Polls for Mar 9: Media #8 / Coaches #7

[OrangeXtreme]

1. Notre Dame 423 (9)
2. Richmond 416 (7)
3. Princeton 403 (5)
4. Harvard 371 (1)
5. North Carolina 356

8. Syracuse 295

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Penn State Sweeps Ivy Slate, Jumps Up USA Lacrosse Top 20

For the first time all season, it was mostly quiet in the top half of the USA Lacrosse Division I Men’s Top 20.

www.usalacrosse.com

1. Notre Dame
2. Richmond
3. Princeton
4. Harvard
5. North Carolina

8. Syracuse

 

[OrangeXtreme]

8. Syracuse

After losing two of three to the Ivy League, Syracuse made some subtle adjustments to its SSDM and midfield lines. More importantly, they turned up the gas and pushed the ball in transition in a 12-8 win at Homewood Field over Johns Hopkins. Point guard Joey Spallina played extremely well; his skillset is deep. Defender Billy Dwan III, whose father roamed the field as a Blue Jay in the heyday, scored twice in transition. FOGO Johnny Mullen was dialed in after committing 18 violations in the first five games. Luke Rhoa was sharp with four points. SU came into the game as the No. 10 defensive efficiency unit in the country and locked down the Jays, forcing weak-angled shots that Jimmy McCool gobbled up. This close defense is outstanding and the play of their SSDM group, with some new additions, was vastly improved to what we witnessed against Princeton and Harvard. Credit their DC John Odierna — SU can win with defense.

HHH plays at Air Force on Thursday and then Denver on Monday, March 16, as part of their Rocky Mountain spring break trip.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Looks like ND, then some combo of Princeton, Harvard, and Richmond

 

[FloridaCuse]

He has Syracuse #2 in RPI. Princeton #1, Army #3

 

[ks orange]

I would rearrange this. I watch a lot of college lacrosse and, to me, Princeton is, hands down, the best team I've seen. I'd put them at #1, Richmond at #2, and Notre Dame at #3. I don't think Notre Dame has played a schedule that has earned them the top spot. I think Princeton is being unfairly punished for a bad quarter against a good Penn State team.

 

[DMVCuseLax]

 

[nocohalo]

Prefer to hover around 5. Teams above that get the target put on their back and the pressure is enormous no matter how good a team is.

 

[JeremyCuse]

He has SU with the #2 RPI and #2 SOS which is outstanding.

The bracket even a 1st one is a bit absurd. Rutgers and Yale? Rutgers best win is a one goal win over Jax and the rest of the wins are over the sisters of the poor. Yale has a nice win over BU but was blown out by Army and PSU and beat Fairfield by 1.

 

[Lax Mouse]

He has SU with the #2 RPI and #2 SOS which is outstanding.

The bracket even a 1st one is a bit absurd. Rutgers and Yale? Rutgers best win is a one goal win over Jax and the rest of the wins are over the sisters of the poor. Yale has a nice win over BU but was blown out by Army and PSU and beat Fairfield by 1.

Should we start a bracketology thread? Tis the season!

I think as surprising as it is at the moment to see Rutgers and Yale in there, it makes sense with the metrics.

But, it's early March and those metrics will change quite a bit.

Unless Cuse wins out and Princeton collapses, I feel like the Orange are probably in line for a #2-#4 seed (would need to win their remaining OOC games and at least split their ACC matchups).

I think it would be smart to stay away from Princeton until as late as possible in the tourney.

I do think it's quite possible the ACC gets 4 teams in. The Ivy should get at least 3. The B10 is the big question mark. Could be 2-3 but I feel like that's the conference that'll suffer most from any bid thieves or may have the first team out.

Could be missing one but some the big non-conference games remaining are:

- ND vs Richmond
- Cornell vs Duke
- Denver vs OSU/Duke/Cuse
- Georgetown vs Cuse
- UNC vs PSU/Harvard/Army
- UVA vs UMD (somewhat)
- Michigan vs ND (somewhat)

Princeton, Yale, Rutgers, even Hopkins don't really have a ton of marquee non-con matchups left, though they'll certainly need to not drop the games they do have.

 

[Hawknate144]

I do a weekly tournament prediction, I'll post mine tonight when I finish it, but we are well in line for a 2 or 3 seed if we continue to play well

 

[Hawknate144]

My methodology is I quick, on sight, predict every.game from the rest of the season and put it into a RPI SOR calculator and then take the rankings and build a NCAA approved bracket from them.
Yes im a bit of a Syracuse homer.

1. Princeton vs Winner of LIU and Sacred Heart
2. Syracuse vs Winner of Albany vs Jacksonville
3. Richmond vs Towson
4. Notre Dame vs Ohio State
5. North Carolina vs Georgetown
6. Harvard vs Army
7. Penn State vs Cornell
8. Duke vs Maryland

First teams out are BU, Hopkins and Penn, St Joe's is not far behind, point is, even our "lower" ranked wins will probably help us a lot.

avoiding conference matchups makes this a bit of a mess.

 

[cuselaxss26]

Besides princeton honestly not sure i wanna play richmond either. Richmond is very solid team n they are aggressive n fast on D i feel could give issue. But also think if we play like we can,If being the big word. Then really don’t matter but still lots season left n anything can happen. Also like to point out seems any previous tounry matchups from last year (this regular season) the losing tounry team has gotten their revenge. Not that means anything just observation.

harvard/princeton vs cuse
richmond vs cornell
psu vs cornell
cuse vs maryland

 

[Powellfan]

My methodology is I quick, on sight, predict every.game from the rest of the season and put it into a RPI SOR calculator and then take the rankings and build a NCAA approved bracket from them.
Yes im a bit of a Syracuse homer.

1. Princeton vs Winner of LIU and Sacred Heart
2. Syracuse vs Winner of Albany vs Jacksonville
3. Richmond vs Towson
4. Notre Dame vs Ohio State
5. North Carolina vs Georgetown
6. Harvard vs Army
7. Penn State vs Cornell
8. Duke vs Maryland

First teams out are BU, Hopkins and Penn, St Joe's is not far behind, point is, even our "lower" ranked wins will probably help us a lot.

avoiding conference matchups makes this a bit of a mess.

This is what I've been waiting for. Love the work that others do, but I've always questioned doing a "point in time" Bracketology when the season is never going to end at that specific point in time.

Obviously a lot can change, but I think it's safe to assume the Orange will be favored in all but two games this season (UNC and Notre Dame). Of course they could easily lose to Georgetown or UVA, despite those teams struggles, and Duke is a real wild card to me. Their schedule has been Charmin soft, but at the same time they are blowing teams out. Hard to tell how good or bad they are. I also wouldn't be shocked at all to see the Orange win against the two ACC teams ranked higher than them right now.

This season has been full of twists and turns already, so not sure anything would surprise me at this point. And I know we are all feeling confident now, but I also can't really shake the let down performance against Princeton and the close win against Penn. We are one poor showing against Denver to being right back into panic mode. In a good spot right now, but still tons of work to do.

 

[JeremyCuse]

This is what I've been waiting for. Love the work that others do, but I've always questioned doing a "point in time" Bracketology when the season is never going to end at that specific point in time.

Obviously a lot can change, but I think it's safe to assume the Orange will be favored in all but two games this season (UNC and Notre Dame). Of course they could easily lose to Georgetown or UVA, despite those teams struggles, and Duke is a real wild card to me. Their schedule has been Charmin soft, but at the same time they are blowing teams out. Hard to tell how good or bad they are. I also wouldn't be shocked at all to see the Orange win against the two ACC teams ranked higher than them right now.

This season has been full of twists and turns already, so not sure anything would surprise me at this point. And I know we are all feeling confident now, but I also can't really shake the let down performance against Princeton and the close win against Penn. We are one poor showing against Denver to being right back into panic mode. In a good spot right now, but still tons of work to do.

Lot of twists and turns for sure. As you noted things can flip week to week. IF SU continues to take care of business it will be in great shape. Lose to Denver and Gtown and it will be a 5 alarm fire here and in reality. One of the reasons the Penn game was so huge. Lose that game and who knows where the season stands right now. Over the next three I think SU needs to a minimum be at 2-1 to stay on path.

 

[MD Cuse Fan]

Looking at the remaining schedule I kind of broke it down like this:

Must wins: AF, Colgate
Split against Denver/GT
Split ACC games

That's 10-5 going into the ACC tourney which with this schedule is pretty damn good but would that be enough to get a top 4 seed, particularly if they were to lose an ACC semi it's way too early to say.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Looking at the remaining schedule I kind of broke it down like this:

Must wins: AF, Colgate
Split against Denver/GT
Split ACC games

That's 10-5 going into the ACC tourney which with this schedule is pretty damn good but would that be enough to get a top 4 seed, particularly if they were to lose an ACC semi it's way too early to say.

I think you'd have to be very happy if this team got to 10-5 with this schedule and some of our known flaws/issues. I think the key is winning the games you have to and then getting a split in the real tough ones. The good news for SU is that most of their losses are going to hold up and the wins so far should though I worry a bit about Hopkins and Penn as both have pretty difficult schedules moving forward though I don't see a collapse for either.

Wish we go that harvard game, that Win would really be a nice feather in our cap but it is what it is.

I will say if you look ahead there are a # of potential land mine type games that I hope the team is ready for. Gtown next week is gonna be desperate for a 10 win. They have really scuttled but the Connor brothers are familiar with the Dome and that game worries me a bit. I also think both the UVA and Colgate games stick out as potential traps. UVA has a ton of O talent and though that defense is an absolute mess one of these games they're gonna put it all together, hopefully not against us. Colgate is the odd non conf game late in the season. They have struggled with the losses to graduation and transfer on Offense but that 10 man is always concerning and you wonder if SU will be looking ahead to ND the following week. Much AF that's a game SU needs to take control of early and put away.

 

[MD Cuse Fan]

I think you'd have to be very happy if this team got to 10-5 with this schedule and some of our known flaws/issues. I think the key is winning the games you have to and then getting a split in the real tough ones. The good news for SU is that most of their losses are going to hold up and the wins so far should though I worry a bit about Hopkins and Penn as both have pretty difficult schedules moving forward though I don't see a collapse for either.

Wish we go that harvard game, that Win would really be a nice feather in our cap but it is what it is.

I will say if you look ahead there are a # of potential land mine type games that I hope the team is ready for. Gtown next week is gonna be desperate for a 10 win. They have really scuttled but the Connor brothers are familiar with the Dome and that game worries me a bit. I also think both the UVA and Colgate games stick out as potential traps. UVA has a ton of O talent and though that defense is an absolute mess one of these games they're gonna put it all together, hopefully not against us. Colgate is the odd non conf game late in the season. They have struggled with the losses to graduation and transfer on Offense but that 10 man is always concerning and you wonder if SU will be looking ahead to ND the following week. Much AF that's a game SU needs to take control of early and put away.

Oh that GT game def worries me, they have an interesting 2 games coming up Albany @ home, @ Loyola who suddenly looks like they could be good this season, but they still have a lot of talent.

Not sure what UVA will look like in another month and they could certainly beat Cuse, but man they just look like such a mess on the defensive end that's gotta be a game you win at home.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Oh that GT game def worries me, they have an interesting 2 games coming up Albany @ home, @ Loyola who suddenly looks like they could be good this season, but they still have a lot of talent.

Not sure what UVA will look like in another month and they could certainly beat Cuse, but man they just look like such a mess on the defensive end that's gotta be a game you win at home.

Ya hard to know what UVA will ultimately look like as there schedule gets interesting.

They play Maryland this Sat (hard to see them winning even with Maryland's issues), then Utah (very difficult game), Dartmouth and then ND at home. Then they are at Duke (a game they never win) and then at us. They could be a shell of even the current team by that point depending on how things go. They are likely looking at being 0-2 in the ACC before the Cuse game and their last 3 OOC games could get tricky beyond Dartmouth.

 

[DomeHolmes]

He has SU with the #2 RPI and #2 SOS which is outstanding.

The bracket even a 1st one is a bit absurd. Rutgers and Yale? Rutgers best win is a one goal win over Jax and the rest of the wins are over the sisters of the poor. Yale has a nice win over BU but was blown out by Army and PSU and beat Fairfield by 1.

This guy is looking strictly at RPI, which has Rutgers at seven and Yale at 10. Rutgers best win is against #29. Their current high RPI is a charade based on a weak schedule, and the teams they have played doing fairly well against cupcakes. The opponents record I believe is 50% of the RPI. They play two garbage teams next, which will move them out of the top 15 in RPI shortly. They will not end the season anywhere close to the tournament. Same for Yale.

 

[Cuse All-In]

I would rearrange this. I watch a lot of college lacrosse and, to me, Princeton is, hands down, the best team I've seen. I'd put them at #1, Richmond at #2, and Notre Dame at #3. I don't think Notre Dame has played a schedule that has earned them the top spot. I think Princeton is being unfairly punished for a bad quarter against a good Penn State team.

Nothing against ND or Richmond, but I agree that Princeton has impressed me the most so far. Richmond is such a great story - so poised, disciplined and well coached and they have shown their toughness in close games this season. Chemotti's recruiting should be the case study for college lacrosse.

As with Quint, Duke has had an extremely soft schedule so I don't understand their ranking no matter how big their winning margins have been.

 

[DomeHolmes]

There’s a couple interesting stats about our team. First, there’s a lot of talk, rightly so, about our sloppy turnovers and undisciplined play. I was surprised when looking at a few stats that we are actually 9th in FEWEST turnovers! How can that be? (imagine if we could clean up the real dumb turnovers and just have a few regular dumb ones here and there). Notre Dame, who has been the benchmark for discipline and not beating them selves recently, is only one spot ahead of us, and Maryland, with the same reputation, is 21st.

Second, we are 7th in scoring defense, with the #2 strength of schedule. However, the teams ahead of us have a strength of schedule anywhere from 11 to 35. There is no doubt in my mind that if we had Denver‘s schedule, we would be number one in defense right now. Again, kind of hard to believe after watching our SSDMs get abused by Harvard and Princeton.

Finally, looking at who has actually done something so far this year, (playing good teams, and beating them) There’s basically three teams that have any kind of résumé right now at all. If Maryland takes care of business against Virginia, they will move into the top 20 in RPI.

That will give Princeton likely five wins vs top 20 RPI after this weekend.

We would have four, with the outside chance at five if Denver beats Ohio State Thursday and we beat Denver Monday. (Denver is #20 now and would likely drop out with a loss to Ohio State). We would also have a win against a Penn team that is ranked in the poll, but way outside the top 20 in RPI. Penn lost to us by one, Carolina by two and Georgetown by three but is somehow 39th in the RPI. They are definitely a top 20 team.

Penn State has three, with a chance for four if they beat North Carolina this weekend. But they do have two bad losses.

Army has three, with the chance of four if they beat BU this weekend, but the wins are Rutgers, Yale, and Umass. At the end of the year, none of those three wins will move the needle.

Just by a quick glance, it would appear that NOBODY else other than ND can come out of this weekend with more than just 2 two top 20 wins.

BU / Army is a really big game for us this weekend if BU can win. Also, very interested in Penn State/ North Carolina.