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2 hours ago, courtside said:

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. 

 

I’m not a big soccer guy so I haven’t followed the team and recruiting very closely, but how good do you think the team will be next season as compared to this season? It’s my understanding that we will be bringing everyone back instead of Becher and Palazzolo, is that true?

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1 hour ago, NoCoBillsFan said:

I’m not a big soccer guy so I haven’t followed the team and recruiting very closely, but how good do you think the team will be next season as compared to this season? It’s my understanding that we will be bringing everyone back instead of Becher and Palazzolo, is that true?

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.

 

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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

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  • 2 weeks later...
8 minutes ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

So I don’t really know how the MLS draft works. I don’t know if some players bypass the draft and join teams in another way, but having the #1 overall pick, 3 top 6 picks, and 4 top 15 picks is pretty impressive.

Ditto on not knowing how the MLS draft works and generally college soccer.

Having 4 of the top 15 seems insane to me compared to basketball.  The only time I can find since 2010 that an NCAA basketball team had 4 guys drafted in the top 15 was 2015 Kentucky (#1 Towns, #6 Cauley-Stein, #12 Lyles, #13 Booker).  That was the year Kentucky nearly went undefeated, but lost to Wisconsin in the Final Four.  If they had won it all, they'd be viewed as probably the greatest college team ever.

I'm all for Kalish having Calipari at Kentucky levels of success at SLU without the Cal sleaze.

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15 minutes ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

So I don’t really know how the MLS draft works. I don’t know if some players bypass the draft and join teams in another way, but having the #1 overall pick, 3 top 6 picks, and 4 top 15 picks is pretty impressive.

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. 

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1 hour ago, RUBillsFan said:

Ditto on not knowing how the MLS draft works and generally college soccer.

Having 4 of the top 15 seems insane to me compared to basketball.  The only time I can find since 2010 that an NCAA basketball team had 4 guys drafted in the top 15 was 2015 Kentucky (#1 Towns, #6 Cauley-Stein, #12 Lyles, #13 Booker).  That was the year Kentucky nearly went undefeated, but lost to Wisconsin in the Final Four.  If they had won it all, they'd be viewed as probably the greatest college team ever.

I'm all for Kalish having Calipari at Kentucky levels of success at SLU without the Cal sleaze.

Like that one year Metro area had handful drafted by NHL.  

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51 minutes ago, courtside said:

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. 

About what % of Generation Adidas players make the Sr team the 1st year? 

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2 hours ago, crymdg2 said:

WHOOOAAAAAA

A 1st overall pick, 3 guys in the top 6, and 4 in the top 15 would be awesome for future recruiting. Kalish is killing it. Obviously the team will be very diminished next season but I’m rooting so hard for all of our guys at the next level. Might have to start watching MLS soccer

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50 minutes ago, slufanskip said:

About what % of Generation Adidas players make the Sr team the 1st year? 

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.

 

 

 

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A nice article in the Post on Kip Keller. 

With stock rising, Keller waits to see if he'll be No. 1 MLS pick | SLU Billikens | stltoday.com

I didn't know about the broken leg. Tough kid. 

You could tell from the 1st time he stepped on the field at SLU he was going to be special. (Not trying to brag, but I did call it his freshman season) Maybe SLU's next USMNT player

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On 1/7/2022 at 11:41 AM, SLUBALLS said:

Official MLS coverage on GA signees ahead of the draft:  https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/eight-standout-collegians-comprise-2022-generation-adidas-class-eligible-player-

Just seeing this list should make all SLU fans proud:

 

 

image.png

This is a huge recruiting tool for the Billikens.  Come play for the Billikens and then go play for money.

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