Photo by: Big 12 Conference
Fall-Spring Women’s Soccer Season Presenting Unique Challenges for WVU
October 09, 2020 09:00 AM | Women's Soccer, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Nikki Izzo-Brown is a notorious planner. You don't win 350-plus career matches and take teams to the NCAA Tournament 20 straight times without having some sort of plan.
But this year, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced her to wing it, and she will likely continue winging it when the fall season carries over into next spring.
Three weeks ago, the NCAA announced it will conduct its 2020 Women's College Cup May 13-17, 2021. This year's tournament field will consist of 48 teams, 16 fewer than normal, made up of 31 automatic qualifiers and 17 at-large picks.
Regular season spring competition will begin Feb. 3 and will continue through April 17 before the tournament field is picked on Sunday, April 18, 2021.
Presently, the Big 12 is one of three Power 5 conferences playing fall matches. The other two are the ACC and SEC. Those three conferences basically make up this week's Top 15 poll.
The Mountaineers check in at No. 9 ahead of tonight's match at 0-1-2 Texas Tech, a preseason pick to win the Big 12.
Although there are still many unknowns, including what the Big 12 will ultimately decide to do about its postseason tournament, Izzo-Brown knows a strong fall season will at least set her team up in the spring.
These nine matches are definitely going to have a bearing on what happens during the championship season in the spring.
"We're kind of taking it day by day, but we know how important the last five conference games are because they do matter and it does line us up for the NCAA Tournament," Izzo-Brown said Wednesday afternoon via video conference. "All of a sudden it was a quick shift to like, 'Wait a minute, these games do count and let's get ourselves together.' It's not spring switching to fall, it's fall and now spring counts."
What this fully means is still yet to be determined. Izzo-Brown just doesn't know for sure.
"Going into the spring games, it's going to be interesting," she admitted. "It's uncharted territory. How is this all going to work? It's very encouraging the NCAA has said we are going to have a championship. Obviously, it's less teams and it will be interesting how it all plays out and how they are going to get games in and make it as fair as they can.
"My hope is we take this opportunity, we go with it and we make the best spring championship season we can," she added.
So, what does a carryover to a spring season mean for West Virginia?
No. 1, it means the Mountaineers will have roughly a 75-day window to get its 10 remaining allowable matches in before a tournament field is selected in mid-April. In reality, the window is likely closer to 50 days because playing February matches in the Northeast is going to be extremely unlikely.
One February home match in poor weather could potentially ruin the Dick Dlesk Stadium playing surface for the remainder of the spring season.
Another issue will be scheduling quality non-conference opponents.
Before the pandemic canceled the non-conference portion of West Virginia's schedule, Izzo-Brown once again loaded up on Big Ten, Pac 12 and ACC powerhouses to give her team the necessary strength of schedule it needed in case it slipped up in conference play.
For years, Izzo-Brown has always used a strong non-conference schedule to her advantage.
Will she be able to do that this spring with the Big Ten and Pac 12 playing catch up? Or will the Mountaineers be forced to play a more geographically skewed schedule next the spring because of the economic effects of the pandemic?
Will Izzo-Brown even have her full roster then? The NWSL professional draft was held during the third week of January last year and West Virginia, like many of college soccer's top programs, recruits professional-caliber players.
Fortunately, Izzo-Brown only has one senior (Stefany Ferrer-vanGinkel) on her roster.
"Typically, what we've been doing here is we're bringing in kids to be pros, so what we try and do is get them out for the January window and right now (the spring season) puts these kids in a pickle," Izzo-Brown explained. "Do you go pro? Do you stay and have a championship season? My best advice is if it means you've got to go be a pro, then you've got to go be a pro. You've got to do what's best for you."
And, how will her young team respond after a three-month layoff from competition?
"It's going to have to be a very all-in-type of commitment from the girls," Izzo-Brown said. "The teams that aren't playing are still developing, and so are we, and how does that break work? We've got to figure that out without putting our kids in a bad position."
Last year, West Virginia finished fourth in the Big 12 regular-season standings and lost to Kansas in the conference tournament. The Mountaineers got an at-large bid based on their strong RPI and strong non-conference schedule.
Will a fourth place finish in the Big 12 be good enough to get in a 48-team NCAA Tournament Field next spring? Probably not with just 17 at-large bids being awarded this spring.
That's why these remaining five conference matches are so vitally important. Right now, West Virginia is tied with 3-0 Kansas in second place, one point behind 3-0-1 Oklahoma State with 10 points.
Three of the five remaining matches are against teams that have yet to win a conference game. The big one is looming later this month when No. 5 Kansas plays at Dick Dlesk Stadium on Friday, Oct. 30.
A fall-concluding match at 2-0-1 TCU, ranked No. 12 this week, on Friday, Nov. 6 is another red-letter match on the schedule.
"It's the wild, wild West; everything goes," Izzo-Brown said. "It's like nothing I've ever experienced and I hope it's something we never experience again.
"We can only control the games right now and what's ahead of us and staying safe. We're going to continue to do that until we get some more guidance on what a spring season is going to look like," she concluded.
Which means a lot more winging it for a notorious planner.
But this year, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced her to wing it, and she will likely continue winging it when the fall season carries over into next spring.
Three weeks ago, the NCAA announced it will conduct its 2020 Women's College Cup May 13-17, 2021. This year's tournament field will consist of 48 teams, 16 fewer than normal, made up of 31 automatic qualifiers and 17 at-large picks.
Regular season spring competition will begin Feb. 3 and will continue through April 17 before the tournament field is picked on Sunday, April 18, 2021.
Presently, the Big 12 is one of three Power 5 conferences playing fall matches. The other two are the ACC and SEC. Those three conferences basically make up this week's Top 15 poll.
The Mountaineers check in at No. 9 ahead of tonight's match at 0-1-2 Texas Tech, a preseason pick to win the Big 12.
Although there are still many unknowns, including what the Big 12 will ultimately decide to do about its postseason tournament, Izzo-Brown knows a strong fall season will at least set her team up in the spring.
These nine matches are definitely going to have a bearing on what happens during the championship season in the spring.
"We're kind of taking it day by day, but we know how important the last five conference games are because they do matter and it does line us up for the NCAA Tournament," Izzo-Brown said Wednesday afternoon via video conference. "All of a sudden it was a quick shift to like, 'Wait a minute, these games do count and let's get ourselves together.' It's not spring switching to fall, it's fall and now spring counts."
What this fully means is still yet to be determined. Izzo-Brown just doesn't know for sure.
"Going into the spring games, it's going to be interesting," she admitted. "It's uncharted territory. How is this all going to work? It's very encouraging the NCAA has said we are going to have a championship. Obviously, it's less teams and it will be interesting how it all plays out and how they are going to get games in and make it as fair as they can.
"My hope is we take this opportunity, we go with it and we make the best spring championship season we can," she added.
So, what does a carryover to a spring season mean for West Virginia?
No. 1, it means the Mountaineers will have roughly a 75-day window to get its 10 remaining allowable matches in before a tournament field is selected in mid-April. In reality, the window is likely closer to 50 days because playing February matches in the Northeast is going to be extremely unlikely.
One February home match in poor weather could potentially ruin the Dick Dlesk Stadium playing surface for the remainder of the spring season.
Another issue will be scheduling quality non-conference opponents.
Before the pandemic canceled the non-conference portion of West Virginia's schedule, Izzo-Brown once again loaded up on Big Ten, Pac 12 and ACC powerhouses to give her team the necessary strength of schedule it needed in case it slipped up in conference play.
For years, Izzo-Brown has always used a strong non-conference schedule to her advantage.
Will she be able to do that this spring with the Big Ten and Pac 12 playing catch up? Or will the Mountaineers be forced to play a more geographically skewed schedule next the spring because of the economic effects of the pandemic?
Will Izzo-Brown even have her full roster then? The NWSL professional draft was held during the third week of January last year and West Virginia, like many of college soccer's top programs, recruits professional-caliber players.
Fortunately, Izzo-Brown only has one senior (Stefany Ferrer-vanGinkel) on her roster.
"Typically, what we've been doing here is we're bringing in kids to be pros, so what we try and do is get them out for the January window and right now (the spring season) puts these kids in a pickle," Izzo-Brown explained. "Do you go pro? Do you stay and have a championship season? My best advice is if it means you've got to go be a pro, then you've got to go be a pro. You've got to do what's best for you."
And, how will her young team respond after a three-month layoff from competition?
"It's going to have to be a very all-in-type of commitment from the girls," Izzo-Brown said. "The teams that aren't playing are still developing, and so are we, and how does that break work? We've got to figure that out without putting our kids in a bad position."
Last year, West Virginia finished fourth in the Big 12 regular-season standings and lost to Kansas in the conference tournament. The Mountaineers got an at-large bid based on their strong RPI and strong non-conference schedule.
Will a fourth place finish in the Big 12 be good enough to get in a 48-team NCAA Tournament Field next spring? Probably not with just 17 at-large bids being awarded this spring.
That's why these remaining five conference matches are so vitally important. Right now, West Virginia is tied with 3-0 Kansas in second place, one point behind 3-0-1 Oklahoma State with 10 points.
Three of the five remaining matches are against teams that have yet to win a conference game. The big one is looming later this month when No. 5 Kansas plays at Dick Dlesk Stadium on Friday, Oct. 30.
A fall-concluding match at 2-0-1 TCU, ranked No. 12 this week, on Friday, Nov. 6 is another red-letter match on the schedule.
"It's the wild, wild West; everything goes," Izzo-Brown said. "It's like nothing I've ever experienced and I hope it's something we never experience again.
"We can only control the games right now and what's ahead of us and staying safe. We're going to continue to do that until we get some more guidance on what a spring season is going to look like," she concluded.
Which means a lot more winging it for a notorious planner.
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MF
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