As others have noted elsewhere in this message board, Ryder Dodd should be a unanimous choice for the 2024 Cutino Award and ACWPC Player-of-the-Year Award.
Tony Azevedo is generally considered to be America’s greatest water polo player. After playing in the 2000 Olympics at 18, Azevedo redshirted during his freshman year at Stanford in 2000. In 2001, Stanford won the NCAA championship and Azevedo won the Cutino Award and the ACWPC Player-of-the-Year Award. Azevedo won two NCAA championships during his four years at Stanford (2001 and 2002) and scored 332 goals, including 68 in his redshirt-freshman year in 2001.
To Ryder Dodd’s credit, Azevedo is his closest comp. Dodd played in the 2024 Olympics at 18. He did not take any time off between the Olympics and the 2024 college season. Dodd was 14 months younger than Azevedo during their freshman seasons. By my hand tally, here are Dodd’s final statistics for the 2024 season: 102 goals on 186 shots for a shooting percentage of 54.8, 32 assists, 33 steals, 26 drawn exclusions, and 46 sprints won and 13 sprints lost for a sprinting won/loss percentage of 78.0. Dodd’s 102 goals broke Ryan Bailey’s previous MPSF single-season scoring record of 101 goals. Dodd scored at least one goal in every game. He scored two or more goals in 27 of his 28 games. He didn’t foul out of a game. Twelve of his goals were penalty shots.
I think Dodd had the best freshman season in the NCAA era. I hope to live long enough to watch someone have a better freshman season.
In addition to Dodd, I think USC’s Robert Lopez Duart will be a Cutino Award finalist. It’s hard to predict which player will be the third finalist or fourth finalist if there is a two-way tie for the third spot. One could make an argument for Stanford’s Riley Pittman and Soren Jensen, Pacific’s Mihailo Vukazic, Princeton’s Roko Pozaric, and Fordham’s Luca Provenziani. I predict one of these players will be the third finalist. I’m curious to see whether Provenziani or his Fordham teammate Andras Toth enters the transfer portal.
I will jump on this before we start seeing Fordham posters upset about the insinuation that their players would leave.
It is highly highly highly highly highly doubtful you see any Fordham players in the portal. They have a real family atmosphere on Rose Hill. Anyone who follows East Coast water polo knows how close-knit that team is. It is far more likely that you see those two joined by more of their friends than them leave. In fact, I will make the prediction that happens right now. If Fordham doesn’t add at least one high-caliber Italian or Hungarian player to their recruiting class, I will be stunned.
The Rams have more roster spots opening up at a time when other teams may be constrained by roster limits. This likely works to their benefit this offseason.
I’m a Fordham fan, but I think you should take out at least one of the five highly’s, Trevor (and maybe all of them). Next year will be a rebuilding year for Fordham – though they’ll still be good – and I’m fairly confident you’ll see both additions and subtractions to that roster next year, and that the latter will be of significance even beyond those who graduate.
But kudos to the team, and here’s hoping for an amazing future.
Shocked to see the two guys alongside Ryder. Vukazic was great, but Pacific did not even make the tournament. For USC, Lopez-Duart and Herzer were performing better for a large part of the season. I would’ve liked to see Lopez-Duart and Provenziani alongside Ryder. Not sure who voted on the finalists and what the thought process was
Last year on the women’s side, the committee rewarded senior leadership over seasonal statistics (including head-to-head results and a championship). Maybe leadership and relative importance to the team are increasingly components?
It’s extremely hard to compare a center (Max Miller) to a field player (Robert Lopez-Duart) by any objective measure. Lopez-Duart had 9 more goals (62 to 53), but as their positions make highly likely, Miller had a much higher shooting percentage (.602 vs .400) and more drawn exclusions (58 vs 19) while Lopez-Duart had more assists (37 vs 3). Plus it’s synergistic; the more the defense has to collapse on a stellar center, the more perimeter shooting opens up. I’m not surprised at all at seeing Vukazic and Miller on the list, nor will I be surprised when they’re runners-up.
As I understand it, nominees are selected by the coaches. Each D1 coach can nominate three players, none from his/her own team. Then the same coaches rank the list of nominees, and the top three candidates are announced as finalists. I figure those coaches know a lot better than I do what the players on other teams contribute, but I think once you get past Ryder Dodd, you could make a good case for lots of players to be the other two finalists. I think Sand nailed the difficulty of using stats to compare players who play in different teams. This is especially true when evaluating defensive contributions for players other than goalies.
It would be interesting to know the voting parameters for the Cutino Award, who exactly is voting and who they voted for. There is no reason why the voters should not stand behind their choices.
