Polls (3/6/23): Media NR / Coaches NR

[OrangeXtreme]

https://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/men-s-di-media-poll-penn-state-is-back-duke-in-the-top-5/60860

Penn State is back.

The Nittany Lions have stormed up the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll to No. 8 after back-to-back weeks knocking off top-10 Ivy League teams.

This week it was Penn, with the Lions pulling away with a six-goal run in the fourth quarter to beat the Quakers, 15-9. The Nittany Lions have already beaten their three-win total from last season; they started out unranked featuring a veteran-but-reworked roster, and last week they entered the poll.

Villanova is the lone team to beat Penn State, and the Wildcats are at No. 18 after handling Hofstra this weekend.

The top four are fairly established, with Virginia still No. 1 and earning the majority of first-place votes, followed by Notre Dame, Cornell and Maryland. The Terps lost to Notre Dame in triple-overtime in what might be the game of the year.

Loyola, which beat Maryland, is at No. 6; the Hounds survived a scare vs. Towson then beat Lafayette this week. Duke — winners against Syracuse in OT on Sunday night— is back to the Top 5. They are separated by one vote, so they are essentially tied.

IL Media Poll — Week 4
1. Virginia (19)
2. Notre Dame (4)
3. Cornell
4. Maryland
5. Duke

Check out the full Inside Lacrosse Media Poll.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Virginia Living Up to Hype as No. 1 in Nike/USA Lacrosse Division I Men's Top 20

Virginia has overcome early weaknesses to thoroughly dominate its last two opponents.

www.usalaxmagazine.com

1. Virginia
2. Notre Dame
3. Cornell
4. Duke
5. Loyola

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Quint Kessenich’s Top 20: March 6, 2023

After a WILD weekend of Division 1 College Lacrosse, Quint Kessenich's Top 20 poll is all over the place with many changes from last week.

laxallstars.com

 

[PhatOrange]

Syracuse is a top 20 team and I dont even think its up for debate.

 

[cuselaxss26]

i truely don’t understand why at joe is rank in top 20. Who did they beat this year so far that was rank. Are they really rank for falling to yale by 2goals last year in the first round of playoffs?

 

[cuselaxss26]

st joes beat no one that is worthy of top 20 rank so far this year. Soley ranked cause they almost but not really beat yale or gave yale a game last year. I agree syracuse def top 20 team but after last year their really gonna make cuse earn their rank more then other teams. So beating hopkins and other rank opponents is a must.

 

[cuselaxss26]

Cuse is gonna have to come out and really put it to hopkins. Def need to get the win but think be nice if they won by more then 3-5 goals.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Syracuse is a top 20 team and I dont even think its up for debate.

Maybe but were 0-3 versus top 20 teams. Hard to argue we belong with a 3-3 record and zero quality wins.

 

[cuselaxss26]

true i agree but do have st joes in top 20 with no good wins yes 3-1 don’t think st joes deserves to be ranked at this time. Why they were even rank to start season all from giving yale a decent game last year. Just show polls really arnt as solid as should be i guess.

 

[cuselaxss26]

But said it before with year cuse had last year any polls really gonna make cuse earn it unlike some other teams. Always some kind of bias just seems always more towards cuse at times or maby just me lol.

 

[Laxfanshutt]

Will Mark.. most saves!!!

 

[PhatOrange]

Maybe but were 0-3 versus top 20 teams. Hard to argue we belong with a 3-3 record and zero quality wins.

The eyeball test tells me Syracuse is a top 20 team. Syracuse just played the toughest 3 game stretch of anyone in the country except for maybe Maryland, and it'll be a 4 game stretch after this weekend.

2 of 3 losses to top 5 teams by a total of 4 goals.

Syracuse would smash St Joes.

Georgetown 1-3 win over Princeton
Princeton 2-2. Wins over nobody.
Ohio State 3-2 shaky
Penn 1-2 beat gtown

Lots of parity this year, Syracuse the victim of tougher schedule. I fully expect Syracuse to rip off their next 4 though.

 

[JeremyCuse]

The eyeball test tells me Syracuse is a top 20 team. Syracuse just played the toughest 3 game stretch of anyone in the country except for maybe Maryland, and it'll be a 4 game stretch after this weekend.

2 of 3 losses to two top 5 teams by a total of 4 goals.

Syracuse would smash St Joes.

Georgetown 1-3 win over Princeton
Princeton 2-2. Wins over nobody.
Ohio State 3-2 shaky
Penn 1-2 beat gtown

Lots of parity this year, Syracuse the victim of tougher schedule. I fully expect Syracuse to rip off their next 4 though.

Syracuse definitely has a top 20 offense, probably top 10 and one could argue even top 5 but the jury is out on the rest of the team.

Faceoffs and GB play have haunted this team most of the year and its hard to see how that magically gets fixed. The defense has been good for really 1 game (Vermont) and mediocre to bad the rest save for Mark who has been outstanding every game but UNC.

SU could have easily have won versus Duke but when you break the stats down you can see where SU keeping it close or and actually winning for a large portion of the game was a bit of a fluke. Duke Dominated pretty much every stat category except for saves and hit 12 pipes. Relying on a top 10 team to hit a dozen pipes and Mark to make nearly 30 saves certainly isn't reproducible.

I thik the current team is better then last years and clearly the offense as good as it is is just scratching the surface of its potential. That said it still has major issues on defense, at X, and with GB's. To say it would smash St. Joes a team with one of the top FOGOS in the country and a high powered offense is simply wrong.

 

[AD31]

Syracuse definitely has a top 20 offense, probably top 10 and one could argue even top 5 but the jury is out on the rest of the team.

Faceoffs and GB play have haunted this team most of the year and its hard to see how that magically gets fixed. The defense has been good for really 1 game (Vermont) and mediocre to bad the rest save for Mark who has been outstanding every game but UNC.

SU could have easily have won versus Duke but when you break the stats down you can see where SU keeping it close or and actually winning for a large portion of the game was a bit of a fluke. Duke Dominated pretty much every stat category except for saves and hit 12 pipes. Relying on a top 10 team to hit a dozen pipes and Mark to make nearly 30 saves certainly is reproducible.

I thik the current team is better then last years and clearly the offense as good as it is is just scratching the surface of its potential. That said it still has major issues on defense, at X, and with GB's. To say it would smash St. Joes a team with one of the top FOGOS in the country and a high powered offense is simply wrong.

According to Inside Lacrosse it was officially 5 pipes., idk it sure seemed like 12 lol

 

[JeremyCuse]

According to Inside Lacrosse it was officially 5 pipes., idk it sure seemed like 12 lol

It was way more then 5

 

[AD31]

Syracuse definitely has a top 20 offense, probably top 10 and one could argue even top 5 but the jury is out on the rest of the team.

Faceoffs and GB play have haunted this team most of the year and its hard to see how that magically gets fixed. The defense has been good for really 1 game (Vermont) and mediocre to bad the rest save for Mark who has been outstanding every game but UNC.

SU could have easily have won versus Duke but when you break the stats down you can see where SU keeping it close or and actually winning for a large portion of the game was a bit of a fluke. Duke Dominated pretty much every stat category except for saves and hit 12 pipes. Relying on a top 10 team to hit a dozen pipes and Mark to make nearly 30 saves certainly is reproducible.

I thik the current team is better then last years and clearly the offense as good as it is is just scratching the surface of its potential. That said it still has major issues on defense, at X, and with GB's. To say it would smash St. Joes a team with one of the top FOGOS in the country and a high powered offense is simply wrong.

Will Mark can play at that level consistently. He is that good. He has a down game once a season and I think the UNC game was his down game. The kid is superhuman. Maybe not at that level because he was just ridiculous against Duke but this team can rely on him to be that goalie every week. If SU can somehow fix the possession issue and at least get it close to 50% then this team can definitely win a few of the top game's remaining. Cmonn JC u were always positive and now ur down after losing to Duke in OT. The fact this team almost beat Duke with stats like that should make u feel if they can just get better at the X and GBs they can beat any team in the country. Bring that positive energy back. There gonna beat Hopkins Saturday I have a strong feeling.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Will Mark can play at that level consistently. He is that good. He has a down game once a season and I think the UNC game was his down game. The kid is superhuman. Maybe not at that level because he was just ridiculous against Duke but this team can rely on him to be that goalie every week. If SU can somehow fix the possession issue and at least get it close to 50% then this team can definitely win a few of the top game's remaining. Cmonn JC u were always positive and now ur down after losing to Duke in OT. The fact this team almost beat Duke with stats like that should make u feel if they can just get better at the X and GBs they can beat any team in the country. Bring that positive energy back. There gonna beat Hopkins Saturday I have a strong feeling.

I don't think anyone is down on Mark, he's the reason SU was remotely in the Maryland or Duke games. He has been outstanding, probably the best goalie at SU since Galloway. That said I don't think relying on him to have 20+ saves every game is a recipe for success with SU's schedule.

Regarding my thoughts and feelings, I am not down on the team but its clear six games in there appears to be a few fatal flaws with the team as its currently constructed and being coached. As you noted in your response above - "if they can just get better at the X and GBs they can beat any team in the country." Those are issues that unfortunately usually don't get better as the season goes on and SU hasn't even hit the toughest part of the schedule yet. The staff has acknowledged both are an issue (see Gait's comments after UNC) but have made almost zero moves to address them. Fine took a few draws before being pulled and going right back to Richiusa. We also kept running the same guys on the wings despite that clearly being an issue. This is starting to feel like last year where Gait would acknowledge a problem then kind of shrug his shoulders and keep running the same guys and scheme out there.

My other concern is that defensively the team looks the same as last year except they now have an AA goalie who has covered up the issues. Petro knows how to coach Defense but its clear what were running isn't working. Duke hits 20+ goals 9 times out of 10 Sunday but we luckily hit the 1 game where they hit 12 posts and Mark made a ludicrous 26 saves or whatever it was. The previous week SU was pretty much 50/50 at the X and UNC scored 20+. Individually the players are better then last year as Clary as shown to be a very good 1on 1 defender and Kol has been decent but overall defensively were still a mess.

The good news is offensively the team looks outstanding when you take into account youth and the possession disparity. We also have cleared up most of the clearing issues from last year though turnovers remain a major issue. Getting Aviles back and I think going to Dwan full time would help defensively but I also think it's clear we need 2-3 new FOGO's on the roster and a re-set scheme wise defensively.

 

[PhatOrange]

The pipe thing is what it is, it just means to me Duke didn’t shoot well. Missing by an inch or two is a miss and doesn’t mean next time they’ll be goals either. We hit the pipe a few times to.

For as many shots as Duke had and for the amount of possession time they had our defense was outstanding. That’s a veteran Duke offense out there.

Offensively we need better than 32 shots.

GBs can be fixed overnight because it doesn’t really require talent to pick up a GB.

 

[AD31]

I didn't mean down on Mark I meant down on SU

 

[nyclax]

The pipe thing is what it is, it just means to me Duke didn’t shoot well. Missing by an inch or two is a miss and doesn’t mean next time they’ll be goals either. We hit the pipe a few times to.

For as many shots as Duke had and for the amount of possession time they had our defense was outstanding. That’s a veteran Duke offense out there.

Offensively we need better than 32 shots.

GBs can be fixed overnight because it doesn’t really require talent to pick up a GB.

even if the 12 pipes mean duke shot poorly, that doesn't then mean cuse played good defense. a lot of those pipe shots were a result of duke creating the looks they wanted but just failing to capitalize. it's luck that they didn't go in. the tape doesn't lie. cuse D was sliding all over the place and looked discombobulated. mark bailed them out many times over

 

[JeremyCuse]

even if the 12 pipes mean duke shot poorly, that doesn't then mean cuse played good defense. a lot of those pipe shots were a result of duke creating the looks they wanted but just failing to capitalize. it's luck that they didn't go in. the tape doesn't lie. cuse D was sliding all over the place and looked discombobulated. mark bailed them out many times over

This was the point I was trying to make as well. Outside of Mark and Olexxo the D was all over the place with slides and as you noted looked out of sorts/discombobulated.

 

[cuselaxss26]

cacameo is very good d guy but he slides a lot when is not needed and halftime is not all way. If gonna slide then go don’t stop or go halfway cause players so good just half step is needed to get shot off. Understand he still young but that needs to be addressed. Not sure where he came from if didn’t trust his other teammate in HS but he needs to trust his team now. Been to many times he half does it that’s led to goals and wasn’t even need of a slide.