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DaneFan2k3

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  1. NICE photo caption Head Football Coach Bob Ford speaks to the press as members of the SUNYA football team walk on to the practice field Thursday. (Skip Dickstein / Times Union)
  2. Have been away for a while, out of the country but watching from afar. Funny stuff. Honestly, if he doesn't get released and must sit out a year and pay his own way ... I would not be surprised to see him jam it up Siena's ass and transfer to UAlbany. The in-state tuition is affordable, he already lives in the Albany area so he wouldn't have to move and incur too much cost. He could just go about his business taking classes, jamming the ball in intramurals, getting into open runs around the city, biding his time.
  3. I believe you can't lock the kid in for life ... he would just have to sit for two years instead of one if you don't give him the release. I could be wrong. Trust me, Duquesne is not a "higher level" than Siena, though. The competition they play probably is, in some respects (their league), but he'd be walking into a great black hole in Pittsburgh. They'd be tied with St. Bonaventure if and when the A-10 school presidents got some balls and voted 2-4 teams out of that over-sized, bloated league.
  4. First I'll say that 96's post was well-written and well-thought out. However, then I'll come right back and say I'm sorry, but you're a "homer" and I disagree with you. You're an older male who loves UAlbany. All of those things (older, male, UAlbany grad) cloud your judgment here. You're talking about 17- and 18-year-old girls here. Girls, women, whatever you want to call them. In some cases, they really are 'girls' and not women. If you think back to some of the impressionable freshmen that you probably encountered during freshman year, you'll know why any type of these "team" parties can't be tolerated. They might not meet the strictest definitions of "hazing," per se, but they're damaging in their own ways. If a young woman did not want to attend this team party, you can be sure that she knows, whether directly from someone's mouth or implied, she will be an "outcast." It's all about peer pressure. This is the part where many people will stop to read, because we are (mostly) men and peer pressure isn't jack. But for young women, trying to fit in at a new school, trying to form new friendships with your teammates, and also, earn some respect and playing time ... peer pressure can be overwhelming. You know that if you do not attend the team function, you're not going to be "in." If you don't lick the men's lacrosse player's cheek (there I said it), then you're not "in." If you don't drink copious amounts, regardless of whether or not you'd normally drink at all, you're not "in". So while I understand that some people don't consider this painful and true "hazing," it's hazing nonetheless and just as dangerous. I think Mr. Etkin's column was a bit over the top, but he made the point he was trying to make: even some of these girls don't realize what is going on.
  5. Gered Burns makes the eight-man final, therefore an All-American. Different from our I-AA football All-Americans, as well as Blair Buchanan and in lacrosse ... those are all voter-based All-American teams. In track, it's all purely results-based. Also, this makes him (I believe) the first to ever compete for a national championship tomorrow. PS - yes I still read the board from time to time, and no, I don't post any more because I'm way out of touch (usually out of touch with the entire internet for long stretches).
  6. He was offered the director of basketball operations job - which is the non-coaching, non-traveling position. He chose UAlbany to be the top assistant and be able to recruit and travel.
  7. If you root for Siena, you are actually doing any supposedly rivalry a disservice. Do Duke fans root for the Tar Heels? No, they do not. Do Xavier fans root for Cincinnati? Only if the competition is racking up DUI's by a coaching staff ... I think you get my drift. That is like saying you can root for the Mets and the Yankees ... they're not in the same league, but you can't do that. It's just not right. If you root for Siena, you're making UAlbany look soft and basically admitting that Siena has been the big dog in town for X number of years. Whether true or not, the attitude now has to be, 'I don't care about your past' (which, let's get real here, isn't that great anyhow, it's just been the only alternative in this area. They are and have been a good low-major team. It's just that UAlbany has been a good DIII or DII team for most of that time period.) Especially in a city like Albany, there is only so much disposable income to go around - you should want all of that money going to the Great Danes. Otherwise, they will never reach their full potential.
  8. Well although I'm sure you'd like to prove it on the court, Kansas is better at 15-14 than UAlbany is at 28-4. It's their big wins. It's all about who you play. The America East it too weak to draw two teams, that's the bottom line. Kelly would have to play all top 25 schools and have success, then combine that with a good league record to earn an at-large berth. Kansas is ranked 51st overall in the fake RPI, which attempts to mirror the real RPI but isn't exact. The Jayhawks had 8 "top" wins over Alabama (39), Michigan State (69), Temple (74), Texas A&M (49), Baylor (105), Colorado (40), K-State (26), Texas Tech (107). Marginal Wins (5): Montana State (121), Saint Louis (118), VCU (115), Oklahoma (145), Oklahoma again (145). They only had two truly cheap wins, UMKC (250) and Utah Valley State (206). Their 14 losses came to BYU (16), Texas (21), Texas Tech (107), K-State (26), Nebraska (2), Missouri (8), Iowa State (65), Baylor (105), Nebraska again (2), Texas (21), Colorado (40), Texas A&M (49), Missouri again (8), Iowa State (65). That is exactly zero truly "bad" losses. If you want to say you shouldn't lose to anyone lower than you, fine, that is four bad losses, but all to teams in the top 107 teams. Albany's schedule was littered with "cheap" wins, and that's the bottom line. 18 out of 28, to be exact: Buffalo (188), Morgan State (277), Texas State (162), Iona (226), Liberty (211), Fairfield (171), Columbia (187), Stony Brook (194), Siena (158), New Hampshire (241), Hartford (296), UMBC (228), Maine (200), UMBC (228), Stony Brook (194), New Hampshire again (241), Maine again (200), Hartford again (296). Marinals (3): Penn (144), Seton Hall (138), Binghamton (122). You could count 7 truly good wins against Virginia (68), Appalachian State (104), Temple (74), Long Island (98), Long Island again (98), UConn (114), Syracuse (46). The only of those ranked ahead of UAlbany, which is huge for the selection committee, is Cuse. Ohio and Cal, the "statement" games vs. the Top 25? Lost both. Add in two "bad" losses to Binghamton and Stony Brook (122, 194). And now you're out.
  9. There is no chance for an at-large bid if you are not a top 25 team or receiving votes in volleyball. I would put the chances at 1%. Entire conferences out west make it, meaning that only one has the auto and the rest are all at-large.
  10. I'm not sure how you can discount the fact that the players were not recruited by her, especially when combined with the fact she hasn't recruited players near that level in the time since. You can say 'ok Mari recruited them but Trina made them good', and that carries some weight. But then if Trina is such a good X's and O's coach and can turn all this talent around, why haven't the current recruits (under her watch) turned it around and become the types of players that Mari's crew became? I feel like she inherited a team with much more talent and potential than Will inherited, but he was able to turn it around and get the men's team in a position that the women's has never been in - conference favorites. He may or may not live up to that expectation, but, he got them to that point with his own players. And if he is dismissed, I think he's leaving the next coach something good to work with, just like Mari Warner did. Warner's team chemistry might have been lacking, but if we're going to have a coach that can't recruit, what good is team chemistry? I just don't see the same talent level on the team now as there was in the past. Maybe that will change, or maybe I'm just wrong and the talent is there. Bottom line: Ditto for me.
  11. Banda went to a Final Four with UMass, possibly a couple of Final Fours. If you can't play for him, maybe you shouldn't be playing. Unless he completely lost his mind, but I dont know.
  12. Maybe it was Will voting for them, knowing he hurt BU's chances and boosted his own for the preseason #1 ranking ... or visa versa, it could have been BU not wanting to vote for us to boost their own chances. I think this poll illustrates why the women's team needs new leadership. Will has moved the men into an enviable position, while Trina has taken what used to be a good and talented team (not her players, mind you) and flushed it down the toilet to a #8 ranking.
  13. Agreed. I in part missed your point. My sub-point was that women's soccer is one of the toughest sports, if not the toughest, to get REALLY good at. Whereas with field hockey and lacrosse, I think it's more feasible to get really good quicker because you're dealing with 100-200 teams instead of 300+. I can't answer why we don't compete with teams that should be on our level. I wouldn't want to come play for a team with our record. At some point you just have to invest a lot of money into the program, and get one really good recruiting class, weed out the upperclassmen (who probably won't like the fact you're bringing in 10-11 frosh to take their spots), and just make a huge press to get it turned around. Talk to 30 girls at once and say hey, we haven't done it right in the past, but if we can get 10 or 11 of you to all commit here together, we'll turn it around in your four years and be a good team. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't (and maybe it sounds easier than it is to say that).
  14. In theory yes, but if you're a top soccer player, and every school is throwing top dollar at you, then where are you going to go to school? And, more importantly, if you're only a borderline "top" player ... and UA throws good money at you but North Carolina (like 20-time National Champion) tells you that you can walk-on or throws books or a couple hundred at you ... Sorry, but UA doesn't compete for those types of players. Abby Wambach, who plays for the US National Team, is from Rochester. She's a really good player for the U.S. team, one of the best up-and-coming players. Did she go to Binghamton, UB, UAlbany, Stony Brook, Siena, or even Syracuse? No, she went to Florida because they are a good soccer school. She chose them over North Carolina and Notre Dame, also great soccer schools. Being in the Northeast also plays a factor; if you don't have the Carrier Dome you're going to be hard-pressed to get the top talent to come and play for your school, when they know their late-season games could be into a stiff wind in 45 degree weather (and the corresponding amount of fans that come with that weather). The point is, UAlbany's best players have traditionally been players who would be second-stringers at the top schools, or may not even make the teams (when speaking of the Final Four calibur schools). Part of the reasoning behind it is that you have 300 schools competing for a shallower pool of talent. If 300 women's soccer teams have at least 22 players apiece, that is 6,600 players. At the D-I level alone. Add in the girls who don't care to play at D-I and like a D-II or D-III school better (or in some cases the D-II school offers more money) and you're talking about spreading that talent THIN. Once you factor in the fact that the top 50 schools basically pick-and-choose their ladies, you've removed probably the top 800 or 1,000 players. And out of the remains come some dog teams, like UAlbany.
  15. The talent pool in women's sports is decidedly smaller than in men's sports. You've seen the men's team at UAlbany have more success by recruiting players from overseas, but, since women's sports don't enjoy the type of success over there as they do here, there are not international women to really choose from. Thus, you have a pool of girls, mainly from the U.S., already smaller to begin with, and then the top programs generally are able to stock their teams top to bottom with 20 premier players. Figure the top 50 teams each have 15 players (average, some have 20, some have 10) that are worthy, and you're talking about the top 750 girls being gone pretty quickly. That would be the top 15 players from each state. Now you're starting to get down into the girls playing at smaller schools, without the coaching and experience needed to make an impact at the D-I level. Combine that with the fact that you're 4-and-terrible over how many years, and you're not even getting your pick of the "second tier". You're looking mainly at the bottom of that second tier and even third tier level players. Whereas with hoops, you have only 13 players per team, vs. 20+, and the fact that hoops offers full scholarships ... thus it's easier to get good at hoops faster than women's soccer. Even softball, where you probably only need to give out full rides to maybe six good players (three pitchers, three hitters) and then fill in around them with some talent ... and volleyball you also give out full rides at most D-I schools. Lacrosse is different, and field hockey, because you have far fewer D-I schools playing those sports. W. Soccer probably has nearly a full compliment of 300 schools, vs. about 100 for field hockey and probably around teh same for women's lacrosse ...
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