There’s no place like home (but there might be better places)

I had no interest in staying in Indiana for college. It wasn’t anything against the state, whose (pro) sports teams I still support and which I’m still quite fond of for reasons running the gamut from family to fresh corn on the cob, but I wasn’t a lifer to begin with in the Hoosier State and I knew I wasn’t going to live there long term. There were better college opportunities — and to a 17-year-old mind, more exciting places — than Bloomington, South Bend, Richmond or any of the other towns with liberal arts schools. (West Lafayette was out because, well, Brandon Phillips pretty much summed up how I feel about math and science).

All of which is a roundabout way of saying the notion of protecting recruiting turf has always seemed a little perplexing. Why should kids choosing college necessarily want to stay close to home? Then again, nobody from IU or Notre Dame was sending me letters and calling to tell me how much they wanted me to come be a part of the their history program.

Nevertheless, going local was big in college sports long before it caught on in foodies.

There are 12 states represented by more than one player on this year’s preseason Hermann Watch List (going by the hometown listed for each player), led by California with seven players. Only in the case of Massachusetts, with Boston College’s Kristie Mewis and Northeastern’s Devin Petta, did all of such a state’s products stay home for college. California also came close, losing only Ali Hawkins to North Carolina.
Continue reading “There’s no place like home (but there might be better places)” →

Leslie Osborne and the WNT

All White Kit recently tackled the topic (the only appropriate alliteration for the player in question) of Leslie Osborne’s present absence from and uncertain future with the U.S. national team under Pia Sundhage. After not covering the WNT for a couple of years, I didn’t feel qualified to offer much of an opinion when given the opportunity to put together a feature on Osborne recently (nor would that have been the best venue for one). But even to someone who only recently discovered All White Kit, it’s obvious Jenna has a good feel for Sundhage’s roster machinations.

To me, Osborne is the perfect kind of player for the national team, almost without restriction relative to system (almost, but not completely). To delve into the dangerous language of intangibles, she’s a world-class grinder. As in, she plays like someone who has to rely solely on effort for her soccer survival, but she does with enough natural skill and athleticism to survive on the field against world-class players. As someone put it well recently, she’s going to win the challenge and play a square ball. And then do it again. It’s not fancy; it’s just effective.

Regardless of the sport, you don’t win titles with rosters comprised entirely of those sort of players. You also don’t win titles without a few of them. Lest we forget, this is a player who scored 44 goals in four seasons at Santa Clara and had 17 assists in one season. But as she expressed during the interview process for the feature, she has completely embraced the role of holding midfielder and made it her own.

“I love it,” Osborne said. “Tony [DiCicco], I think, brought me here to play that position. He thought last year that’s what they needed. I love it — but with the national team, [Sundhage] doesn’t play with one holding midfielder. So for the national team, that’s something that doesn’t really fit in with her. But I love playing holding mid. I hope what people would say is I’m a pretty good holding midfielder in this country.”

It’s also worth noting that Osborne said she still has a good relationship with Sundhage, despite her absence from the WNT roster.

All of which is why one paragraph, in particular, in Jenna’s post really caught my eye. Continue reading “Leslie Osborne and the WNT” →

When preseason polls go retro

The NSCAA preseason top 25 came out today. At least, I think it did. Honestly, I’m not entirely convinced they didn’t just change the date on the final poll from last season and recycle it – much like one day’s broccoli in the cafeteria mysteriously become the next day’s cream of broccoli soup (which worries me less than, say, fish sticks the day after sushi).

Ultimately, preseason polls don’t mean a heck of a lot, and as noted when I took my own stab at meaninglessness, the attrition this season makes sorting out the top tier of college teams all the more difficult. There really aren’t any right answers in early August. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to look at the NSCAA poll and believe many voters put much thought into how rosters have changed. The top seven teams are in exactly the same order as in the final poll last season, a rather remarkable bit of continuity considering a short list of the players no longer part of those teams includes: Tobin Heath, Whitney Engen, Casey Nogueira, Kristi Eveland, Ashlyn Harris (theme alert), Kelley O’Hara, Ali Riley, Lauren Cheney, Dea Cook, Kristina Larsen, Michelle Enyeart and Becky Edwards. Only South Carolina fell out of the top 10 between the end of last season and the preseason, dropping from No. 9 all the way to No. 12.

I appreciate the logic that the defending champion remains the champion until someone takes the crown from them (and by extension, College Cup teams remain College Cup teams, quarterfinalists remain quarterfinalists, etc.). You wouldn’t hear me complaining if preseason polls were abolished altogether. But as long as we have them, making them tributes to last season seems a little defeatist, no?

Again, polls don’t strike me as that big a deal, particularly the preseason variety. This isn’t a blood-boiling issue. But polls do play a roll in not only setting the perception of power for the season ahead but skewing surprises. Look back at just about any NCAA tournament bubble in recent seasons, and quality wins count, whether or not they’re officially recognized as selection criteria. And if we have it wrong from the start, getting it right later is only going to be that much more difficult.

Anyway, here is the preseason top 25, NSCAA style.

1. North Carolina
2. Stanford
3. UCLA
4. Notre Dame
5. Portland
6. Florida State
7. Boston College
8. Texas A&M
9. Santa Clara
10. Wake Forest
11. Florida
12. South Carolina
13. Penn State
14. California
15. Virginia Tech
16. Maryland
17. Virginia
18. Rutgers
19. USC
20. Wisconsin
21. Washington State
22. BYU
23. Oklahoma State
24. West Virginia
25. Central Florida

Also receiving votes: LSU, Oregon State, Memphis, San Diego, Marquette, Ohio State, Purdue, Auburn, Georgia, Michigan State, Dayton, Connecticut, Washington

Preseason All-SEC

The SEC released its preseason all-conference team today, listed below. Ashlee Elliott, Katy Frierson and Kayla Grimsley were on the preseason team a year ago. Elliott was also on the 2008 team, as was Kelli Corless.

Of some note for a conference still trying to build its own base, five of the 15 are from out-of-conference states. I’m not sure off the top of my head if that’s high or low, but I’ll be interested to see how that stacks up against other leagues (in terms of the SEC itself, three of 11 members of the 2009 preseason team and six of 12 members of the 2008 preseason team were from outside the league’s geography).

Allysha Chapman, D, LSU, Jr.
Kelli Corless, D, Georgia, Sr.
Taylor Cunningham, M, Ole Miss, Sr.
Ashlee Elliott, M, Florida, Sr.
Katie Fraine, GK, Florida, Sr.
Katy Frierson, M, Auburn, Jr.
Kayla Grimsley, F, South Carolina, Jr.
Chelsea Hatcher, M, Tennessee, Jr.
Molly Kinsella, M, Vanderbilt, Sr.
Brittiny Rhoades, D, South Carolina, Sr.
Meredith Snow, D, Ole Miss, Jr.
Lindsay Thompson, F, Florida, Jr.
Sammy Towne, D, Auburn, Sr.
Erika Tymrak, M, Florida, So.
Kathryn Williamson, D, Florida

Only 116 days until Cary …

It’s the ebb and flow of college sports that every team loses starters from season to season (well, unless the team is Minnesota, which is why this won’t be the last mention of the Gophers, who missed out on the NCAA tournament last fall). All the same, I can’t help feeling like the attrition is particularly noticeable at the top of the soccer pecking order. Maybe it’s because a year ago at this time, the teams coming off College Cup appearances still had most of their biggest stars — Kelley O’Hara, Lauren Cheney, Casey Nogueira, Tobin Heath and Whitney Engen, to name a few.

Fast forward a year and UCLA and North Carolina are each replacing roughly half their starting lineups, while Stanford moves on without last year’s Hermann Trophy winner, O’Hara, in addition to two key parts of its underrated back line in Ali Riley and Alicia Jenkins (at least the fourth College Cup participant, Notre Dame, enjoys more continuity). All of which adds up to a national picture for which the most accurate analysis, at least in my mind, might be a shrug of the shoulders — I wouldn’t pretend to feel confident about knowing what will happen this season.

But the more I look at returning talent and try to get some sense of what incoming freshmen might add to rosters, there’s one team that stands out.

So without further ado, one person’s take on the preseason top 25.

1. Portland
2. Stanford
3. Notre Dame
4. Boston College
5. North Carolina
6. Florida State
7. UCLA
8. Texas A&M
9. Virginia
10. Santa Clara
11. Rutgers
12. Penn State
13. Maryland
14. South Carolina
15. Florida
16. USC
17. Duke
18. Virginia Tech
19. West Virginia
20. Wisconsin
21. Ohio State
22. Minnesota
23. Dayton
24. Wake Forest
25. California