so you've lost your 6'3" forward who's your leading scorer and the odds seem slim for a Bills goal. In the end it was one of those ugly goals that just fell to the right guy who hit it home.

In the 1st overtime SLU pressed hard and created a few more opportunities that didn't hit the net, It was a little like the 1st half where every other word out of the crowds mouth was Ahhhhhh ending with the ball just eluding the net. The 2nd overtime started out slowly with no team doing much for the 1st few minutes until SLU pressed the issue moving the ball just outside the box from the center to the left wing back to the center where we changed direction and found Robbie cutting in all alone from the right corner of the penalty box and Robbie did what Robbie does hitting the far corner for the winning goal.

VCU has a lot skill in the midfield and upfront. They play to attack seldom leaving the ball back to safety. They seemed to be able to move the ball quickly and efficiently 30-40 yards out at will. They were a fun team to watch. Their desire to attack left them vunerable defensively to the bills attacking them making a game that was full of great chances and exciting play. It was one of the most entertaining Bills games I've seen in a while and with the Bills pulling out the win the way they did made it even better

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VCU did a great job of trying to simply out offense us. They pressed the ball high continuously, attacked with speed, passed the ball swiftly, always had a runner off the ball......basically this was a very good team that had slu rattled early on. But their defense was not up to the same standard as their offense and we were able to create numerous chances in the first half. We were doing enough to win but just could not grab a goal. Second half was more VCUs if you look at shooting stats as I think we only had two shots. We pushed hard in the final minutes of the game leading to the freekick into the box for lees goal. OT was fun and luckily we pulled it out.

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Pretty much agree with what skip and sluballs said. It was a great game. With a minute left I was ready to walk out of there pissed about a loss and pissed that the cardinals were about to lose too. What a turn of events there. I can't remember the last time I went to a soccer game and wasn't upset about the officiating. I thought it was pretty poor last night again. Btw, skip is a great fan. He was letting the ref hear it throughout the night.

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With the fans screaming for more time he decided to reset the clock to 15 (correctly) Kristo leaves the field with the injury, so you've lost your 6'3" forward who's your leading scorer and the odds seem slim for a Bills goal. In the end it was one of those ugly goals that just fell to the right guy who hit it home.

I know what you mean when you say ugly goal, but that was no easy goal as you can see. I was over on that end of the field. Respect to Raymond Lee for saving the day, not to mention Adnan and Christian Briggs (who was came in for Kristo).

This was easily my favorite game in the McGinty era.

Richmond on Sunday. I remember the loss to Richmond two years ago and feeling like the struggles may continue for awhile. So much for that feeling.

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SLU won 2-1 against Richmond. Richmond scored first in the 54th minute and then SLU responded immediately in the 55th minute with a goal of their own (William Hidalgo scored his first goal of the year) and then SLU scored again in the 86th minute off a corner kick by Alex Sweetin and Robbie Kristo headed it in for the game winner.

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SLU in the polls/rankings:

RPI--8th (this is solid; still have Temple and Charlotte and the rest will hurt RPI slightly even with wins but it looks like an at-large is likely with anything better than 3-3 finish and around mid 30's RPI; I actually projected out the rest of the season for the 5 remaining teams to get opponents schedules so if you want to see more work let me know). For the record if SLU wins out I project them as a 2 seed.

Top Drawer Soccer--30th

College Soccer News--27th

Other polls to come.

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I actually projected out the rest of the season for the 5 remaining teams to get opponents schedules so if you want to see more work let me know). For the record if SLU wins out I project them as a 2 seed.

I would love to see it.

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There is a mix of specific data, projections, and guesswork with this so I think the big picture is accurate (SLU is in a very good position RPI-wise) but the details will be less precise (so that is why I try to not to report it as very specific). This is still guesswork of less quality than I can do with basketball as I can use history as a guide there as well. The biggest thing I do not have is a few years (or ANY year right now) of final RPI data with the actual RPI percentages (so I can translate the projection of the RPI to a rank--I can only use the current RPI numbers and guesstimate how much the distribution will compress as the season goes on). I can only find an RPI archive for women and the NCAA RPI which does not show the percentages.

That said I estimated the final records of the 5 teams SLU has to play (not including their game with SLU) at 34-40-13. This does not need to be completely accurate but I think it is a reasonable guess (I only predict Charlotte doing well outside of SLU down the stretch and conservatively predict .500 play for Temple and worse for the other 3). However, it should be noted that I am NOT forecasting the teams they already played as that is too much work so I assume they end up collectively at the same win percentage as they are now. That makes the final guesstimate of the opponents record at 59.18% (which is half of final RPI). I estimate the final record of the opponents' opponents record at 51% (this is conservative as the A10 is having a good year--but it cannot get too much higher and gravitates close to 50%).

So using the home/away modification SLU is currently at 72.92% win percentage. If they go 3-3 (2 home wins and 1 road win with 1 home, 1 road and 1 neutral loss) they would go down to 65.75% and that would make a final RPI of 58.78% and in the current distribution that would put them into 30th place. So they are EASILY in (the first 40 RPI place likely to get serious look). The problem with another loss is that it would count double or triple against SLU (bad loss as they only play 3 decent teams down the stretch, bad down the stretch, and further RPI impact. If they went 2-4 there RPI would be in the high 30's with a lot of other profile negatives so they might get in with that as well but I do not want to make that case--but who knows RPI plays a bigger role than profile in soccer historically.

The 7-0 case down the stretch (3 home, 2 road and 2 neutral wins) would put their final win percentage at 83.95% and the final RPI at 64.82%. This would put them at 4th in the current distribution. I estimated them as a 2 seed as I am sure the committee would find a way to weasel a Big East or ACC team ahead of them.

All the other cases would be between those two and I could calculate further permutations. I just calculated the 3-3 case as I thought it was a worse case kind of thing. Actually, 2-3-1 down the stretch should be good enough as well (particular if the losses are on the road). I feel very comfortable with SLU getting an at large at this point provided they just beat the mediocre teams.

Now, someone else can do this and I do not have to bother!

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I appreciate the thoughtful response. I do not expect you to do this, but if you wanted to see the RPI percentage from last year, it is here: http://www.ncaa.org/...heets-2011final

Thanks for the link. Just glancing at that leads me to believe that a final RPI of .5878 is even better than I discussed above. SO the question becomes is 2-4 or 1-3-2 good enough? It might be. SLU would have some good profile aspects and some negatives but have an RPI that would get them in (even then their profile would like a tad better than ODU last year and they got in).

I figure just going to the A10 tourney (top 8 this year) would get them in. This means that they would go 8-0 if they won out so they could be a number 1 seed if they do that. I am not predicting either 8-0 or a collapse so next week I will look at possible seeds.

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I'll do my best to put together a game report here:

SLU had to have had 80+% of the possession. Not as many good scoring chances as you would like with that possession, but Richmond was constantly dropping 8 or 9 guys back. SLU had the ball a ton in the first half but I remember looking up at the scoreboard with about 10 minutes left and we had no shots on goal. Not too much to talk about in the first half really though. Brangman came in for Bryce late in the first half I think.

2nd half wasn't a whole lot better. Hildago came in for Sweetin and Adnan for Kristo. Richmond's goal came after they tried to clear the ball and it took a funky hop and came up and hit Anthony Manning in the arm just outside the box. They converted the free kick and went up 1-0. I guess that's the wake up call that SLU needed because they scored just over a minute later. Heskamp made a great individual play. Took the ball from about midfield all the way down the side to the endline. Then cut it back to the middle and put a cross on the ground that Hildalgo put away. Credit to Heskamp on that goal and the first goal Friday night. He's playing really well right now. McGinty then put Sweetin and Kristo back in for Adnan and Raymond Lee maybe? Can't exactly remember. Adnan did not have a good game again. He has a ton of talent but is just struggling a bit now. He should be fine. We struggled to put a goal away for a while after that. Graydon and Heskamp made some great individual plays but we couldn't score. Sweetin sent a perfect cross from Graydon way over the goal. Just looked like he rushed it a bit. Sweetin played really well other than that and eventually sent in the game winner on a corner to Kristo. Dante got hurt mid second half and Maglasang came in for him. Maglasang played really well and might be our best 2 way midfielder. Roeckle played a good game and just got unlucky on some crosses that got knocked down by the wind.

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Skip and I discussed Adnan quite a bit on Friday and while we agree he has the size, speed, and talent to be on the field for 90 minutes, he must not be doing something that McGinty wants 100% of the time. What we did see was Adnan not dropping back enough to be an outlet pass, not going to the ball coming to him and then losing it, and simply putting his head down to dribble when moving the ball would have been faster. The kid has talent but as I tell one of my forwards on my U14 team, "I love your finishing talent and I want it on the field, but the game isn't just played inside the 18 yard box." Adnan needs a bit more of a work ethic when the ball is not at his feet or he is not close to goal. Kristo is vastly outplaying Adnan right now. Adnan could easily win a starting postiong as his competition (Bryce) is not head and shoulders better than him.

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As far as the rest of the season goes, here is what we have left

@ 5-8-0 St. Joe's. I can't see us losing this even on the road.

@ 7-4-2 Temple. Another game I don't see us losing as the only thing Temple can really hang their hat on is 1 goal losses to Cal St. Northridge and Villanova. They really haven't beaten anyone of note. Maybe if they play great and we play lousy, even then though I'd say a draw is the worst case scenario

After this we finish we 3 straight at home

vs Charlotte who's record I forgot to note, but they are 3-2-2 in their last 7. Their only real wins are against an over rated Coastal Carolina who have just piled up big wins against mostly bad teams and a decent Stonybrook. They are dropping fast. I can't see us losing here, but possible?

vs 4-9 GW and 3-5-4 Butler. We can't lose either of these

I'd say worst case is 4-1 regular season for the last 5, We won't play poorly against both Temple and Charlotte. But I'd bet on at least 4-0-1 or 5-0. I think we'll win out. We will be the better team in every game left.

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Skip and I discussed Adnan quite a bit on Friday and while we agree he has the size, speed, and talent to be on the field for 90 minutes, he must not be doing something that McGinty wants 100% of the time.

I do think fitness is a factor. He looks drained to me at times. He needs to train for the Go St. Louis Marathon and do speed work.

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@ 7-4-2 Temple.

Temple was among my greatest concerns going in to the A-10. This game will be played on a Sunday afternoon on the road just before the team returns to play Charlotte with the postseason in mind. Classic trap game. You never know.

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-not a soccer guy, sorry if this is elementary, so you can be subbed-out and return to the game? is this different than international play? thanks

It is different than international play. Players can sub-out and return with limitations. You can sub-out in the first half and return in in the second half or overtime. You can sub-out in the second half and return in that period once (or return in OT). In overtime, you can sub-out in the first and return in the second, but not in the same overtime period.

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It is different than international play. Players can sub-out and return with limitations. You can sub-out in the first half and return in in the second half or overtime. You can sub-out in the second half and return in that period once (or return in OT). In overtime, you can sub-out in the first and return in the second, but not in the same overtime period.

-thanks, i am taking this to mean in international play once you are out you are done for the game

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