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Message: [QUOTE="JeremyCuse, post: 2586582, member: 43"] Well here we are after an up and down lacrosse season. One of the more Bizarre Syracuse lax seasons I can ever remember. 4-0 in a down but still pretty good ACC but a nightmare OOC performance including blowout losses to JHU, Albany and a heartbreaking loss to Navy mixed in with bad performances against Cornell and Rutgers. I thought going into the Navy game that if SU could win that game or the first round ACC tourney game they would likely be a lock. Alas we lost both with the Navy game especially stinging. So where do things stand now? Save for Syracuse losing this past weekend we got mostly good results. Duke beating ND would have knocked the fighting Corrigans so that clearly hurt. However, they at least went on to win the conf tourney which gives us 2 RIP top 5 wins, something no other bubble team can claim. Bucknell lost in the first round to a bad Boston U team which knocked them out and then Navy lost to a feisty but not great Lehigh team that knocked them out. Both Bucknell and Navy have no games remaining so there stuck with what they have. Michigan beat Penn State (horrific loss) which knocked them out of the tourney and Ohio State took down Rutty to much things up even more. So what to watch for this weekend - 5 things. 1. Syracuse needs to take care of business. SU needs to come out and dominate Colgate and run up the score. An 8-7 win isn't going to move the needle much and clearly a loss will eliminate us. Id like to think that this team realizes where its at and that it really needs to play its best lax this weekend but I also thought the same thing last Friday so I guess we will see. 2. AE Tourney - Albany needs to win this period. Stony Brook and Vermont play in the semi's so Albany shouldn't be challenged until the finals. Fields played against Hartford last Saturday but apparently was clearly not 100%. Albany usually plays fairly well in these conf tourney games so I think we should be OK here. Only team I worry about is Vermont as Albany embarrassed them in the first game and they have a fairly potent offense. That said Ierlan should hopefully be the difference maker. 3. BE Tourney - This could end badly. Denver is now without its top LSM and they have a re-match with a Marquette team that they only beat by 4 just this past weekend. Nova plays Gtown in the other semi and while everyone is rooting for Gtown, Nova should have the edge as Gtown is missing one of its best offensive players. I wouldn't be shocked if Denver fails to get an AQ an the BE becomes a 2 bid leagee 4. Ivy League - Cornell's loss to Princeton last Saturday put them back on the bubble but they draw a bad Brown team in the 1st round that they will probably beat by 15. Ivy is a 2 big league but we need Yale to beat Penn. Should Penn beat Yale and then lose to Cornell in the final the IVY becomes a 3 big conference and SU is almost guaranteed to be out. Yale winning that game vs Penn is enormous. I highly doubt it will happen but if Brown somehow beat Cornell i think there out but again I think Cornell is going to bury them. 5. B10 Tourney - Much like the IVY this has the chance to get off the rails quickly if chalk doesn't hold. The biggest game is probably Maryland vs Rutty. A Maryland win I think all but knocks out Rutgers as they don't have the top end wins the other teams would have. That said a Rutgers win would put them in Lock status. Root like hell for Maryland. In the other matchup JHU plays probably the hottest team right now in OSU. An OSU win might but Hopkins on the bubble but I think Hopkins is pretty much a lock at this point so it would be better if they beat OSU as that would knock them out. If OSU wins I think they are probably in. Again the nightmare scenario would be Rutty and OSU winning that would make the B10 at minimum a 3 bid league and a 4 big if OSU won the whole thing. So for this week root for Albany and Denver to hold serve, Yale and Maryland to win their first round games, and for the remaining ACC teams to win their games to keep their numbers up. ND losing to Army would cost us that second top 5 RPI win. Personally I think SU is more in trouble then the pundits are letting on. If you look at the other bubble or potential bubble teams ie RU, JHU, Cornell - SU is/was on the losing end of the head to head match-up with each team. It also seems likely that if the B10 has a blow up weekend like the ACC did this past weekend SU could get bumped out for an RU or OSU. Tough spot to be in and unfortunately no one but ourselves to blame for being in this spot. Failure to schedule appropriately and hold a goal lead with 41 seconds plus the ball have left us in a precarious position. Going to be a long off-season with some soul searching for Desko and the staff if SU gets left out for the first time since 2007. [/QUOTE]

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