aphilso1

I'll say it again. We should have a home stadium in Anchorage specifically for when we play Mexico.

True. He's also even played some minutes at RB for Chelsea. Pulisic is certainly versatile, but in this system his best positions (in order) are 10, 7, 11, 8. Gregg seems to want more of a traditional target center at the #9...which actually makes me think that if he is healthy before Qatar, that Altidore will be the second striker on the roster to go along with Pepi. I do like the thought of trying Pulisic out as a false 9. But my projections are trying to forecast who Gregg selects for the WC 23-man roster, not what I would personally like to see. And I feel like that is something that if Gregg was going to try out, he probably would have done it already.

OK @Keenan9595 I've thought through our player pool a bit more at the positions in question. Wingers (7/11) Pulisic Weah Reyna Aaronsen Morris Hoppe Arriola Zardes Attacking Mid (10) Pulisic Reyna Musah De La Torre Busio Box-to-box Mid (8) McKennie Pulisic Eryk Williamson (out w/torn ACL) Acosta De La Torre??? Roldan LLetget Busio A 23-man roster means roughly two players per position (4 wingers total), but obviously guys that are flexible make that a bit more messy. Pulisic, for example, is our best winger, best #10, and probably second best #8. Reyna is just a step behind him at winger and #10. If Musah continues to progress and we have Pulisic and Reyna available too, I don't see the need to dip any deeper into the player pool for attacking mid. As for true wingers, Weah and Aaronsen are locks. Morris certainly didn't look like a man coming off two knee surgeries, so I've got to think he's close to a lock when projecting what he should look like in a year. Pulisic and Reyna will both log minutes on the wing too, which gets us to 6 total players among the 7, 10, and 11 spots on the pitch. I know no one wants to hear this...but if we take one more winger I think it's Zardes because he can also play the #9 in a pinch. Lastly we get to Weston's spot. Pulisic can fill in there too, but he can't be everywhere at once. I liked what Williamson did from his couple call ups, but he is out for the foreseeable future. Acosta essentially backs up both Adams and McKennie, although he is better suited for Adams' position. Can De La Torre defend? We didn't see that out of him last night, but then again the US had possession almost the whole match. If so, then he may have a chance to snatch the final roster spot. Although if you're looking for a young midfielder to round out a roster, I'd go with Busio since we know he can play all three midfield positions. And with how young we are, Gregg may want to have an older voice in the locker room which would favor Lletget or Roldan. Barring injuries to a couple of these players, I think De La Torre is probably on the outside looking in for the World Cup.

Is De La Torra a straight #10 or does he have some position flexibility? I haven't seen enough out of him to know. Honestly I think we have more depth at #10 than we do at the wingers, because a couple of our first team wingers are actually better in the creative mid role (Pulisic, Reyna). That's kind of an interesting mental exercise...catalogue our non-striker offensive players and sort them by what positions they can play. Hmmm. I just might need to do that today.

He did play better than I expected. But I'd like to see him do it against better competition before I'm comfortable sending him to Qatar.

Except Acosta isn't contending for minutes at the positions in our alignment that value crossing -- RB, LB, RW, and LW. He's gotten some spot minutes at RB but I don't recall him playing any of the other positions at all. You're welcome to correct me if I''m remembering that wrong. Are you referring to his service on set pieces? If so, I agree his service was on point. Pulisic is another interesting one to figure out positionally but I don't see how that impacts Acosta's playing time. Pulisic provides positional flexibility by being able to play both wings, attacking mid, and box-to-box mid. Of those positions the only overlap with Acosta is at the B2B mid. But that's Weston's position barring injury or suspension, so I don't really see either Pulisic or Acosta lining up much in the #8 anyways. I'm admittedly not the biggest Acosta fan, but I think his best role is exactly how Gregg prefers to use him. He is a defensive sub that can replace an offensive mid when we need to protect a lead, or he can provide slightly better service than Adams if we are chasing a goal late. The only position I see him as being able to hold his own for a full 90 minutes is at #6 like he played tonight.

Not sure I agree, but am interested to hear your argument in favor of playing Acosta more. What position would you play Acosta if Adams is healthy?

That makes two of us. It's a must-win game and we're starting Luca de la Torre in midfield? Jordan Morris at winger who still isn't match fit? Meanwhile no Pulisic or Dest? And that' in addition to the massive downgrade at defensive mid due to Adams' injury. I'm starting to get an impending sense of dread...

Not sure how I feel about playing tonight's match in near-0 degree weather. While I understand the psychological advantage of picking the battlefield and making the Hondurans experience cold for the first time, it seems like that type of temperature can really bog the game down and lessen the superior team's advantage. If we were playing Mexico I'd be all for this. Heck, play the match in Anchorage in that case. But it seems that playing an interior foe in bizarre conditions could potentially backfire.

I'd prefer that anyone with eligibility comes back, even the guys that I have been disappointed in. I want to see some roster continuity. As for guessing who returns? I sure don't know. We've had such a revolving door under Hoiberg that I'm no longer surprised by anyone leaving early. Keon seems to be the one with the toughest decision, since he's already used his free transfer but has been buried on the depth chart. Maybe he looks at any minutes played in '22-'23 as better than a sit-out transfer, or maybe he decides to drop a level of competition to ensure he gets playing time in '23-24. No clue. If Walker does indeed come back, then that may nudge Andre towards the transfer portal. It's hard to see him wanting to back up Walker another year, particularly when the addition of Keita will further reduce playing time. Would Fred be willing to play two non-shooting bigs simultaneously? If not, then that really is putting Andre in a bad spot.

Good assessment. I don't begrudge Hoiberg for wanting to be different than the rest of the conference. If you want to compete with the big boys, you can either run the same system as everyone else with more talent, or you can run a system that makes their talent uncomfortable. The concept of spreading the floor with shooters and making those big diesel trucks defend in space is a good one. It's the same reason the early adaptor spread offenses had so much success in college football. The problem is that our guys don't run our system well enough to make the other teams uncomfortable, so we have zero advantage on the offensive end and a huge disadvantage on the defensive end.

Doc's record of never having longer than a 7 game losing streak is pretty impressive. Especially considering the roster, facilities, and resources he inherited. Is it weird to say that I miss Doc, considering he's on the staff currently? Back in his heyday he was so fun to watch on the sidelines.

Michigan 82 Nebraska 64

Hypotheticals can be a dangerous slippery slope to go down, but this one seems very reasonable. We were supposedly in the driver's seat for months to land both players, and both play at positions at which we need help. It's interesting to think how this team would look with a true floor general on the court, and with some added size for rebounding. Not sure how good we would be, but I feel safe guaranteeing we wouldn't be 0fer in conference play.

Not a chance. Kevin Ollie did a whole lot more to trigger the "just cause" firing clause, and yet the arbitrator in his case found that UConn improperly fired him.

In a year where our collective pessimism is at an all-time high, somehow KenPom's expectations are still more realistic than of our own. That's depressing.

Probably about as long as Nebraska's 2014 post-season. I could see them fizzling out in group stage in the World Cup. But that doesn't detract from how consistent they are playing right now.

Yeah, I could see them running off 7 points in their next three matches, or zero points. Their schedule is odd in that they have the easy teams on the road and tough teams at home. CR could walk away with a win, loss, or draw in each of their remaining matches.

5 straight wins. Zero losses in their ten matches thus far. Their roster isn't intimidating but somehow they have caught lightning in a bottle.

I get it. It'd be nice to have qualification sown up prior to March, and use those three matches to cap tie young players while not worrying about results. But we still have a lot of things going for us: 1. The #4 seed actually has a tougher remaining schedule than us 2. Our remaining "must get result" matches are at home 3. CONCACAF is finally using VAR, so the number of CONCACAF shenanigans should be reduced 4. If the worst case scenario happens and we head to the final match at Costa Rica needing a result, at least we know that they aren't going to park the bus. It will be the final WC qualifier for a big chunk of their aging roster, and you can count on them wanting to go out with a win over the US. If we need a win, then I'd much rather play against a team like that rather than a 10-man backline like a lot of the minnows employ against us.

Yeah, but do you really expect them to be only a point behind after Wednesday night? US is hosting Honduras while Panama is going to Mexico City. Look at their remaining schedule and likely results: @Mex (0) Honduras (3) @USA (0) Canada (1) They are realistically going to need to take 3 points on the road in one of the USMNT's better environments (Orlando) to have a shot at leapfrogging us. From their perspective, that's not a match they had circled as a 'win' going into this qualification cycle. Let me reiterate what I said prior to the Canada match. That game was NOT one of the biggest remaining qualifiers for us. A win would have been amazing, a tie would have been nice, but a loss on the road against the team at the top of the table really isn't bad. The home match against Panama is far and away the biggest match on the schedule, and this coming home match against Honduras is the second most important. Get the three points on Wednesday that we should, and we are in fantastic shape heading into the February window.

I actually see today's match and the one at Mexico as the least important matches. We don't expect or need 3 points in either one. We're in good shape even if we lose one and draw the other. The most important thing is to get a good result against Panama so that they can't jump us for the #3 spot in the table. I'm circling the March 27th match against Panama as the biggest one by a huge margin. I'd actually even say the upcoming home match against Honduras is the second most important, because 6 points in those two "should win" matches gets us inches from automatic qualification. After looking at Costa Rica's remaining matches, they have a brutal closing stretch so it's likely they will be more than 3 points behind USMNT on the final day of qualifying.

I question your poor choice in beer, but not your fandom. We all have to draw our own line deciding how much emotional abuse is too much.

this is the game I wanted, but you logged on before me you opportunistic jerk

Rutgers 75 Nebraska 70