I'm not sure why I spent so much time on this, but I thought it would be intersting to look at all of the offensive players and how the lined up against each other when it came down to points per game. It's not a perfect deciding factor obviously, but a lot of the time I think people just look at total points and say, "that is guy better". Or get in based on name recognition. If you chose the offensive positions just by PPG, the first three teams would look like this:
1st Team
Attack
Nichtern - 6.44
Gray - 6.33
Shellenberger -6.25
Midfield
Handley - 5.17
Campbell - 4.63
Skalniak - 4
Second Team
Attack
Nolting - 6.22
D'Alto - 6
Brandau - 5.67
Midfield
Strough - 3.78
Curry - 3.63
Bundy JR - 3.63
Third Team
Attack
Wisnaskas - 5.63
Dordevic - 5.25
Myers - 5.22
Midfield
Reid - 3.44
Hannah - 3.33
Donville, English, Blake - 3
Look at those attack numbers. Just absurd how much guys are scoring this year. Players like Kirst (5.13) and Scott (4.9) aren't far behind. And most of those guys are doing a lot heavy lifting for their teams. Brandau is almost single handily carrying Yale offensively. Even Wisnaukus is averaging two extra points per game than the next highest scorer on his team (Khan at 3.25). Nichtern has 30(!) more points than the next leading scorer on Army. Cormier and Moore are having good seasons but they're "only" averaging 3.71 and 3.5 points per game. Nowhere close to what other attackmen in the country are doing. Not one school has more than one attackman named on this All American list. Has that ever happened before?
Trying to figure out what positions certain players fit into is really hard - Handley has played most of the year at attack but moved to middie in Penn's last game. I think Campbell for Nova moved to attack in their last game but is listed as a middie. That seems a little unfair to normal middies.
Strough and D'Alto are the two guys who probably are benefitting from easer schedules, I think the best team either has faced is Harvard. That is a perfect example of why you don't factor in just points to these things. But again, it is interesting to look at.
I think Dordevic should at least get second team. His points per game line up, he's the defense's number one mark each game but it doesn't matter. The turnovers for him are high 1.5 per game, but I think that comes with the territory. And that's nowhere close to what Gray (2.67) and Nichtern (2.78) are averaging per game. I would actually keep the IL version for attackmen, but move Dordevic to second team and Myers to third.
Guys who looked like outliers to me before looking at numbers were guys like Montgomery, Tevlin and Long. The numbers didn't seem to back them up - Montgomery is averaging just 2.75 points per game. Long and DeMaio are at 2.5 and 2.38. I'm sure they are getting a bump since Maryland is so good, but Long at third team? Zach80, am I missing something? I'm guessing Tevlin is having a really good defensive season, he's scored just 11 points in six games and is shooting just 15% on the year.
Zawada has put up a lot of points, but is averaging just 3.9 points per game against an extremely easy schedule. I'm not sure I would have him on this list.
