Let’s throw a blanket “allegedly” over all of this. We’re discussing a lot of allegations. We don’t know what happened! We’re not in Odessa!
There is a situation in Odessa. It is a real situation. It sounds like it’s fake, but it’s real. UT-Permian Basin women’s soccer coach Carla Tejas is on administrative leave due to an unbelievably robust array of allegations leveled against her. You can read the details from KMID’s Kayler Smith in this Twitter thread. In fact, we encourage you to read them. They are disturbing. But also…
I mean, look. The coach’s name is Carla Tejas and she’s coaching at a Division-II school named for a gigantic oil field. That sounds made up, right? From there, it starts as standard inappropriate college coach stuff: Got a DWI, called players up to bail her out, publicly kissed members of the men’s team, gave alcohol to underage students. Predatory, problemed, the classics. After that, we check the box of a menial NCAA violation where she (allegedly) pulled a Bobby Valentine and re-entered a game in disguise after an ejection. This is what always happens with college coaches—they do a bunch of bad stuff but none of it’s technically an NCAA violation so the NCAA’s powerless, and then they get busted for something that is an NCAA violation and the NCAA comes in like the IRS on Al Capone. The disguise must not have been too good—she allegedly still needed a walkie-talkie to continue coaching—but a disguise is a disguise, and if you’re wearing a disguise, you’re probably breaking some sort of rule (or your school’s women’s soccer coach is about to give you a beer at a Halloween party and you should get the hell out of there).
Again, we’re still within the bounds of normalcy here. She’s racking up the wrongdoing, but it’s all familiar stuff. Then, we get back into farce territory:
“The letter also says (whistleblowing players) believe starter Martina Terra-Garcia is ineligible. Terra-Garcia arrived on Sept. 14 from Uruguay, had not attended in person classes before then, and has not been assigned a dorm. She has played every minute of every game this season.”
If you were to draw up a fictional women’s soccer coach comedically breaking rules at a Division-II school, you would name that coach Carla Tejas and you would put her at UT-Permian Basin. You would then have her import a Uruguayan midfielder who clearly is not a legitimate student. This is screenwriting 101, right down to the midfielder needing to be from South America, not Central America, and needing to not be from Brazil because that also is too cliché. Honestly, I think this qualifies as modern literature because Terra-Garcia’s a midfielder and not a goalie. Hand up, I would’ve gone with a goalie if I was crafting the narrative. Kudos to the universe, midfielder keeps us on our toes.
So, we’re all having fun here, right? Can we all acknowledge that we’re having fun at this point? Can we all acknowledge that the predatory stuff is bad and the mention of verbal and mental abuse in the second tweet is bad but we’re all laughing at least a little bit at the name Carla Tejas and the Uruguayan pipeline and the disguise? Thank you. I needed that. Because now it’s going to escalate:
“The letter says one player suffered a stroke and Tejas did not reach out to the player until days later.”
Shit.
You can’t joke about adolescent stroke victims.
Now it isn’t fun anymore.
The thread goes on, Coach Tejas sounds like an abusive asshole, here’s hoping everyone’s ok, especially the stroke victim (even if a player having a stroke makes it sound like this went from modern lit to a soap opera). Also, here’s hoping we do get a screenplay out of this. Seems too straightforward to pass up. UT-Permian Basin. Of course it was UTPB.
Convoluted Tiebreaker Alert
We got a text from a source this morning indicating that 1) the MLS still exists and 2) there’s only one game left in the MLS season for most teams [you can always tell a shitty soccer league by its season going spring-to-fall instead of fall-to-spring like the good leagues] and 3) the playoff scenarios are thoroughly bamboozling. How does our source know this? I think he follows the Portland Timbers. Portland really needs a professional sport (yes, a lot of the blame here lies with the NBA).
With all that established: Thank you for telling us this was going on. We love messy tiebreakers, and we especially love them in soccer, where the convolution seems to be the point. As Faraday once said: “What the European NIT lacks in notability, it makes up for in chaotic tournamentic structure.” (Tournamentic was a word back then.)
Now. Let’s see what’s up.
It appears everyone’s played 32 or 33 games…looks like it’s a 34-game season…looks like there are nine teams playing for—sorry, calculating—six spots. Ok. Yeah. That’s wild. This reminds me of the time the newspaper listed out how the Packers could make the playoffs on the morning of Week 17 in 2006 and I cut it out and fervently watched the noon games until the Packers were immediately eliminated. To be fair, I guess every tiebreaker situation reminds me of that, but this one looks good! Nine teams for six spots? We like that. Let’s see how they all get there.
From MLSFanaticsWeLoveTheMLS.com…
(Just kidding, I got this from Charlotte FC Presented by Ally’s website, and I don’t know where I’m going to get the Western ones, we’ll tackle those when we get there.)
It looks like four teams in the Eastern Conference have clinched berths, leaving…three? Hold up. Ok, yes. Three berths remain for Eastern Conference teams. These perverts have seven playoff teams in each conference. I guess the NFL does that too, but it still feels wrong. Since when do we assign positive moral connotations to the letters “NFL?”
Alright, three playoff berths left in the East, Charlotte’s gunning for one alongside Miami and Orlando and Cincinnati and Columbus. And per Charlotte’s propaganda machine (it would be great if Charlotte was misleading its fans on this), Orlando gets…aw shit. This is just for the games tomorrow. It’s not a complete rundown.
Argh.
Alright, from The Barking Crow (because I just had to figure all this shit out myself)…
Assuming Wikipedia’s description of the tiebreaker procedure is correct:
- There are 729 possible combinations of remaining win/loss/draw results in the Eastern Conference. That is too many results. No wonder I couldn’t find this on MLSFanaticsWeLoveTheMLS.com. Still, we persist.
- Orlando and Miami each control their fate. For each, a win and a tie from here, in some order, will be enough. They, Columbus, and Charlotte each are teams with two games left (that’s why it’s 729 instead of 81).
- Columbus also controls its fate, but it needs to win both games to control that fate. Tie just one, or lose, and they’re at other people’s mercy.
- Charlotte doesn’t quite control its fate. It could win twice and not get in. It needs to pass two of the four teams above it, and those teams are all up by at least a win and a tie (wins count for three points in most soccer standings, ties are one point, losses are zero).
- Cincinnati doesn’t control its fate, but if it wins on Sunday, the only way it misses the playoffs is if Orlando and Miami tie tomorrow and both win on Sunday and Columbus wins twice. So, it almost controls its fate.
That’s the best you’re getting out of me on the East right now. On the West? Thankfully, those guys all have just one game left.
In the West, only five teams have clinched berths, so there are four competing for two spots. (Again, I can’t help if Wikipedia lies to me. I see that FiveThirtyEight doesn’t have the LA Galaxy or Nashville fully at 100% or Colorado fully at 0% but I can’t see how any of those flip from their current spot without a rule change or an act of God.) The others (Portland plays Salt Lake, Minnesota plays Vancouver, this is remarkably straightforward there are only nine scenarios here that is good after the chaos in the East):
- Portland is in with a win or a tie. If they lose, they’re out, because Salt Lake passes them and so does either Minnesota or Vancouver.
- Minnesota is in with a win or a tie (in the tying scenario, they pass Portland if Portland loses, and they hold off Salt Lake if Portland ties or wins). If they lose, they’re out, because Vancouver passes them.
- Salt Lake is in with a win. If they tie or lose, they’re out.
- Vancouver is in with a win. If they tie or lose, they’re out.
In grid form:
| POR wins | POR/SLC tie | SLC wins | |
| MIN wins | POR, MIN | POR, MIN | SLC, MIN |
| MIN/VAN tie | POR, MIN | POR, MIN | SLC, MIN |
| VAN wins | POR, VAN | POR, VAN | SLC, VAN |
I think.
They Put Milk in My Tea
Someone here thought I ordered a tea latte but I ordered a tea and now it’s all foamy and milky and I don’t mind it but it was very surprising when I put it to my lips.
The WNIT Has a New Director
Is the NCAA’s alternative WNIT starting this year? It’s starting this year, right? Maybe it isn’t starting this year.
Well, regardless, Triple Crown Sports (the folks who run the existing WNIT, which is separate from the NCAA) has hired former UT(-Austin, not Permian Basin) basketball player Johnna Pointer to be its new primary director for the Preseason and Postseason WNIT. Big task ahead of her, staring down the NCAA’s advance, but if anyone can do it, it’s the director of the Preseason and Postseason WNIT.
Do You Think Tom Crean and Shaka Smart Are Friends?
Does Marquette’s current coach like that weirdo who used to coach there? Does he think it’s a good idea to be cool with him anyway? I ask because they’re both going to be at a coaching clinic on Sunday at the Al McGuire Center (RIP) and it’s twenty dollars cash and I’ll Venmo somebody that twenty dollars if they want to go and give me a report on the vibes between the two.
Is Mason Ramsey On Tour?
Is Mason Ramsey out on tour right now? I don’t think so. I can’t find tour dates, and I feel like those are things you don’t keep secret. But he did post an Instagram reel a couple weeks ago saying “Showtime Ramsey has returned…” and he was very clearly giving a live performance in the videos, so the guy’s up to something. We’ll keep our ear to the ground.
Cam Talbot’s Hurt
I got out of the loop on the Sens for a week or two, but evidently the only thing I missed was Cam Talbot reportedly fracturing a rib, and that was announced yesterday. The fellas have picked up Magnus Hellberg off waivers and it sounds like it’s him, not Mads Søgaard, who’ll back up Anton Forsberg to start the year, but surprises happen and all that. Talbot should be back in mid-November.
Not a lot else to say about the preseason so far, except I will note that the name ‘Cam Talbot’ makes it sound like the guy has a big head. Not, as in, an ego. Just a physically large head. That’s a large-head name. I bet that helps him block shots.
**
Viewing schedule:
6:40 PM EDT: Cubs @ Reds (MLB TV)
Go Cubs!
8:10 PM EDT: Twins @ White Sox (MLB TV)
If Joe Kelly gets in tonight, it’s probably the last time this year. He doesn’t throw on back-to-back days often.
If Joe Kelly doesn’t get in, we’re in scary terrain. We may have failed to properly bill the last outing of the year.
Hopefully Joe Kelly gets in tonight.
7:00 PM EDT: Senators @ Canadiens (ESPN+)
Goals, goals, goals. That’s what the Sens do, friends and family. On both ends, for better or worse.
9:30 PM EDT: Pelicans @ Bulls (TNT)
We got some requests this summer to cover the NBA and the NFL more, and there’s no way we’re going to do that without focusing on the Packers and Bulls, since they’re our favorite teams in those leagues. So, as the Bulls start preseason games, now seems like a good time to start including them in these.
