I do wonder how many legitimately stayed at the game and watched. At this point getting them there is half the battle, but getting students to attend, stay for the whole game, and be there when there isn't an organized extra thing tied to their student club affiliations is a whole other thing.

(10-27-2011 08:28 AM)ReturnOfMommaBear Wrote:  Interesting point, the Athletics Department seems to recognize that sustaining the attendance of students is an issue. Yesterday in the live stream of the Athletics Department forum with Dr. Frank's interview, Jay Sandos made a comment saying that they'd been successful in getting students out to "certain" events but really had not been able to get them back on a game-to-game basis.

I think that's a pretty accurate observation. I've seen lots of students come out for certain games, and they're getting exposed to the sport, but retention has been a real issue. It was pretty apparent today when the bulk of the students among the 1,045 in attendance cheered louder for the freaking homecoming queen than anything the Bucs did on the field. I actually had to put a sizable amount of distance between myself and the Greek kids during halftime, when they were going absolutely bonkers. It was pretty disappointing that they were like well-behaved schoolchildren when the ball was in play. I will say, however, that a good portion (I would say most) stayed until the final whistle, so credit to them for that.

It's a real shame, too, because the game was outstanding. ETSU totally dominated, but all of their attacks fell apart right at the last moment. We out-shot Upstate 12-0 through 36 minutes, but Upstate's first shot went in. We still dominated possession, though (ended up 30-10 in shots) and got a couple of really gritty goals for the win and a berth in the tournament. We'll know who we play after tomorrow.

The women get Mercer again. That ought to be an entertaining match in much warmer weather than the last one between the two...

Bucs beat Jacksonville 2-0 in the first round of the tournament. David Haba with both goals - his first two of the year. He hadn't played in a while before last night, kinda wondered where he went.

That was the best I've seen them play in a long, long while, maybe all season. They rose to the occasion, and Doumbe, Schoenfeld, Geno and Haba were giving them fits all night. It really should have been 3-0 or 4-0; Schoenfeld got absolutely robbed on a breakaway, and Doumbe got hauled down on a late breakaway for the easiest booking of the night - straight red.

Also took in the Mercer-Lipscomb game earlier that afternoon. I don't know why, but I just like seeing Lipscomb lose in any sport, especially with a dramatic comeback like the one Mercer had. They won it on a perfectly executed set piece from about 50 yards out. The better team most definitely won, although leaving it to the last 15 minutes like that probably cost their coach a little hair.

How is the NCAA soccer champion determined? Is it like basketball where there is a tournament and you have automatic and at-large teams in it???

(11-10-2011 10:37 AM)etsuBucsFan1988 Wrote:  How is the NCAA soccer champion determined? Is it like basketball where there is a tournament and you have automatic and at-large teams in it???

Yep, every sport except FBS football uses a tournament to determine its national champion, and they're all set up essentially the same way, although several conferences (notably the SEC, Big XII, and Sun Belt) don't sponsor men's soccer. Programs in those conferences play elsewhere as affiliate members. South Carolina and Kentucky, for example, play in C-USA.

While I'm at it, I'll turn this into a primer for the sport...

Men's soccer is actually the fourth most common team sport for male athletes in Division I:

Basketball - 344
Baseball - 300
Football - 226
Soccer - 203
Lacrosse - 61
Ice Hockey - 58 (57 after this year; Alabama-Huntsville is dropping to club status)
Volleyball - 23 (plays in a unified championship with D-II and D-III, about 65 schools in total)

Attendance isn't great for most schools, but it's getting better. UC Santa Barbara hosted the College Cup last year in addition to setting the NCAA attendance record by drawing 5,873 fans on the average, including 15,896 for UCLA and 11,242 for Duke. Louisville drew 7,800+ for its game against UCLA earlier this year; College of Charleston broke its attendance record with 2,200 for their tilt with South Carolina; and Bowling Green tripled its attendance record when it hosted Michigan earlier this year with 2,100 fans. 30 teams drew four-digit averages in 2010 and more will likely hit that mark this year.

The most dominant conferences are on the coasts. The ACC, Big East, and Big West, with the C-USA throwing a few good teams out there every year, as well. The CAA also tends to be good enough to make a little noise, as do the SoCon, Ivy League, Big Ten, and MAC (the latter producing last year's champions, Akron). The A-10 and MAAC are usually lousy (although UNC-Charlotte has been great this year), the Big South is atrocious outside of an excellent program at Coastal, and the Horizon, Summit, and Patriot Leagues are all pretty poor.

The A-Sun as a soccer conference is a bit of a mixed bag. There are three teams in the top 100 this year: FGCU (50), us (75), and Stetson (85), and Jacksonville was there last year (116 this year). The rest of the conference is pretty brutal, though, with three teams in the bottom 25 and quite possibly the worst team in the country in North Florida (201), who went 1-15 and scored 6 goals all year. And just to show you how lucky we are to be in the conference tournament, two of those goals came against us.

If anyone has specific questions, I'd be glad to try and answer them.

(11-10-2011 04:50 PM)Mister Consistency Wrote:  

(11-10-2011 10:37 AM)etsuBucsFan1988 Wrote:  How is the NCAA soccer champion determined? Is it like basketball where there is a tournament and you have automatic and at-large teams in it???

Yep, every sport except FBS football uses a tournament to determine its national champion, and they're all set up essentially the same way, although several conferences (notably the SEC, Big XII, and Sun Belt) don't sponsor men's soccer. Programs in those conferences play elsewhere as affiliate members. South Carolina and Kentucky, for example, play in C-USA.

While I'm at it, I'll turn this into a primer for the sport...

Men's soccer is actually the fourth most common team sport for male athletes in Division I:

Basketball - 344
Baseball - 300
Football - 226
Soccer - 203
Lacrosse - 61
Ice Hockey - 58 (57 after this year; Alabama-Huntsville is dropping to club status)
Volleyball - 23 (plays in a unified championship with D-II and D-III, about 65 schools in total)

Attendance isn't great for most schools, but it's getting better. UC Santa Barbara hosted the College Cup last year in addition to setting the NCAA attendance record by drawing 5,873 fans on the average, including 15,896 for UCLA and 11,242 for Duke. Louisville drew 7,800+ for its game against UCLA earlier this year; College of Charleston broke its attendance record with 2,200 for their tilt with South Carolina; and Bowling Green tripled its attendance record when it hosted Michigan earlier this year with 2,100 fans. 30 teams drew four-digit averages in 2010 and more will likely hit that mark this year.

The most dominant conferences are on the coasts. The ACC, Big East, and Big West, with the C-USA throwing a few good teams out there every year, as well. The CAA also tends to be good enough to make a little noise, as do the SoCon, Ivy League, Big Ten, and MAC (the latter producing last year's champions, Akron). The A-10 and MAAC are usually lousy (although UNC-Charlotte has been great this year), the Big South is atrocious outside of an excellent program at Coastal, and the Horizon, Summit, and Patriot Leagues are all pretty poor.

The A-Sun as a soccer conference is a bit of a mixed bag. There are three teams in the top 100 this year: FGCU (50), us (75), and Stetson (85), and Jacksonville was there last year (116 this year). The rest of the conference is pretty brutal, though, with three teams in the bottom 25 and quite possibly the worst team in the country in North Florida (201), who went 1-15 and scored 6 goals all year. And just to show you how lucky we are to be in the conference tournament, two of those goals came against us.

If anyone has specific questions, I'd be glad to try and answer them.

Thanks. Your post is very informative. I kind of wonder why UNF is so poor. It seems llike there are a lot of decent high school programs in NE Florida and at least one developmental club that gives players a chance to work on their game in the summer.

Congrats on the shootout win over our Hatters. Sounded like a downright nutty game. I followed all the updates on Twitter from both schools and the conference before being all AWWWW RATFARTS!! at the end.

Love or hate soccer, that game was everything we love about sports. Quality teams, momentum swings, maximum effort, and absolutely dramatic finish. Unbelievable. If we get the win in the championship game, we will be the team no one wants to draw in the first round of the NCAA tourney.

I have no words; at least, none that do it justice. It was THE defining moment of the season.

What happened tonight was absolutely incredible. To go down 2-0 eight minutes in, then battle back and take a 3-2 lead only to give it away with an own goal in the final minute and then win it on penalties... just... I really don't know what to say. It was the greatest athletic event I've witnessed in my two-and-change years at ETSU. Coulter stood on his head and stopped three of the best players in the Atlantic Sun, including the Player of the Year, in the shootout (that stop on Mendoza was also to keep the match going). The whole team just worked their tails off to the point that I wonder if they've got anything left for Gulf Coast on Sunday.

There might have been a smidge over 500 people there, but they were as active and as energetic as a crowd twice that size, especially once Doumbe got us on the board with an early Christmas present from Stetson's defense. Over half of that was students, and they REALLY got into it. They heckled Mendoza all night and created a great environment.

It all comes down to Sunday. All the straight reds and missed shots are forgiven if they beat Gulf Coast again and get back to the tournament.

I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep. I'm not sure it even happened yet. I'll have to wait for the highlights to show up on the Website.

(11-11-2011 09:07 AM)OldGrayDog Wrote:  Thanks. Your post is very informative. I kind of wonder why UNF is so poor. It seems llike there are a lot of decent high school programs in NE Florida and at least one developmental club that gives players a chance to work on their game in the summer.

Part of it is coaching. Derek Marinatos was hired last December and, from what I understand, ran off most of the upperclassmen and fielded a bunch of local kids. That would help explain why the team played so poorly.

Another part of it is networking. If you can't get games against quality opposition or find good recruits, it's tough to build a strong program, even if you have a good coach. Calabrese has a great network in Texas that has produced five starters (Woodruff, Osorio, Westbrook, Doumbe, Fubara). He built a great set of contacts during his time as an assistant in the ACC that he has leveraged into games against VA Tech, Clemson, and Elmar Bolowich's North Carolina, among others. If he didn't have those contacts, we would be playing Big South schools in most of our non-conference games and travelling to bigger schools all the time.

Everything else is there for them: great weather year-round, good facilities, lots of Premier Development League teams in Florida and Georgia, but Marinatos is going to have his work cut out for him down there.