O’brian White, a forward from Connecticut, received no national accolades in 2006 despite 
leading Connecticut in scoring for the second consecutive year. White will be a junior in 2007. This will be a very important year for him. Statistically, he has been fairly consistent in his first two years. He scored 10 goals with 8 assists in 2005 following with 7 goals and 6 assists in 2006. Sometimes stats don’t tell the whole story and the slight drop in productivity could be justified. Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer, YET. I only saw him play in 2006 on TV very early in the year. I was not impressed. He is large and rangy and appeared skillful, but he just didn’t do too much.
He’s a player to watch in 2007. I would not be surprised if he had a breakout year, leaving school early. Though he’ll need to make a impact with double digit goals and assists.
senior in the fall. He scored 3 goals and added 4 assists. In 2005, he scored 4 goals and had 6 assists and wsa selected for the All-Big East 3rd team. So, this year, he’s a 1st team AA with 1 less goal and 2 less assists. Hmmmmmm. Something smells funny here. Perhaps, his play is less statisically oriented and is more subtle. It’s possible. I’m not convinced. This is why that he’s on my list of players to watch this year. Last year, Maduro was totally off my radar, so I never tried to see him play. I do have 1 tape of him playing in the Big East semi-finals (against Saint John’s) that I’ll review after spring soccer is over. So expect an update of this post in May.
James is a tall rangy player with good athletic ability and above average technical skills. I only saw him once on TV early in the year. He was not impressive. Assessing a defender on TV is extremely difficult, because it’s difficult to observe his movement off the ball. Does he anticipate or read the game quickly or does he use his athletic ability to cover this deficiency. On TV, it’s easy to see his touch and 1v1 defending skills.