SLU Men's Soccer Thread

[Lord Elrond]

Just a question: should the NCAA change the way it times men and women’s soccer games to conform to what the rest of the soccer world does (start at 0:00, keep the clock running instead of stopping it and add stoppage time at the half at 45:00 and start the second half at 45:00, end at 90:00, clock keeps running, stoppage time added)?  If not, what’s the advantage that you see in keeping time the way they do (counting down to 0, stopping the clock instead of adding stoppage time)?  

[Cowboy II]

-if something makes sense, and I don't know if this timing change qualifies, wouldn't it be out of character for the NCAA to adopt it?

[billikenfan05]

1 hour ago, Lord Elrond said:

Just a question: should the NCAA change the way it times men and women’s soccer games to conform to what the rest of the soccer world does (start at 0:00, keep the clock running instead of stopping it and add stoppage time at the half at 45:00 and start the second half at 45:00, end at 90:00, clock keeps running, stoppage time added)?  If not, what’s the advantage that you see in keeping time the way they do (counting down to 0, stopping the clock instead of adding stoppage time)?  

The explanation I always heard was that the rules have to be the same for all divisions of NCAA Soccer. Playing a stop/start clock vs a running clock alleviates the need for a 4th official allowing smaller schools to save money. 

[willie]

Stoppage time seems subjective to me. Rather have the college rule. 

[almaman]

first 90 =foreplay, stoppage time = the rest

[Lord Elrond]

16 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:

The explanation I always heard was that the rules have to be the same for all divisions of NCAA Soccer. Playing a stop/start clock vs a running clock alleviates the need for a 4th official allowing smaller schools to save money. 

Does the person who calculates the overage time have to be an official, or could it be someone provided by the host school if a 4th official is unavailable? In many sports, keeping the clocks going, track of fouls, etc is performed by people provided by the host school. Look at the officials table at a basketball game.

One way to look at this is that right now there is someone starting and stopping the clock at a soccer game. Now, you have that same person start the clock, and keep track of stoppage time instead of turning off and on a clock. No additional expense. For schools that want to make it a 4th official, that’s fine.

[billikenfan05]

30 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

Does the person who calculates the overage time have to be an official, or could it be someone provided by the host school if a 4th official is unavailable? In many sports, keeping the clocks going, track of fouls, etc is performed by people provided by the host school. Look at the officials table at a basketball game.

One way to look at this is that right now there is someone starting and stopping the clock at a soccer game. Now, you have that same person start the clock, and keep track of stoppage time instead of turning off and on a clock. No additional expense. For schools that want to make it a 4th official, that’s fine.

This seems like an idea that could end in major controversies. 

[Lord Elrond]

14 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said:

This seems like an idea that could end in major controversies. 

Maybe, but is it really that different from someone manually operating the stadium clock, turning it off and on? Someone is just giving a number to the ref at half and at the end of the game, which the ref can decide to blow the whistle earlier, or let them play longer, so it’s all still on the ref.

[billikenfan05]

8 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

Maybe, but is it really that different from someone manually operating the stadium clock, turning it off and on? Someone is just giving a number to the ref at half and at the end of the game, which the ref can decide to blow the whistle earlier, or let them play longer, so it’s all still on the ref.

Yes it is. The clock is transparent, everyone can see it. Everyone knows when there is a mistake. I trust a clock operator because it's obvious when there is an error in stop/start. 

[billikenfan05]

If you change to a 90 minute clock and allow for a non-official to man the stoppage time, I would give it two weeks max into the season before the following situation occurs: home team is down a goal, 6 minutes of stoppage time is added to the end of the 90, home team scores to tie the game in the 96th minute. Visiting team claims that the non-official manning the stoppage time added too much time. This would be far from a rare occurrence. Conversely, home team is up one goal. 1 minute is added. Away team protests that not enough stoppage time was added.

You HAVE to have a properly trained and paid official manning the clock. 

[TheChosenOne]

1 hour ago, Lord Elrond said:

Maybe, but is it really that different from someone manually operating the stadium clock, turning it off and on? Someone is just giving a number to the ref at half and at the end of the game, which the ref can decide to blow the whistle earlier, or let them play longer, so it’s all still on the ref.

I would note that the clock at men's basketball games is controlled by the officials on the court. I worked the game clock the first season the team played at Chaifetz. Common misunderstanding as folks would yell profanities at me (some big money folks have some anger issues behind that scorer's table) when the officials are the ones to start the clock via a control on their belt and stop the clock via their whistle. I had the pleasure of working one game where the clock was randomly stopping. All we could think was that an official must have been breathing hard enough into their whistle to trigger it. Anyways it had me so nervous as I would try to watch the game and clock and would just suddenly see the clock stopped trying to start it as soon as possible without it being noticed. We really played with fire that game as the game started to get closer and closer. I was begging for someone to go on a run to avoid a potential late game situation which fortunately happened as SLU pulled away. One of the SLU coaches noticed it when the shot clock was running down and the clock just stopped, but a foul was called and he looked over and I was able to let him know the situation and he avoided letting Rick know what was going on which likely would have resulted in an unpleasant interaction.

And as 05 said, the dynamics would be different as the clock at a basketball game is visible and reviewed far too often haha, while stoppage time in soccer would not.

[courtside]

With 2025 recruiting having arrived this week, these are SLU’s 2023 and 2024 commits:

2023: 

Tanner Anderson, Cole Dougherty, Carlos Leatherman, Marcos Moore, Jack Sullivan, Axel Torres.

Incoming transfers: Galen Flynn, Diego Konicks, Diego Lawson Redmon, Matthew Wrobel, 

2024:

Jackson Delkus, Connor Dillman, Drake Fournier, Andrew Heckenlaible, Gershon Henry, Braydon Sellers, Zach Stanton. 

[courtside]

3 future Billikens helped lead U17 St. Louis City to the MLS Next Playoff Quarterfinals, with a 4-2 win over LAFC. (one of the tourney favorites) They will face Real Colorado. (end of the road for Drake Fournier’s team 1-1 in PK’s) Lots of good recruiting at the event.

4-4-2 but playing aggressively like a 4-2-4 across the top at times. Left to right, Delkus, Heard, Glover, Joyner were electric at times. (Delkus has 3 goals and 2 assists in 2 games) Stanton at left center back and Sellers off of the bench in the midfield. 95 humid degrees in mid day Frisco, TX. 

Tough ending for U16’s. Survived a wild first game but lost a close one in the round of 16. (they were one of the tourney favorites) 

[brianstl]

56 minutes ago, courtside said:

3 future Billikens helped lead U17 St. Louis City to the MLS Next Playoff Quarterfinals, with a 4-2 win over LAFC. (one of the tourney favorites) They will face Real Colorado. (end of the road for Drake Fournier’s team 1-1 in PK’s) Lots of good recruiting at the event.

4-4-2 but playing aggressively like a 4-2-4 across the top at times. Left to right, Delkus, Heard, Glover, Joyner were electric at times. (Delkus has 3 goals and 2 assists in 2 games) Stanton at left center back and Sellers off of the bench in the midfield. 95 humid degrees in mid day Frisco, TX. 

Tough ending for U16’s. Survived a wild first game but lost a close one in the round of 16. (they were one of the tourney favorites) 

After the great season they had, going out on PK's is rough.

[courtside]

16 minutes ago, brianstl said:

After the great season they had, going out on PK's is rough.

One benefit of the premature playoff exit in Round of 16 for stlcity U16’s is a deeper bench for U17’s. Carson Locker scored the 3rd goal. (Glover had the 4th a ridiculous individual play, and Joyner had a great header off of a corner) Bench was cleared in the 2nd half with the heat. A few of the younger guys played a little bit. 

LAFC is good. Both teams could have had a few more goals. Fair result as StlCity was the better team yesterday.  

[courtside]

This was a good example of the run of play, especially the first half of the game. 

It all starts with the Joyner steal up to Glover, who squares it to Heard, who lays it off for Delkus. Wings play high but they defend the middle too.

https://twitter.com/MLSNEXT/status/1670977728441376768?t=3sZq8ufTOFvIHHAy65-Ivw&s=19

 

[SluSignGuy]

 

[SluSignGuy]

 

[SLURadioBoy]

Here is the official announcement of their top ranked recruiting class:

https://slubillikens.com/news/2023/7/17/mens-soccer-billikens-announce-top-ranked-recruiting-class.aspx

[MusicCityBilliken]

1 hour ago, SLURadioBoy said:

Here is the official announcement of their top ranked recruiting class:

https://slubillikens.com/news/2023/7/17/mens-soccer-billikens-announce-top-ranked-recruiting-class.aspx

Interesting, several transfers from other A10 schools. Also, a number of international commitments.

I will be at the Lipscomb game in Nashville end of August, will how they blend in.

Lipscomb will be no push-over. I see last years RPI had them at 13th. SLU was 23.

[cgeldmacher]

I guess the transfer rules don't suck if you are at the top of the food chain in a sport.  So, this must be what it feels like to be Duke in basketball.

[courtside]

As a consultant to the process, I can say that much substantive back and forth discussion takes place within the rankings. Pleased to say that the SLU Men’s Soccer 2024 class also has a good chance to be ranked 1st nationally at TDS.

Also pleased to say that after much discussion, the 2023 SLU Women’s Class is receiving deserved overdue ranking recognition. Thus far, 6 players in 2023 class and 6 players in the 2024 class have received recognition. And I expect that number to grow soon.

There are also some other credible growing outlets that do player rankings. It doesn’t win games, but it does has value for marketing purposes. 

[courtside]

6 minutes ago, courtside said:

As a consultant to the process, I can say that much substantive back and forth discussion takes place within the rankings. Pleased to say that the SLU Men’s Soccer 2024 class also has a good chance to be ranked 1st nationally at TDS.

Also pleased to say that after much discussion, the 2023 SLU Women’s Class is receiving deserved overdue ranking recognition. Thus far, 6 players in 2023 class and 6 players in the 2024 class have received recognition. And I expect that number to grow soon.

There are also some other credible growing outlets that do player rankings. It doesn’t win games, but it does has value for marketing purposes. 

It also goes without saying but SLU staff, Men and Women have put in tireless work to achieve these results. 

Kevin, Kevin, (formerly) Kris, and now Jack. Coast to Coast and abroad. 

In the just the past few weeks, SLU Women’s Soccer has been recruiting big events in St. Louis, New Jersey, San Diego, Orlando and more. (Chris, Katie, Jenna)

[Lord Elrond]

4 minutes ago, courtside said:

https://www.stlcitysc.com/news/citypark-to-host-2023-bronze-boot

Tickets go on sale July 31st, let’s sell out the stadium!

[courtside]

SLU has a 2025 commitment from Braden Benyr, from Swansea, IL.

Braden is a center midfielder from St. Louis City Academy, and formerly SLSG Academy. He attends Belleville East High School but he does not play high school soccer.

Skilled on the ball and in tight spaces, Braden is a strong holding midfielder who can tackle, distribute, and get forward on the flanks into the offensive attack.

He has been a St. Louis City Academy club teammate of SLU commits Jackson Delkus, Zach Stanton, and Braydon Sellers. Their U17 team recently advanced to the MLS Next Playoff Quarterfinals. Braden is playing with the UPSL team for St. Louis City Academy this season.

https://twitter.com/bradenbenyr/status/1688566504508346368?s=46&t=TsCCkuE48YmnkWfoKqc_Ng