The Beach team does not appear to run very deep.
Not saying anything negative about foreign players but when you have 14 of them like Long Beach one of the challenges (especially early in the season) is getting them all on the same page. I’d expect Arroyo to get this ironed out as the season progresses and they will be a favorite in the Big West.
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Not just foreign players, but also transfers. Takes time to gel.
Going to try and rank the collegiate teams after the first week.
This week’s tournaments included the Triton Invitational, the Rare Air Water Polo Tournament hosted by Air Force, the UCI Invitational, and the Bruno Classic hosted by Brown. Stanford played a one-off game in LA against LMU, while Santa Clara participated in a couple games hosted by UC Merced.
1. UCLA: I don’t think any competent individual would have UCLA anywhere other than No.1. UCLA had the most impressive win of the weekend — beating UCSD team 18–2 in front of a packed crowd. They also had a comfortable 16–6 win against Leyson’s Davis and Navy 20–8. After some conversations with people who attended, it looks like Bode Brinkema had a great weekend. He will have a big role for UCLA this year. This week, UCLA travels to NYC to play Pro Recco and Fordham, Bucknell, George Washington, and CBU at the Princeton Invitational.
2. USC: While USC’s score may not be as impressive as UCLA, I still think they’ve done enough to earn the No.2 ranking for the week. This week, they beat UCSD 10–7, GW 23–9, UCSB 16–10, and SJST 20–13. However, we’ve seen this before with USC. They start slow and typically peak at the right time. Strahinja Krstic is clearly taking time to adjust to the game. However, I still believe they have the pieces to win it all come December. Next week, USC hosts LBSU before playing at Pepperdine Sunday.
3 (T): Stanford: Stanford’s lone game this week was a 15–8 win at LMU. After going up 6–4, they locked in and won 15–8. This was expected, but I think Botond Balogh will be a problem for any team in the country this year. His shot is one of the best in the NCAA and having Gheorghe and Schneider rotating at 2 meters only opens up opportunities for him. Next week, Stanford plays Davis and American River at the Aggie Roundup.
3 (T): Cal: It’s hard to judge teams early in the season with so many moving pieces. However, it’s even harder to judge a team who spent their weekend playing Redlands, Air Force, Salem, and Mount St. Mary’s, beating the teams with a combined score of 100-18. I’m a fan of Cal’s incoming class and it’s clear that Aran Pina is gonna be Cal’s starting goalie. I think he can finish the season as a top five goalie in college water polo. Tomas Perrone will also have a big role for Everist amongst the transfers they’ve got. Next week, Cal hosts CN Marseille and CNAB in exhibition games at home.
5: Fordham: As I said earlier in the thread, I don’t think you can judge Fordham until they play real competition (top 8 — no offense to any supporters of WaterpoloU). This week Fordham beat MIT 20–8, Harvard 15–11, Pacific 18–14, and LIU 25–5. I watched a quarter of Fordham’s game against Pacific and a quarter against Harvard and they are definitely lacking in depth and have to improve the goalie position. They do so well against a team like Harvard because Provenziani and Toth are up on the counter even after getting a 5x6 stop. I’ll be able to better judge them when they play UCLA this coming week. Does anyone know if Princeton plans to stream that game? This week, they play UCLA, FTC, and Santa Clara at the Princeton Invite. They cannot afford to overlook Santa Clara after two exhausting games Saturday.
6: San Jose State: This week, SJST beat UCSB 10–3, LBSU 14–12, La Verne 22–10, and lost to USC 20–13. I need to hear more about what happened against USC — how many of the 20 goals were on Brendon Gyapjas. I suspect probably not a lot. If I had to guess, SJST needs to do a better job of moving in and out of their zones and blocking the lethal shooters on USC. It looks like 6’7 New Zealand international Sam Keightley lived up to expectations with 11 goals and 14 drawn exclusions. This week, SJSU are at Davis and will play Davis and American River.
7: Princeton: I’ll keep this short. Princeton didn’t play anyone this week. They were the only team to not play anyone in the top 20. This week, they play 7 games, including exhibition games against Pro Recco and FTC. During their invite, they play CBU, MSM, Bucknell, Wagner, and Santa Clara. I believe the CWPA preseason poll was underrating Princeton in its initial poll. We’ll know more after they play CBU.
8: UCI: I wouldn’t be upset if people put UCI at 7. However, I wasn’t super convinced with the fashion in which they won their games. However, I am judging this solely based off their scores. They beat LMU and CBU by one, beat Fullerton 15–8 and Concordia 21–7. Cole Francisco had 11 goals and 5 assists. He will be one to watch for UCI — has a great shot and I was super impressed watching him his freshman year. Next weekend, UCI play CBU and Redlands at the Inland Empire Classic.
9: LBSU: This week, LBSU lost to SJSU 14–12 and blew out Pomona, Pitzer, GW, La Verne, and Occidental. The lack of quality wins is why I have them at 9. However, as other people have mentioned in the thread, I believe that Arroyo will get this team to gel as the season progresses and I have them coming out of the Big West. This week, they play at USC and Chapman.
10 (T): Pacific: This week, Pacific beat Iona 18–7, LIU 23–5, Brown 23–15 in an exhibition game? (something to do with RPI probably), and lost to Fordham 18–14. In the part of the game I watched against Fordham, I was super impressed with freshman Apostolos Georgaras. He can score in bunches and he ended the weekend with 13 goals, including five against Fordham. Hungarian freshman Borisz Kasa-Gal had 17, including five against Fordham. We won’t learn anything more about Graham’s team this week as they play the IE Classic against Cal Lutheran, Biola, Redlands, and Occidental.
10 (T); Davis: This week, Davis lost to UCLA 16–6 and beat Pomona Pitzer 14–7, GW 11–9, and Pepperdine 14–10. I considered putting them above Pacific and not tied, but ultimately GW’s blowout loss to LBSU made me skeptical of Davis’s 11–9 win. As aforementioned, I’m super impressed with Leyson and have no doubt that he will have Davis competing for the Big West title. Redshirt sophomore Thomas Kiesling had 5 goals against Pepperdine and I heard good things about the incoming freshman for Davis. They may only go up from here. Unlike most teams, they are testing themselves this coming week with games against Stanford and SJST, both on Saturday at the Aggie Roundup. I wish they gave themselves some more rest.
12: Pepperdine: This week, Pepperdine beat Navy 14–12, Pomona Pitzer 14–8, UCSD 10–9, and lost to Davis 13–10. Pepperdine was missing arguably their best player in Adam Csapo. Once he’s back, I expect the scores to look a lot better for them and can see them easily climbing back into the top 10. Next week, Pepperdine hosts USC on Sunday.
13: CBU: CBU lost to Irvine by one, but beat Chapman 20–3, Concordia and Fullerton by 4 each. Sophomore Andrea Nuzzo led the team with 12 goals and 3 assists, including a hat trick against UCI. CBU travels out east this week, where they will play UCLA, Princeton, and Harvard in a span of 24 hours before ending the weekend with GW on Saturday afternoon. We will learn a lot more about them next week.
14: UCSD: It’s difficult to put a team that lost 18–2 this high, but a 7 goal win vs GW and close losses to Pepperdine and USC make me believe that this team can get past that loss and figure it out. Also, Landon Akerstrom, who I expect to have another incredible year, only played the season opener vs La Verne. I presume he got injured. Once he’s back, the offense should be rejuvenated.
15: LMU: Under new head coach David Carrasco, LMU lost to UCI 14–15, Stanford 15–8, and beat Fullerton 17–14. LMU does not play next week.
After 15, it really does get tough. Navy lost to UCSB, who got embarrassed by GW. Navy went toe to toe with LBSU and Pepp, but couldn’t finish at the end. GW’s 7 goal loss to UCSD has me skeptical as well. Furthermore, Santa Clara also went 2–0 against unranked competition so it’s difficult to gauge where to rank them. I think Brown is also in the 16–20 range and I believe Harvard should drop out of the top 20.
I’d probably go
16. Navy
17. UCSB
18. Santa Clara
19. GW
20. Brown
I’d favor Brown over GW if they played, but can’t justify ranking them higher than GW since GW has the UCSB ranked win this week.
Curious to hear everyone’s thoughts and would love your feedback!
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Looks good to me. Looking forward to UCLA v Fordham this week. UCLA doesn’t typically blow teams out this early in the year, so my opinion of them has gone up if that’s even possible. They have the potential to be in the conversation with the 2015 team but it’s too early to say that.
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Robert Lopez Duarte was named the MPSF player of the week; Strahinja Krstic was named the MPSF newcomer of the week. Krstic drew 8 exclusions in USC’s game against San Jose State.
Elsewhere, Brown center Ilias Stothart may have had the most impressive week, scoring 20 goals in Brown’s three victories. He also scored 8 goals in Brown’s loss to Pacific in Sunday’s exhibition game.
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And while we’re speaking about Ilias Stothart, how about Brian Flacks’ run of centers at Harvard-Westlake: Ben Hallock (Stanford), Felix Brozyna-Vilim (UCLA), Geroge Avakian (Cal), Mot Stothart (Harvard), Ilias Stothart (Brown), and Otto Stothart (Princeton)?
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I think Jack Grover should get most of the positive credit for Otto…
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If we’re really getting technical here, Otto’s age group coach should get the majority of the credit over Flacks & Grover. I know the Stothart’s all had experience playing in Barcelona so I’d credit that as well. At the end of the day, all the people Jeff listed are exceptional athletes and great players who’ve had multiple people help them get where they are
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I agree-
At the high school level it is luck of the draw who comes to your school. He lucked out with Ben. Flacks at the college level has not done well with centers starting with Beck Juraisis, Ike Love, Jack Martin.. All incredibly hyped centers who were top prospects in their class for the center position. And all had less than stellar careers under him.
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I thought Beck lived up to my expectations of what he would be. Didn’t Flacks only coach him for his last year? Wouldn’t that be on the previous coach. Jack Martin has been pretty good and again, Flacks coached him for one season. I never expected much from Ike as his conditioning was never going to be up to speed for big 4 play.
Lol. This is such a bad take for all the reasons that Rbpolo mentioned plus the fact that Ben and Hooper both credit Flacks with developing them into the players they became.
Would add that both Gheorghe and Schneider (both actual recruits of Flacks, unlike Beck/Ike) have played very well in their careers at Stanford so far.
Saying high school is all luck of the draw discounts all the work that the great coaches do to ready those talents for the next level. Does Ross not get any credit for developing Leighty and Castillo to be immediate impact players at UCLA?
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I’m not entirely convinced about Otto. I remember he struggled to stay in the games against tough opponents. The coaches were constantly urging him to pass and to calm him down. Let’s see how he performs in college. I’m curious to see what happens!
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well if yer wanting to say that “ben and Hooper both credit Flacks” then it would seem fair to wonder/ask what Love Martin Beck would say
also I thought the discussion was about sets. Not sure why hooper gets brought up here .
Jeff was talking about sets under Flacks. its a mixed bag at best .
I think Martin would of ended up just fine if he was able to stay on the team. Again, Beck had a pretty solid career. Astute observers were surprised that Ike ended up at Stanford, which was the previous coaches decision. He would of had a more productive career at an Ivy. Lets rate Flacks on how his recruits end up. So far, he’s doing pretty well.
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I believe Juraisis scored a goal against UOP to help Stanford win its championship. That is a good career capper in my book.
Great first 5, agree with those. I would put Princeton 6. Long beach 7., UCI 8 , Davis 9, CBU 10…then it is a crap shoot.
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Where is SJST for you? I’m assuming you missed them by accident… what’s your argument for CBU over Pepperdine? CBU lacks any quality wins and only has a close loss to UCI
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I need to see SJST win over a longer period of time. Last few seasons they have flashes but haven’t learnd to win sustainably. Talent is a important factor, but a team’s culture and ability to get better all year and compete effectively is as or more valuable to me than talent or early season performance. You may be right on Pepp over CBU. CBU has shown a grittiness and ability to get better with a solid coaching staff (lost some key talent though), I am a huge Pepp fan and hope they crash into the top 6, but need to see it.
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SJSU definitely seems like a Top 10 team early on.
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