Friday, January 14, 2011

"All" or Nothing - 2011 Superdraft

Last year, I examined the percentage of Superdraft picks who were named to an all-conference team for the past season of college soccer (link here). For the past three years, 145 out of 164 players drafted (88.4%) fit that criteria. So how'd it go this year?

There were 54 players drafted in the 2011 MLS Superdraft. Six can't be included in the data: 5 without a college (4 foreign players and Omar Salgado) and 1 lower division player (Lynn's Scott Gordon). That leaves 48 players to examine, and this year 41 ended up on an all-conference team (85.4%). The seven players who didn't are as follows:

20 SEA Michael Tetteh D UC Santa Barbara Big West
26 TOR Demetrius Omphroy D California Pac-10
32 KC J. T. Murray D Louisville Big East
35 DAL Charlie Campbell M Louisville Big East
37 VAN Bilal Duckett D Notre Dame Big East
38 NY Billy Cortes D Maryland ACC
40 CHV Jon Okafor M Brown Ivy

Tetteh was a Generation Adidas player and a lock to be drafted. He was also named to an all-conference team previously (in 2009), which I don't believe any of the others have done. UCSB, California, Notre Dame, and Maryland are all programs which regularly have players drafted into MLS, while Louisville just finished as the 2010 NCAA runner up. Brown's not a big name program, but they did produce Cory Gibbs and Jeff Larentowicz.

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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

MLS: First Round Picks by College

Check it out below. This includes only the last college a player attended (if he attended more than one). It also counts the colleges of pro players who were drafted (which happened in the early days of the Superdraft).

UCLA 16
Maryland 11
Wake Forest 11
Virginia 10
Indiana 9
North Carolina 7
SMU 7
Clemson 6
Connecticut 6
Santa Clara 5
Duke 4
Portland 4
Stanford 4
Akron 3
California 3
Creighton 3
FIU 3
Notre Dame 3
Saint Louis 3
South Florida 3
UC Santa Barbara 3
Washington 3
William & Mary 3
Furman 2
San Jose State 2
South Carolina 2
UAB 2
UNC Charlotte 2
Belhaven 1
Boston College 1
Coastal Carolina 1
CS Dominguez 1
CS Fullerton 1
CS Northridge 1
Fordham 1
Fort Lewis 1
Fresno State 1
George Mason 1
Hartford 1
Lehigh 1
Lynn 1
Michigan 1
New Mexico 1
Ohio State 1
Old Dominion 1
Oregon State 1
Pasadena 1
Rutgers 1
San Diego 1
San Francisco 1
Seton Hall 1
Southern Conn State 1
Tampa 1
Tulsa 1
Virginia Tech 1
Wisconsin 1


none 14

This year, an astounding five Akron players have been signed through the Generation Adidas program. If all of them are drafted in the first round, Akron will set a record for the most first round picks in a single draft. You may remember the current record: It was Wake Forest with four last year (Ike Opara, Zach Schilawski, Corben Bone, Austin da Luz). The only other times a college has had three players drafted were UCLA in 2000 and 2010, and Maryland in 2009.

Akron also has senior Anthony Ampaipitakwon, who's expected to be a first rounder, so six isn't out of the question.

How about a list of first rounders by current conferences? If any have changed during this offseason, I'm unaware of it.

Atlantic Coast 51
Pacific-10 27
Conference USA 15
Big East 14
Big Ten 12
West Coast 11
Atlantic 10 6
Big West 5
Colonial 5
Mid-American 3
Missouri Valley 3
Mountain Pacific 3
Southern 2
America East 1
Big South 1
Patriot 1


Other 8

Other includes lower division teams and Fresno State, who no longer has a team.

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