2018 CUSA Women's Soccer Tourney Info/Results

[MeanGreenTexan]

9 hours ago, Travis said:

This was not a talent difference. Simply watch the game. It was completely a tactic and strategy difference. It doesn’t matter who we play in the tournament, they will all be good. We have had lucky draws before against the likes of Tech and SMU and Hedlund still never delivered.  Again, philosophy results have always struck its ugly head because this style will never win tourney games when you are up against a strong possession team that uses the midefilwd as it is intended. I said this about 10 years ago and I continue to be correct. I was really hoping to be wrong this year because our team is far more athletic than years past. 

 A good midfield is like solid offensive and defensive lines... if they do well, the teams likely do well. Our philosophy doesn’t use them as we should. Just a bunch of Hail Mary’s. 

But what do I know? I have only played competitively most of my life while also coaching (and officiating) for about 8 years. 

I did watch the game.  And I played on the club team while I was there.  You ain’t the only one with knowledge.

They have the horses to play possessive ball.  We play their game & we get smoked.

Instead, the long ball counter style of play with a strong back line gives us a punchers chance against a team like A&M (just takes 1 defensive gaffe to score),  and allows us to dominate lesser teams.

I don’t remember the SMU game, but the 2015 draw was against the BIG 12 champ Texas Tech squad, & we lost the greatest keeper we’ve ever had to injury minutes before the game started.

The style of play is fine.  No one likes to play us, and I’m sure that’s exactly how Coach Hedlund wants it.

[Travis]

16 hours ago, blurbeard said:

On advancing in the NCAA tournament, it's more about the draw then the direct system UNT plays. If you watch enough womens college soccer UNT, Baylor and Arkansas are identical with the way they play. Very direct, utilize their speed/ athletes and extremely physical...when you read alot of the coaches game quotes, most schools hate playing these three schools in particular and all three teams consistently lead in fouls/cards each year! Now the question is can you win in this tournament with a direct system? Yes... Baylor with a little luck last year went all the way to the Elite 8 and won the Big 12 this year and Arkansas won last night, although it was UALR but they have advanced in recent years. Arkansas also got to the SEC championship game the last two years. The only diference I see in these three programs is Baylor and Arkansas have more depth then UNT but hopefully with the new stadium Hedlund can build his depth instead of relying solely on his starters! Now as far as A&M, they get the best talent out of Texas every year (5 star recruits) Very silly to say the talent is the same because its not even close! Hedlund finds athletes with speed and fits them into his system to counter these national type players he cannot get. A&M was ranked as high as #3 in the country this year...that's the talent they have, if your read the box score,  Emmitt Smith's daughter couldn't even get off the bench last night, that's how deep they're. So what our women did last night to almost steal a win against that team/environment was simply amazing and they should be commended not torn down! I believe this program will advance someday when they start hosting or their draw becomes more fair to their RPI...this year they got screwed and right now all the NCAA committee is doing is throwing us to the wolves!

This is a fun discussion and I loved hearing your thoughts. I would first add that I don’t see us ripping the girls  I see this as an attack on tactics. I feel it was made quite clear that we see our team as the best it has ever been. Any complaint regarding the girls has been in regards to strategy and that I simply don’t believe we are being put in the best position to win. I don’t think anyone is knocking on the success Hedlund has had here. But I do think he needs to tweak his style to take us to the next level. 

I would still say it was most definitely style that got us beat the other night instead of draw. A good possession team will beat a good long ball team most every time. And that certainly was the case again. I can’t speak to Arkansas or Baylor and frankly don’t really care about them. The only times I have seen them play is when they played us in the past and I never thought they played long ball like we do. Regarding their success,  I do not know who they played and how the other team plays strategically when they played them. That all matters.  Playing tough and physical has little to do with long ball (or as you like to call it- direct) or possession as I have seen both possession teams and long ball style teams to be physical and others weak.  Generally, for long ball, speed matters most and a whole lot of luck with the ball bouncing their way. If they played a solid possession team, the chances are they would lose. That is how it goes at most every level of football. That is how it has gone everytime we have played in the tournament.

There was nothing I saw from the aTm game that showed me they were just better athletes (except for maybe our starting forward and another mid or two was simply tiny compared to their backline).

I stand by what I said. We have played better draws and ended up with the same result with lesser teams like Texas Tech and SMU in the past. We will always play good teams in the tournament, so draw doesn’t/shouldn’t matter so much to me with a team like we had this year. It isnt draw. It is style. We have to change our tactics to increase our chances of winning.  If I had the time, I would actually break down game video to prove why we didn’t increase our scoring opportunities due to how we moved the ball and it had nothing to do with the other team being better athletes. There were so many things we could have done differently that would have really opened things up. 

Edited November 11, 2018 by Travis