Going into the D2 Men’s Lacrosse National Championship, there was only one thing we knew for sure. We would have brand new first time champion at the final whistle. Mercy and Tampa were both in their first lacrosse title game and this was also their first meeting overall.

In trying to assess what to expect out of this initial meeting, there was very little to glean from common opponents. They both played Seton Hill last month, each winning by a small margin (Mercy by one, Tampa by three). They also each faced Frostburg State, which Tampa beat by 10 early in the season while Mercy shared a conference with them so they met twice, resulting in a six and five point win.

Statistically, there was also very little separating these two teams. They were both in the Top 10 in D2 lacrosse in defensive scoring and scoring margin, but Tampa was overall the better team in nearly every category head-to-head. The easy narrative was that this was Tampa’s game to lose due to their undefeated record, but that does not give enough credit to the season Mercy had put together.

Tampa’s undefeated record included a double overtime win, and a handful of wins by fewer than three goals against ranked opponents. To Mercy’s credit, their only loss was by one to Le Moyne, which they ultimately avenged in the National Tournament semifinals to reach this point.

So what did we expect to happen here? Tampa would certainly be the favorite, but I would put my money on plenty of defense.

The other wild card at play is this being Tampa’s fist season under new head coach J.B. Clarke, who came over from perennial powerhouse and national title contender Limestone where he brought home several championship trophies in his time there. So while Tampa has had a nationally competitive program for several years, bringing in Clarke means the team instantly sets their eyes solely on playing the Sunday before Memorial Day in the D2 Men’s Lacrosse Championship game, and here they were.

The first quarter actually fit the script of a defensive battle pretty well. Both teams were taking every offensive opportunity they could, with Mercy players in particular paying dearly when they tried to get inside near the crease with the ball. Despite 15 combined shots, the teams went into the first break tied at just 1-1. Then, Tampa woke up.

Taking only 20 second into the second quarter to cause a turnover and trigger a fast break, Tampa’s Matthew Beddow kicked off a six-goal run spanning just seven minutes to blow the game open to a commanding 7-1 lead. The star of that particular run was midfielder Cole Willard, who had some incredible shots from the top center of the offense, including a man-up goal. But Mercy would answer back with a three-goal run of their own to keep this close. Ultimately, Tampa would go into halftime with a 8-4 lead and a strong feeling of momentum behind them.

Following the break, things slowed down once again, with only four goals between the two teams. Things also started to get more physical, resulting in three penalties being called in that period alone even though only two had been doled out in the entire first half. Even though Tampa scored two goals to keep their lead, both were on the extra man opportunities, and their second quarter scoring fury seemed to be fading into the distant past.

As the fourth quarter rolled around, Mercy’s Dominic Scorcia opened the scoring to bring things to 7-10 before his teammate Justin Gerdvil was sent to the box for a two minute non-releasable penalty for a huge hit at midfield following the ensuing faceoff. Mercy was able to burn the full two minutes, but the clock kept ticking away as they were unable to find the net again for the rest of the game.

Tampa’s defense stayed aggressive, but their offense was in full ice mode for the last eight minutes of the fourth quarter as they had their eyes on securing that championship trophy. Each Tampa possession just resulted in more and more time burning off the clock until there was nothing left for Mercy to work with.

When the final whistle sounded, it was Tampa’s gear all over the field as they hoisted the National Championship trophy behind a 11-7 victory for their school’s first title, capping off an undefeated season.

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Going into this game, it was nearly impossible to know what to expect in this lacrosse matchup between Cornell and Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights had the better record overall, but this was a rare time when two teams were meeting in the national semifinal from different conferences, but had a whopping six opponents in common through the season, including both playing Ohio State twice. Even with all those common opponents, Rutgers had just a single win more than the Big Red (against Army), and in terms of margin, they were pretty split for the other games where they both won. So this was a great example where things would truly need to be determined on the lacrosse field, and it would likely be a pretty close game between Cornell and Rutgers.

The game started somewhat slow as both teams were testing each other other out in settled offense without getting too risky. There was a sense that Cornell was prodding a little bit more and trying to see where they may be able to win a matchup or find a promising angle. However it was still Rutgers that would open scoring up with a Mitch Bartolo dodge, taking advantage of a poorly timed over the head check and getting a nice bounce shot inside the crossbar. From there, the rest of the quarter was all Big Red.

That early testing of the defense would turn into some great solo efforts from John Piatelli and CJ Kirst, which started opening up some more inside looks that they were not able to take advantage of. They had set themselves up as being a threat from multiple players in multiple spots on the field to keep the Rutgers defense on their heels for the rest of the game. While each team was given a chance to covert a 30 second man up opportunity in the waning minutes, neither did and Cornell went into the first break up 3-1.

Just like in the first, Rutgers opened the scoring of the second quarter, but this time it was their best inside look of the game. Coming from behind the goal, Shane Knobloch found Brian Cameron on the doorstep for an easy catch and shoot to pull the Knights within one. Then, just like in the first, Cornell answered with two unassisted goals, still without a single player getting a second point. They were just reinforcing that everyone in their offense was a threat, but that was where the similarities started to end.

Rutgers turned back to someone familiar, Mitch Bartolo. He took a shot from the top of the box to add one to the board, prior to a trio of Big Red goals. Two off broken clears and one off a substitution with a full head of steam. Going into the half, it was 8-3.

The story of the first half? It was really two things. Cornell was able to really dictate their offense for the entire half which is a huge advantage in lacrosse. They were winning their dodges, their ride was aggressive, and were able to find the open guy repeatedly for good looks off the pass. Defensively, it was all about the takeaways. Rutgers went into the half with eight turnovers, five of which were at the hands of the Big Red. If things were going to turn around, the Scarlet Knights were going to have to become much more physical on defense to drive Cornell where they wanted them, and they really needed to take care of the ball more all over the field.

The biggest surprise happened at halftime: a prolonged weather delay (nearly 4 hours) kept both teams in the locker rooms for an extended halftime. This has always been a wildcard for teams since sometimes is can spark a comeback or cause another team to fall apart if they’re hot. The question would be: what would happen this time?

Interestingly enough, Rutgers started the second half with a much more aggressive defense, forcing Cornell to turn it over on a shot clock violation and then going down the field to score on their first possession off a another catch and shoot on the doorstep, this time by Ryan Gallagher off a Ross Scott feed. These first three minutes made it look like Rutgers figured out what they needed to change from the first half to make a run. As it turns out, they did not.

Cornell responded with a six-goal run, including two identical fast break goals from Piatelli. Basically, everything that went Cornell’s way in the first half was repeated and improved. They started winning the physical matchups despite Rutgers playing very aggressive defense all over the field. They capitalized every time Rutgers threw the ball away or dropped a key pass. Everything in the third quarter was going the way of the Big Red as they built a commanding lead of 14-5 going into the final quarter.

Rutgers started feeling the urgency of the situation once the fourth quarter rolled around. Not only were they quicker to strike, but they actually started converting their opportunities on offense. Their two goals to open the fourth were separated by less than a minute, by far the closest their scoring had been all day. But from that point on, Cornell went into clock killing mode. They took the clock all the way to six minutes before getting the ball back on a bad clearing pass, allowing them to milk the clock all the way to 4:33 before they even took a shot, which also happened to go in (Kirst from Piatelli), to bringing the lead up to an even 10, 17-7. While Rutgers did get a few late strikes, it was too little too late and the final wound up being 17-10.

So where does this leave Cornell? Should they wind up facing Maryland, they definitely won’t see the same types of opportunities they had against Rutgers. The broken clears, dropped passes, and unforced turnovers are not part of the Terps’ MO. Any win there would likely be a grind. Should they wind up facing Princeton, we don’t have to look too far back in the season to see what may happen. In Cornell’s final lacrosse game of the regular season, they won the matchup against the Tigers 18-15. So regardless of the second semifinal’s outcome, you can definitely look forward to a good one on Monday!

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When NCAA Lacrosse Tournament rolls around, there are a few things you want to happen for your team. One is you want your best players to play their best, and the other is you want someone to step up in a way they haven’t. If those two things happen, your chances of winning greatly increase.

What I decided to focus on is that second group. Who are some players that from this last round of the NCAA Lacrosse Tournament took a major step up to help their teams to victory?

The method I decided to use was something we’ve been featuring here on Lacrosse All Stars all season: the Lacrosse Reference EGA. Since EGA was kept for all players all year long, they have an EGA score for their season, essentially allowing you to rate how important each player is relative to not only their team, but everyone nationally. What I could then do was take each player’s single game EGA from this weekend’s game (I excluded the first round of mid-week play-ins) to see who overperformed relative to their season. Here’s a quick rundown of who jumped off the page.

Penn

Ben Smith – 4.45 Game EGA – 1.75 Season EGA

This one may not be too much of a shock. In Penn’s narrow one point win over Richmond, Smith’s five goals and one assist were not just big, but absolutely critical. It was also miles ahead of where he was most of the season. Going into the game, he had just 14 goals and five assists, with a season high of four points twice. Once with three goals and an assist and another the reverse of that.

Rutgers

Ross Scott – 5.97 Game EGA – 3.46 Season EGA

Ross Scott definitely fits into the category of big players needing a big game. His eight goals were a season high for him, but he had also scored five goals two times before and four goals four other times. But being the team’s leading scorer means they were going to need good production from him. He more than delivered.

Yale

James Ball – 3.59 Game EGA – 1.22 Season EGA

James Ball was the poster child for why this article is even being written. Going into this game, he had taken just 28 faceoffs all year. Yet against arguably the best FOGO in the country, he stepped in and won 8 of his 13 attempts, won seven of those ground balls, and even scored a goal in what wound up being a very close game. When you need your lesser known players to step up, this is the type of performance you hope for.

Princeton

Christian Ronda – 2.69 Game EGA – 1.45 Season EGA

Looking at the box score, one would have thought Chris Brown’s five assists would have vaulted him to the top of their list, but Ronda’s midfield hat trick was much more impressive considering he had just 17 goals all season going into the game, including one against BU in their first meeting.

Virginia

Petey LaSalla – 6.83 Game EGA – 4.32 Season EGA

Hearing that Petey LaSalla is performing in May is almost becoming a tired storyline, but it needs to be emphasized how big of a jump this was for him compared to his season when you consider Connor Shellenberger had eight points off four goals and four assists. However, in the huge win over Brown, LaSalla had taken 30 out of the game’s 31 draws, winning 19 of them and collecting 11 loose balls. And he also scored a goal off two shots.

Delaware

Drew Lenkaitis – 3.43 Game EGA – 1.20 Season EGA

Lenkaitis entered this game with just 11 goals and eight assists on the season. He walked out of the upset over Georgetown with a season high five points behind two goals and three assists. He’s someone that is pretty far down the list in who you would expect scoring to come from when looking at the Hens. Even I said in my weekend preview that Mike Robison was going to be the key, but Lenkaitis showed up big when it matter the most, and punched a Delaware ticket to Columbus, OH for the NCAA Lacrosse Tournament Quarterfinals.

Maryland

Owen Murphy – 2.86 Game EGA – 1.65 Season EGA

Maryland has been alarmingly consistent all year, so it’s not a major shock to see one of the smallest EGA gains on the list belonging to a Maryland player. In their win over Vermont, they didn’t need exceptional play from anyone, they just needed everyone to play the game they normally did. Owen Murphy’s three goals and one assists were a decent jump up from his season of 25 goals and four assists. It wasn’t his season high or necessarily a difference maker, but it was still a big jump from where his average game was this season.

Cornell

CJ Kirst – 6.27 Game EGA – 4.22 Season EGA

This also may not have been a shocker to see him here since Kirst’s seven goals were nearly half of Cornell’s total for the entire game. While Kirst was a consistent scorer all year, he only didn’t score a goal in one game this year, he only scored more than four one time. That was a six goal effort against Colgate. But he still did do pretty well against Ohio State the first time, netting four goals.

With these players being the ones who stepped up in the first round, who do you think will make the jump in the quarterfinals?

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As the NCAA D1 Men’s Lacrosse Tournament is now underway, many fans are still coming to grips with their teams not being part of the fun while others are learning about new matchups for their squad that they may not be as familiar with. So to help everyone out, here’s a listing of every team that will be playing this weekend with a key player or two that you should pay attention to this D1 Men’s Lacrosse Tournament.

Princeton: Chris Brown

For the Tigers, look no further than Chris Brown. How come? The first time Princeton took on Boston University this season, Brown (29G, 34A) had a dominant seven assist outing on a total of 12 goals. To say he’s a big part of the offense is an understatement, but with the stakes much higher this time around he will need a repeat performance if the Tigers hope to move on.

Boston University: Roy Meyer + Timmy Ley

On the flip side is BU’s Roy Meyer. The main reason to point to him is that here we are at the start of the tournament and Meyer has managed to lead the entire country in caused turnovers per game with 3.38. That also includes three against Princeton in their first meeting. While Meyer will be big, don’t overlook Timmy Ley on the other end of the field. In their first meeting against Princeton, he had just one goal and one assist, far from his 4.62 points per game average.

Penn: Patrick Burkinshaw

The easy answer for Penn would be Sam Handley. One of the best middies running in the tournament, but Penn’s success will absolutely hinge on goalie Patrick Burkinshaw. Statistically, he is the goalie in the tournament with the most saves per game, averaging 13.85, good for fourth best in the country overall. If he can keep up at that rate, Penn is going to have a good shot at Championship weekend.

Richmond: Ryan Lanchbury

For Richmond, it all comes down to attackman Ryan Lanchbury. He holds the program record for both goals, points, and assists. He also is in the running for nearly every postseason award out there. So yes, he is absolutely critical to everything Richmond will want to do in this tournament. He also happens to be eighth in the country in points per game with 5.2.

Yale: Matt Brandau

The Elis are much different than the last time they made a championship weekend run which featured a 9-13 loss to Virginia in 2019, but some of the key pieces remain. For example, the leading scorer for Yale in that championship game was none other than Matt Brandau with three goals. Brandau has kept up his scoring ways and sits at third in the country in goals per game with a 3.47 average over the season. If they want to bounce back after a canceled 2020 and idle 2021, he will be central to what they do.

Saint Joseph’s: Zach Cole

Saint Joseph’s has made their first ever NCAA tournament, and if they want to avoid an early exit, it will hinge on the success of Zach Cole taking faceoffs. Cole is nothing new in the NCAA. He’s been one of the best for years, but he currently leads the country in both faceoff win percentage and ground balls. So if Saint Joseph’s wants to add its name the list of upsets in NCAA lore, you can guarantee that controlling possessions will be a huge factor.

Brown: Ryan Aughavin

For Brown, they may not have had the same season-long attention as their other Ivy League buddies, but they still worked their way to the top of the league and hosted the Ivy League tournament. A big reason why is midfielder Ryan Aughavin, who was a first team All-Ivy selection and is second on the team in points with 41. No small feat for a middie in this league.

Virginia: Connor Shellenberger

This feels alike a copout, but I’m going with it anyway. If UVA wants to secure the threepeat, look no further than Connor Shellenberger as their key to that success. I may be somewhat influenced by his efforts last year to bring their title defense back to Charlottesville, but his 2.86 assists per game this season are not only good, but it’s just further proof that last year was no fluke. He has a lot of hype to live up to, but there is very little reason to think he won’t.

Vermont: Thomas McConvey

The America East was in a down year, and Vermont definitely failed to meet their preseason expectations early on, but they turned things around. A big reason why is midfielder Thomas McConvey. Vermont is another one of the rare teams where a middie actually leads the team in scoring with 73 points off of 60 goals and 13 assists. If they’re going score an upset, it will hinge on McConvey having a big game.

Maryland: Logan Wisnauskas

Let’s be totally honest. Trying to highlight just a single key player to Maryland’s success is about as pointless as a lacrosse ball. Maryland’s key to success is going to be on the shoulders of the guy wearing the No.1 jersey, Logan Wisnauskas. Coming off of his first overall pick in the PLL draft and currently, Wisnauskas is currently sitting at fourth in the NCAA in goals per game with 3.43. Wisnauskas is what makes the rest of Maryland work. If they want to cap off a rare undefeated season with a championship, No.1 will have to lead the Terrapins through the D1 Men’s Lacrosse Tournament.

Cornell: Gavin Adler

Right ahead of Wisnauskas in the list of NCAA goals per game is the Big Red’s John Piatelli with 3.53. A big question for Cornell going into this year was how Piatelli would handle the offense without guys like Teat or Donville hanging around. The answer is pretty darn well. For me, the big key will be on the other end of the field with Gavin Adler. Adler seemingly has more hype than almost any defender since Chris Fake in Yale’s 2018 title run. Piatelli scoring is important, but Adler being able to neutralize whoever he faces on the other team is massive.

Ohio State: Jack Myers

THE Ohio State is still on a search to return to Championship Weekend after several years since their last appearance. If they’re going to make it back, it will hinge on the country’s fourth best feeder (assists per game) Jack Myers. While Ohio State has won games where Myers didn’t light up the scoreboard, in every game that the Buckeyes lost, Myers was quite.

Rutgers: Ross Scott

My knee jerk reaction when looking at Rutgers was to immediately jump to saying it should be either Mitch Bartolo and Colin Kirst. But when digging through the few bad games Rutgers has had amongst their many successes, the real key seems to be their leading scorer Ross Scott. His performance seems to be more of a litmus test than an off-day from Kirst or Bartolo. So now we get to see if he can keep his game at a high level for the rest of May and get Rutgers to Championship Weekend.

Harvard: Sam King

Harvard has a few big scoring options with Sam King and Austin Madronic, but Sam King is the one who is linked to good games for the Crimson. When looking over Harvard’s schedule this season, King’s bad games are Harvard’s bad games. King’s good games are Harvard’s good games. They may be the No.5 Ivy League team, but this is a group that can cause some serious damage in the D1 Men’s Lacrosse Tournament.

Georgetown: Owen McElroy + Dylan Watson

The Hoyas, like Maryland, are loaded with weapons all over the field, but they are actually the only team left with two players that sit at the top statistically in their positions. First, is goalie Owen McElroy, who has the best save percentage out of any keeper in the tournament (second best in the country), but he also leads the country in goals against average. On the other side of the field you have Dylan Watson, top goal scorer in the country averaging 3.62 goals per game.

Delaware: Mike Robinson

Last but not least is Delaware, who won their play-in game and the right to play Georgetown. Their key? Look no further than needing a big ole’ game out of Mike Robinson. The lefty attackman is a major reason why the Hens were able to take home the CAA Championship this year, and any upset potential absolutely rests in his hands.

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This is the final weekend of games for the NCAA world prior to the NCAA tournament kicking off. That means not only have several schools seen their seasons come to an end, but we’re about to see even more. And while some our ending, others will be given new life. It’s college lacrosse conference tournament time! So let’s take a look at each conference tournament to find the best college lacrosse matchups, see what’s at stake, who’s involved, and when it all happens.

ACC

In men’s college lacrosse, the ACC opted to skip the conference tournament and just play more regular season games. Without an automatic qualifier, this actually does make sense, but it means we lose them fun of a tournament atmosphere. So, onto the next ones!

Ivy League

Who’s in?: Brown (1), Cornell (2), Yale (3), Penn (4)

Format: Standard four team format, starting Friday at Brown. Cornell and Yale start at 6PM on ESPNU with Brown and Penn following at 8:30. The winners play on Sunday at Noon, also on ESPNU.

Top 20 RPI: Princeton (2), Penn (4), Yale (5), Cornell (7), Brown (9), Harvard (12)

What’s at stake?: This is definitely one of the most interesting college lacrosse conference tournaments this season. The main thing on the line is seeding, mostly. With such a loaded field of teams where you still have top 20 RPI squads outside of the tournament, there’s no question the four team playing will make the tournament. But, this is a chance to see how many Ivy teams will play host when the bracket comes out.

Big Ten

Who’s in?: Everyone! Maryland (1), Rutgers (2), Ohio State (3), Johns Hopkins (4), Penn State (5), Michigan (6)

Format: The first round of 6v3 and 5v4 already happened this past weekend, with both Ohio State and Hopkins advancing. Now everything happens at Maryland this weekend. Last night saw Rutgers and Maryland both advancing to the finals, being played Saturday at 8PM on the Big Ten Network.

Top 20 RPI: Maryland (1), Rutgers (6), Ohio State (11)

What’s at stake?: At this point, not much. Maryland and Rutgers are absolutely locks to get into the tournament, so with both advancing to the conference finals, there are no shakeups going on. Ohio State needed that AQ, but their RPI has them in the bubble conversation.

Big East

Who’s in?: Georgetown (1), Denver (2), Villanova (3), Marquette (4)

Format: Standard four team playoff starting last night with Denver and Nova playing first, followed by Georgetown and Marquette. Villanova won their game with Denver by one, and Georgetown easily beat Marquette. Georgetown and Villanova now play Saturday at 4:30 on the CBS Sports Network.

Top 20 RPI: Georgetown (3), Denver (15)

What’s at stake?: Now things are getting interesting. Denver was likely in a spot where they need the conference AQ to get into the tournament with such a low RPI. So when you’re looking at only Georgetown as a lock, they have a gigantic target on their back going into the weekend. If they win, everything is clean. A Hoyas loss to Nova means the ACC and Ivy start sweating some more.

CAA

Who’s in?: Delaware (1), Towson (2), Umass (3), Drexel (4)

Format: Standard four team tournament down in Philadelphia starting last night with Delaware and Drexel followed by Umass and Towson. Delaware and Towson both advance to the finals on Saturday at 2PM, streamed on LSN.

Top 20 RPI: None

What’s at stake?: Pretty much everything. For all four teams, this is/was a “win and you’re in” scenario, and anyone that loses can start cleaning out the locker room.

Patriot League

Who’s in?: Boston (1), Army (2), Loyola (3), Lehigh (4), Navy (5), Bucknell (6)

Format: The quarterfinal round already happened on Tuesday, with Loyola topping Bucknell and Lehigh beating Navy. Now on Friday we will have BU hosting Lehigh at 4PM followed by Loyola facing Army at 7. The winners will play on Sunday at Noon. All games are shown on CBS Sports Network.

Top 20 RPI: Boston U (14), Army (18), Loyola (19)

What’s at stake?: As unfortunate as it is, this is largely a win and your in scenario, or lose and go home. As good as BU has been this year their league-leading RPI is not great, which does not help things. I don’t think either Army or Loyola could rely on that for themselves, either. So expect this tournament to get heated.

NEC

Who’s in?: Saint Joseph’s (1), Bryant (2), Hobart (3), LIU (4)

Format: Standard four team format starting yesterday with host Saint Joseph’s playing LIU and Bryant facing Hobart. Hobart score the upset over Bryant while Saint Joseph’s got the one point win over LIU, meanings these two will play Saturday at 1 on ESPN3.

Top 20 RPI: Saint Joseph’s (20)

What’s at stake?: There will be no bid stealing in this one. Even though Saint Joseph’s as been ranked most of the year, their resume is not stellar by comparison. They need the AQ to be in the tournament, which means everyone else absolutely does as well.

SoCon

Who’s in?: Jacksonville (1), Richmond (2), High Point (3), VMI (4)

Format: Standard four team format hosted at High Point beginning yesterday. Jacksonville topped VMI first, followed by a close Richmond win over High Point. The Spiders and Dolphins play Saturday at Noon on ESPN+.

Top 20 RPI: Richmond (16)

What’s at stake?: This is a weird one. Jacksonville is undefeated in-conference and is a top 10 team in the standings. But their RPI is terrible. Does that make them a lock for the NCAA? I want to say yes, but I don’t think I can. Richmond is a quality team with more than enough potential to win this, and High Point is right behind them. But if Richmond with the higher RPI loses to Jacksonville, one would assume that Jacksonville would be the only SoCon team. Clear as mud.

ASUN

Who’s in?: Utah (1), Robert Morris (2), Air Force (3), Bellarmine (4)

Format: Standard four team format being hosted in Huntsville Alabama. Thursday’s action saw Utah and RMU advance, both in close games. They now face off on Saturday at 1 on ESPN+

Top 20 RPI: None

What’s at stake?: Everything! This is another league where there’s no question on only team is getting in, but that is still a big deal. This is the first year for the ASUN and to have someone like Utah in the top seed, we could see them enter the NCAA tournament  for the first time as well.

MAAC

Who’s in?: St. Bonaventure (1), Marist (2), Manhattan (3), Siena (4)

Format: Standard 4 team format down at Marist. Thursday’s action was the Bonnies advance as expected, but Manhattan scored the overtime upset over Marist. That sets up a the finals for Saturday at 10AM on ESPNU.

Top 20 RPI: None

What’s at stake?: The MAAC is 100% a win and you’re in, meaning everyone is trying to avoid that dreaded final trip to the locker. What is worth watching? The Bonnies! They’re still a new team, so getting out to the #1 seed huge for them building a program. Making the NCAA tournament?  Massive!

America East

Who’s in?: Vermont (1), Binghamton (2), UMBC (3), Albany (4)

Format: Standard fur team format being held in Vermont. Thursday saw UMBC and Vermont advance to Saturday’s finals, being played at Noon on Saturday on ESPNU.

Top 20 RPI: None

What’s at stake?: Even though these teams had much higher expectations going into the season, none of the final four in the AE are in a spot where they can afford a loss. The America East will only send one team this year, so this tournament means everything.

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We’re almost there! This past weekend has everyone’s season winding down, setting up our final week of any non-conference games and the last chance for teams to justify a spot in their respective conference tournament as applicable. Things are definitely tense around the country, so let’s take a look at what happened:

Scoreboard

Tuesday

Loyola 7 v Georgetown 14 (Patriot v Big East)

Binghamton 18 v NJIT 8 (America East v America East)

Wednesday

Holy Cross 15 v UMass-Lowell 14 (Patriot v America East)

Thursday

North Carolina 5 v Notre Dame 12 (ACC v ACC)

Friday

Albany 16 v NJIT 6 (America East v America East)

Lafayette 16 v Bucknell 19 (Patriot v Patriot)

Manhattan 11 v Monmouth 4 (MAAC v MAAC)

Saturday

St. John’s 6 v Georgetown 23 (Big East v Big East)

Air Force 10 v Robert Morris 11 (ASUN v ASUN)

Utah 12 v Bellarmine 11 (ASUN v ASUN)

Bryant 14 v Mount St Marys 7 (NEC v NEC)

Penn 16 v Dartmouth 12 (Ivy v Ivy)

Delaware 16 v Drexel 15 (CAA v CAA)

Denver 16 v Providence 3 (Big East v Big East)

Cleveland State 12 v Detroit Mercy 13 (ASUN v ASUN)

Hampton 5 v VMI 21 (SoCon v SoCon)

LIU 19 v Hobart 22 (NEC v NEC)

UMass 13 v Hofstra 9 (CAA v CAA)

Mercer 5 v Jacksonville 17 (SoCon v SoCon)

Maryland 22 v Johns Hopkins 7 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Loyola 11 v Colgate 10 (Patriot v Patriot)

Marist 13 v Canisius 7 (MAAC v MAAC)

Villanova 10 v Marquette 8 (Big East v Big East)

Princeton 16 v Harvard 19 (Ivy v Ivy)

Richmond 16 v High Point 5 (SoCon v SoCon)

Towson 12 v Fairfield 8 (CAA v CAA)

Binghamton 10 v Vermont 17 (America East v America East)

Penn State 14 v Rutgers 15 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Boston U 9 v Lehigh 8 (Patriot v Patriot)

Navy 12 v Army 11 (Patriot v Patriot)

Brown 13 v Cornell 8 (Ivy v Ivy)

St. Bonaventure 10 v Quinnipiac 8 (MAAC v MAAC)

Merrimack 8 v Wagner 6 (NEC v NEC)

Siena 11 v Holy Cross 8 (MAAC v Patriot)

Virginia 21 v Syracuse 15 (ACC v ACC)

Sacred Heart 7 v Saint Joseph’s 14 (NEC v NEC)

Stony Brook 13 v UMBC 11 (America East v America East)

Sunday

Albany 13 v Yale 17 (America East v Ivy)

Michigan 12 v Ohio State 14 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

My Top 20

Since transparency is a good thing, here’s my Inside Lacrosse Media Poll ballot for this week:

No ballot for me this week! In a very rare occurrence, I didn’t watch any lacrosse this past weekend, although I did see a few of the midweek ones. While I could vote just based on box scores, I personally don’t feel that’s justified since I do need some subjectivity to see how the games truly played out. Also, why did I not watch any games? For the most part it’s because I was on a plane to The Czech Republic getting ready for the Aleš Hřebeský Memorial. By the time you’re reading this, the games will be underway, so check those out on the YouTube stream! But I’ll be caught up with watching key games next week.

Conference Comparison

This is the section of the rundown to keep track of how conferences are doing against each other. This year we actually don’t have any teams playing as independents, which is a huge step forward. The big reason I keep track of this is it helps roughly gauge how many teams from each conference to expect in the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. Unless you’re in the top 3 of conferences, you’re probably only sending one team. There are some rare exceptions, but it does help to be aware of what’s going on once everyone switches to conference games and beat eachother up.

We only have four non-conference games this past week, so the standings are just about locked in at the top. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still movement! Georgetown’s big win over Loyola (and Holy Cross’ loss to Siena) are what pushed the Big East up to being tied with the CAA and the Patriot down a notch to be behind both of those leagues. Rounding things out were Yale’s win over Albany and Holy Cross beating their neighbor Umass-Lowell from the America East.

This Week’s Games

Tuesday

Bryant @ Brown (NEC v Ivy)

Saint Joseph’s @ Penn (NEC v Ivy)

Quinnipiac @ Yale (MAAC v Ivy)

Thursday

Lafayette @ Virginia (Patriot v ACC)

Friday

Georgetown @ Villanova (Big East v Big East)

Bucknell @ Navy (Patriot v Patriot)

Marquette @ Denver (Big East v Big East)

Drexel @ UMass (CAA v CAA)

Lehigh @ Loyola (Patriot v Patriot)

NJIT @ UMBC (America East v America East)

Army @ Boston U (Patriot v Patriot)

Colgate @ Holy Cross (Patriot v Patriot)

Penn @ Albany (Ivy v America East)

Saturday

Bellarmine @ Air Force (ASUN v ASUN)

UMass-Lowell @ Binghamton (America East v America East)

Wagner @ Bryant (NEC v NEC)

Dartmouth @ Brown (Ivy v Ivy)

Delaware @ Fairfield (CAA v CAA)

Detroit @ Utah (ASUN v ASUN)

Mount St Marys @ Hobart (NEC v NEC)

Hofstra @ Towson (CAA v CAA)

Monmouth @ Marist (MAAC v MAAC)

High Point @ Mercer (SoCon v SoCon)

Cornell @ Princeton (Ivy v Ivy)

VMI @ Richmond (SoCon v SoCon)

Vermont @ Stony Brook (America East v America East)

Robert Morris @ Cleveland State (ASUN v ASUN)

Providence @ St. John’s (Big East v Big East)

Canisius @ St. Bonaventure (MAAC v MAAC)

Quinnipiac @ Siena (MAAC v MAAC)

Saint Joseph’s @ Merrimack (NEC v NEC)

Harvard @ Yale (Ivy v Ivy)

LIU @ Sacred Heart (NEC v NEC)

Michigan @ Ohio State (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Penn State @ Johns Hopkins (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Sunday

Notre Dame @ Syracuse (ACC v ACC)

North Carolina @ Duke (ACC v ACC)

Games to Look Out For

Well, every Ivy league game. That conference is a beast and a log jam. Two things! At the same time! It’s a metaphor shapeshifter of a league. But there are also the final Non-NCAA tournament non-conference games of the year happening this week in case you’re into that sort of thing. And of course just your routine great games to watch. So what should you check out?

Ivy League Games

Dartmouth @ Brown (Ivy v Ivy)

Harvard @ Yale (Ivy v Ivy)

Cornell @ Princeton (Ivy v Ivy)

Non-Conference Games

Penn @ Albany (Ivy v America East)

Bryant @ Brown (NEC v Ivy)

Saint Joseph’s @ Penn (NEC v Ivy)

Quinnipiac @ Yale (MAAC v Ivy)

Lafayette @ Virginia (Patriot v ACC)

Sneaky Good Matchups

Michigan @ Ohio State (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Georgetown @ Villanova (Big East v Big East)

Bucknell @ Navy (Patriot v Patriot)

Lehigh @ Loyola (Patriot v Patriot)

Vermont @ Stony Brook (America East v America East)

Not So Sneaky Matchups

North Carolina @ Duke (ACC v ACC)

Army @ Boston U (Patriot v Patriot)

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Welcome back to the next edition of our collaboration with Zack Capozzi over at Lacrosse Reference. Each week, we are putting together a stat of the week to highlight a game, team, or individual from Men’s or Women’s lacrosse to focus on.

It might be from a game the previous weekend, or it might be for an upcoming matchup. But either way, it will allow me to use some stats combined with a little bit of commentary for why I think that particular one jumps out to me in a given week.

This week’s focus: Strength of Record vs RPI

Since we’re now in late April, all eyes are looking forward to Selection Sunday in a few weeks that will determine which teams will have a chance to play for a National Championship and which will not. Because of this, a key metric starts floating around in the lacrosse Selection Sunday conversation: RPI. RPI stands for Rating Percentage Index, and it’s the standard for nearly every NCAA sport including lacrosse when determining seeding for tournaments.

It’s important to take a little bit of a detour down this rabbit hole for a second, so bear with me. The whole reason why college sports find themselves in this predicament of needing an invented metrics while most professional leagues do not is because there are just so many schools. In a professional league, you can rely on standings, divisions, etc. to determine where teams fall in the postseason. Some leagues also play so many games that everything sorts itself out pretty cleanly, and if they don’t it’s usually because schedules are relatively similar and teams almost all play each other.

But in NCAA sports you’re dealing with potentially hundreds of colleges and fewer than twenty games in most sports. That means there is a severe lack of overlap in schedules and many teams won’t even play each other, let alone have several common opponents. Enter RPI. RPI was developed to give selection committees a numerical way of ranking teams. The way it does that is by combining a team’s record with their opponents’ record, and then their opponents’ opponents’ records.

This method as you may imagine has created a fair number of critics. Strictly by looking at records, you still are not getting a true feel for how good a team may or may not be. It certainly isn’t perfect, but it is better than some alternatives out there. This lack of perfection also drove the NCAA to adopt NET rankings in basketball which takes much of the same information as RPI into account, but also adds margin, game location, efficiency, and win quality. At this time, this is still unique to basketball and just about every other sport relies on RPI.

So now let’s talk about the Lacrosse Reference Strength of Record (SOR). Stealing straight from their glossary.

“Strength-of-Record is calculated by comparing a team’s actual results to what a theoretical Top-10 team should achieve against the same schedule. A team with a very difficult schedule may not have a gaudy win-loss record, but neither would a theoretical top-10 team if the schedule is hard enough. Using SOR allows us to account for the strength of a team’s opponents and factor in whether they actually won or lost those games in a way that a simple Strength-of-Schedule metric doesn’t.”

What I thought would be interesting is taking a fully record-based approach and comparing it to the SOR values. On top of that, we also have the lacrosse ELO rankings to see which teams overall are ranked the highest. So what you have below here are those three metrics all listing their top 25 schools.

Now if we circle back to the original fact that RPI is what the NCAA Lacrosse Selection Sunday committee uses, we can look at this comparison table to see who may benefit from RPI compared to the other metrics, and who may be hurt by it.

Who benefits? Primarily it’s looking like the Ivy League, but specifically Penn and Princeton. Princeton is all the way up to #2 in RPI and #3 in SOR, but falls to #9 in ELO. The #9 jumps out to me because that’s the difference between hosting a winnable first round NCAA game and going on the road to a tough matchup with an even tougher quarterfinal. The other team is Penn who is a lacrosse RPI all-star . They are all the way up to #4 in RPI, but sit at #14 in SOR and ELO. That’s bordering on hosting a game as a high seed via RPI and barely making the tournament via the other metrics.

Who is hurt by RPI? Jacksonville is the team I see with the worst RPI, solid ELO, and great SOR. A #22 RPI would suggest they have to win the SoCon to make the tournament. But everything else in the world says this is a tournament team. The other one is Army who is just ahead of Jacksonville at #20 in RPI, but is a top eight team in SOR and ELO. That’s another example where all of a sudden RPI is saying that Army has to win the Patriot League AQ to guarantee a spot in the tournament.

What are your thoughts looking at these? They’re still a snapshot in time and these numbers change with every single game that’s played. But which one jumps out to you as “right”? Or are things still a little bit off from what you would expect to see?

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With just three weeks of gameplay left before we will be sitting on our couches looking to see the bracket revealed, teams are making their final moves to boost their resumes before conference tournaments kick off. The Ivy League, ACC, and Big Ten are without a doubt the best conferences in the country in terms of RPI. Right now, it’s all about qualifying for your tournament, playing your best lacrosse, and boosting your at-large resume. So who’s doing the best at that?

Scoreboard

Monday

Cornell 16 v Syracuse 15 (Ivy v ACC)

Tuesday

NJIT 11 v Marist 12 (America East v MAAC)

Notre Dame 18 v Marquette 8 (ACC v Big East)

Thursday

Virginia 8 v Duke 17 (ACC v ACC)

Friday

High Point 25 v Hampton 8 (SoCon v SoCon)

Saturday

Marquette 10 v Georgetown 20 (Big East v Big East)

Vermont 14 v Albany 6 (America East v America East)

Cleveland State 8 v Air Force 12 (ASUN v ASUN)

Detroit 8 v Bellarmine 13 (ASUN v ASUN)

Stony Brook 7 v Binghamton 3 (America East v America East)

Sacred Heart 10 v Bryant 22 (NEC v NEC)

Dartmouth 10 v Princeton 12 (Ivy v Ivy)

Towson 10 v Delaware 11 (CAA v CAA)

St. John’s 4 v Denver 18 (Big East v Big East)

Drexel 10 v Hofstra 7 (CAA v CAA)

Hobart 12 v Merrimack 11 (NEC v NEC)

Jacksonville 25 v VMI 6 (SoCon v SoCon)

Penn State 10 v Johns Hopkins 13 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Boston U 14 v Loyola 9 (Patriot v Patriot)

Marist 13 v Manhattan 12 (MAAC v MAAC)

Mercer 9 v Richmond 22 (SoCon v SoCon)

Harvard 8 v Penn 11 (Ivy v Ivy)

Providence 13 v Villanova 18 (Big East v Big East)

Fairfield 16 v UMass 13 (CAA v CAA)

Rutgers 13 v Michigan 12 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Army 17 v Cornell 10 (Patriot v Ivy)

Robert Morris 8 v Utah 18 (ASUN v ASUN)

Navy 9 v Lafayette 5 (Patriot v Patriot)

Yale 13 v Brown 20 (Ivy v Ivy)

St. Bonaventure 11 v Siena 14 (MAAC v MAAC)

Mount St. Mary’s 9 v Wagner 5 (NEC v NEC)

Quinnipiac 9 v Virginia 21 (MAAC v ACC)

UMBC 11 v UMass-Lowell 7 (America East v America East)

Ohio State 12 v Maryland 19 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Syracuse 13 v North Carolina 14 (ACC v ACC)

Saint Joseph’s 14 v LIU 10 (NEC v NEC)

Canisius 4 v Monmouth 6 (MAAC v MAAC)

Lehigh 8 v Colgate 9 (Patriot v Patriot)

Sunday

Holy Cross 7 v Bucknell 23 (Patriot v Patriot)

Jacksonville 26 v Hampton 3 (SoCon v SoCon)

My Top 20

Since transparency is a good thing, here’s my Inside Lacrosse Media Poll ballot for this week:

1. Maryland
2. Georgetown
3. Princeton
4. Notre Dame
5. Rutgers
6. Jacksonville
7. Yale
8. Penn
9. Army
10. Virginia
11. Cornell
12. Duke
13. Ohio State
14. Brown
15. Harvard
16. Denver
17. UNC
18. Boston U
19. Utah
20. High Point

While I know others (possibly you) will definitely debate where I have different teams, I do feel pretty confident at this point about who I have in the top 20 field. This past week, only Yale, UVA, Cornell, Ohio State, and Harvard lost a game. Of those, UVA and Cornell also won a game in their double header week. The impressive thing though is that only Yale lost to a team (Brown) that was outside of my Top 20 last week. UVA lost to Duke, Cornell lost to Army, Harvard lost to Penn, and Ohio State lost to Maryland. So while Villanova did win, they were the team I dropped to make room for Brown entering the list this week.

Conference Comparison

This is the section of the rundown to keep track of how conferences are doing against each other. This year we actually don’t have any teams playing as independents, which is a huge step forward. The big reason I keep track of this is it helps roughly gauge how many teams from each conference to expect in the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. Unless you’re in the top 3 of conferences, you’re probably only sending one team. There are some rare exceptions, but it does help to be aware of what’s going on once everyone switches to conference games and beat eachother up.

With only a few out of conference games this week, there wasn’t much happening to shake up these standings. You can also assume that the Ivy League is officially the best league in the country this year as there really isn’t a way for the Big Ten or ACC to catch them. Underscoring this is that even with the ACC going 2-1 and being just .03 points behind the Big ten, even if they had gone a full 3-0, they still wouldn’t have caught up to the Big Ten. Also, while factoring in the strength of schedule, it’s important to note that these values do include conference games.

This Week’s Games

Tuesday

Loyola 7 v Georgetown 14 (Patriot v Big East)

Binghamton 18 v NJIT 8 (America East v America East)

Wednesday

Holy Cross @ UMass-Lowell (Patriot v America East)

Thursday

North Carolina @ Notre Dame (ACC v ACC)

Friday

Albany @ NJIT (America East v America East)

Lafayette @ Bucknell (Patriot v Patriot)

Manhattan @ Monmouth (MAAC v MAAC)

Saturday

St. John’s @ Georgetown (Big East v Big East)

Air Force @ Robert Morris (ASUN v ASUN)

Utah @ Bellarmine (ASUN v ASUN)

Bryant @ Mount St Marys (NEC v NEC)

Penn @ Dartmouth (Ivy v Ivy)

Delaware @ Drexel (CAA v CAA)

Denver @ Providence (Big East v Big East)

Cleveland State @ Detroit (ASUN v ASUN)

Hampton @ VMI (SoCon v SoCon)

LIU @ Hobart (NEC v NEC)

UMass @ Hofstra (CAA v CAA)

Mercer @ Jacksonville (SoCon v SoCon)

Maryland @ Johns Hopkins (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Loyola @ Colgate (Patriot v Patriot)

Marist @ Canisius (MAAC v MAAC)

Villanova @ Marquette (Big East v Big East)

Princeton @ Harvard (Ivy v Ivy)

Richmond @ High Point (SoCon v SoCon)

Towson @ Fairfield (CAA v CAA)

Binghamton @ Vermont (America East v America East)

Penn State @ Rutgers (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Boston U @ Lehigh (Patriot v Patriot)

Navy @ Army (Patriot v Patriot)

Brown @ Cornell (Ivy v Ivy)

St. Bonaventure @ Quinnipiac (MAAC v MAAC)

Merrimack @ Wagner (NEC v NEC)

Siena @ Holy Cross (MAAC v Patriot)

Virginia @ Syracuse (ACC v ACC)

Sacred Heart @ Saint Joseph’s (NEC v NEC)

Stony Brook @ UMBC (America East v America East)

Sunday

Albany @ Yale (America East v Ivy)

Michigan @ Ohio State (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Games to Look Out For

IT’S RIVALRY WEEK! While the non-conference slate is pretty small and mostly full of Patriot League matches, the headliner games are some intriguing conference battles, but importantly: rivalries! This week has some major rivalry games that historically are when you can throw records out the window. That may not be the case for all of these this season, but that doesn’t mean these games are lacking some incredible potential. Namely we have: Maryland and Hopkins, Virginia and Syracuse, Michigan and Ohio State and most notably Army versus Navy!

Non-Conference Games

Tuesday: Loyola 7 v Georgetown 14 (Patriot v Big East)

Wednesday: Holy Cross @ UMass-Lowell (Patriot v America East)

Saturday: Siena @ Holy Cross (MAAC v Patriot)

Sunday: Albany @ Yale (America East v Ivy)

Sneaky Good Matchups

Delaware @ Drexel (CAA v CAA)

Virginia @ Syracuse (ACC v ACC)

Michigan @ Ohio State (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Not So Sneaky Matchups

North Carolina @ Notre Dame (ACC v ACC)

Brown @ Cornell (Ivy v Ivy)

Navy @ Army (Patriot v Patriot)

Richmond @ High Point (SoCon v SoCon)

Princeton @ Harvard (Ivy v Ivy)

Maryland @ Johns Hopkins (Big Ten v Big Ten)

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Conference battles are definitely heating up and more teams are getting into “must win” territory as they are starting to see their postseason hopes slipping away. So who’s doing well, and who’s not?

Scoreboard

Tuesday

Stony Brook 14 v Dartmouth 13 (America East v Ivy)

Marist 7 v Princeton 18 (MAAC v Ivy)

Yale 22 v Boston U 15 (Ivy v Patriot)

Thursday

Syracuse 12 v Albany 14 (ACC v America East)

Friday

VMI 5 v High Point 16 (SoCon v SoCon)

Michigan 8 v Penn State 9 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Saturday

Georgetown 15 v Providence 5 (Big East v Big East)

Albany 7 v UMBC 16 (America East v America East)

Air Force 13 v Detroit Mercy 4 (ASUN v ASUN)

Bellarmine 9 v Robert Morris 12 (ASUN v ASUN)

Bryant 10 v Saint Joseph’s 11 (NEC v NEC)

Yale 23 v Dartmouth 6 (Ivy v Ivy)

Hofstra 12 v Delaware 11 (CAA v CAA)

Denver 12 v Villanova 10 (Big East v Big East)

Fairfield 18 v Drexel 19 (CAA v CAA)

Hampton 6 v Mercer 22 (SoCon v SoCon)

Wagner 3 v Hobart 12 (NEC v NEC)

Richmond 11 v Jacksonville 13 (SoCon v SoCon)

Johns Hopkins 10 v Ohio State 12 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Loyola 18 v Navy 7 (Patriot v Patriot)

Manhattan 8 v Siena 7 (MAAC v MAAC)

Marquette 23 v St. John’s 13 (Big East v Big East)

NJIT 12 v Stony Brook 20 (America East v America East)

Brown 12 v Penn 10 (Ivy v Ivy)

Boston U 7 v Princeton 12 (Patriot v Ivy)

UMass 9 v Towson 12 (CAA v CAA)

Vermont 23 v UMass-Lowell 9 (America East v America East)

Colgate 11 v Army 13 (Patriot v Patriot)

Utah 15 v Cleveland State 11 (ASUN v ASUN)

Monmouth 3 v St. Bonaventure 6 (MAAC v MAAC)

Harvard 9 v Cornell 17 (Ivy v Ivy)

Lafayette 21 v Holy Cross 11 (Patriot v Patriot)

Quinnipiac 15 v Canisius 10 (MAAC v MAAC)

Merrimack 11 v Sacred Heart 8 (NEC v NEC)

LIU 14 v Mount St Mary’s 10 (NEC v NEC)

North Carolina 4 v Virginia 11 (ACC v ACC)

Notre Dame 16 v Duke 15 (ACC v ACC)

Sunday

Bucknell 12 v Lehigh 13 (Patriot v Patriot)

Rutgers 9 v Maryland 17 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

My Top 20

Since transparency is a good thing, here’s my Inside Lacrosse Media Poll ballot for this week:

1. Maryland
2. Georgetown
3. Yale
4. Cornell
5. Princeton
6. Notre Dame
7. Virginia
8. Rutgers
9. Jacksonville
10. Ohio State
11. Penn
12. Army
13. Harvard
14. Denver
15. UNC
16. Boston U
17. Utah
18. Duke
19. High Point
20. Villanova

At this point in the season, my Top 20 has become pretty consistent. There are very few teams being added or dropped week to week and there were actually none this week. For the most part, teams are losing games I expect them to and winning the ones they should as well. I’ve also been struggling on where to classify a team like Saint Joseph’s. Their record is great, but the schedule is not. For me, it basically comes down to them or Utah for a spot in the Top 20. In my mind, Utah still gets the nod for their win over Jacksonville and “good” losses. If the Utes keep up their winning ways, I see no reason to drop them.

Conference Comparison

This is the section of the rundown to keep track of how conferences are doing against each other. This year we actually don’t have any teams playing as independents, which is a huge step forward. The big reason I keep track of this is it helps roughly gauge how many teams from each conference to expect in the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. Unless you’re in the top 3 of conferences, you’re probably only sending one team. There are some rare exceptions, but it does help to be aware of what’s going on once everyone switches to conference games and beat eachother up.

You know things are not going well for the America East when they can go 2-0 and still not make it out of last place. On the other hand, you have the Ivy League who just continues to improve, crossing the thirty win mark this past week and are still winning over 3/4 of their nonconference games. Things are definitely getting interesting in the middle, though. The Patriot dropping a pair of games to fall to an even .500 means you’re really looking more and more like most conference will be sending just one team to the postseason, thus increasing the chances that the Ivies send possibly a full handful. The Big Ten and ACC will send more than one team, but after them, not many conferences are making a strong case for anything but an automatic qualifier.

This Week’s Games

Tuesday

Cornell 16 @ Syracuse 15 (Ivy v ACC)

Tuesday

NJIT 11 @ Marist 12 (America East v MAAC)

Notre Dame 18 @ Marquette 8 (ACC v Big East)

Thursday

Virginia @ Duke (ACC v ACC)

Friday

High Point @ Hampton (SoCon v SoCon)

Saturday

Marquette @ Georgetown (Big East v Big East)

Vermont @ Albany (America East v America East)

Cleveland State @ Air Force (ASUN v ASUN)

Detroit @ Bellarmine (ASUN v ASUN)

Stony Brook @ Binghamton (America East v America East)

Sacred Heart @ Bryant (NEC v NEC)

Dartmouth @ Princeton (Ivy v Ivy)

Towson @ Delaware (CAA v CAA)

St. John’s @ Denver (Big East v Big East)

Drexel @ Hofstra (CAA v CAA)

Hobart @ Merrimack (NEC v NEC)

Jacksonville @ VMI (SoCon v SoCon)

Penn State @ Johns Hopkins (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Boston U @ Loyola (Patriot v Patriot)

Marist @ Manhattan (MAAC v MAAC)

Mercer @ Richmond (SoCon v SoCon)

Harvard @ Penn (Ivy v Ivy)

Providence @ Villanova (Big East v Big East)

Fairfield @ UMass (CAA v CAA)

Rutgers @ Michigan (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Army @ Cornell (Patriot v Ivy)

Robert Morris @ Utah (ASUN v ASUN)

Navy @ Lafayette (Patriot v Patriot)

Yale @ Brown (Ivy v Ivy)

St. Bonaventure @ Siena (MAAC v MAAC)

Mount St Marys @ Wagner (NEC v NEC)

Quinnipiac @ Virginia (MAAC v ACC)

UMBC @ UMass-Lowell (America East v America East)

Ohio State @ Maryland (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Syracuse @ North Carolina (ACC v ACC)

Saint Joseph’s @ LIU (NEC v NEC)

Canisius @ Monmouth (MAAC v MAAC)

Lehigh @ Colgate (Patriot v Patriot)

Sunday

Holy Cross @ Bucknell (Patriot v Patriot)

Jacksonville @ Hampton (SoCon v SoCon)

Games to Look Out For

In non-conference matchups, the best that I see this week is going to be Army visiting Cornell, which could be an incredible game. Cornell won a close one against Syracuse, but they should be a different team at home. The Gavin Adler vs Brendan Nichtern matchup is worth tuning in for.  In terms of the other games, the conference battles are hitting a tipping point as teams have chances at statement wins or defining losses.

Sneaky Good Matchups

Vermont @ Albany (America East v America East)

Towson @ Delaware (CAA v CAA)

Penn State @ Johns Hopkins (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Rutgers @ Michigan (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Syracuse @ North Carolina (ACC v ACC)

Not So Sneaky Matchups

Virginia @ Duke (ACC v ACC)

Ohio State @ Maryland (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Boston U @ Loyola (Patriot v Patriot)

Harvard @ Penn (Ivy v Ivy)

Army @ Cornell (Patriot v Ivy)

Yale @ Brown (Ivy v Ivy)

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Welcome back to the next edition of our collaboration with Zack Capozzi over at Lacrosse Reference. Each week, we are putting together a stat of the week to highlight a game, team, or individual from Men’s or Women’s lacrosse to focus on.

It might be from a game the previous weekend, or it might be for an upcoming matchup. But either way, it will allow me to use some stats combined with a little bit of commentary for why I think that particular one jumps out to me in a given week.

This week’s focus: Should Duke lacrosse fans be worried?

The handy part of how Lacrosse Reference organizes their team pages is that it lets you go beyond just high level season metrics that the NCAA tracks and look into how a team is performing game by game. Early in the season, it was interesting to see, but not particularly useful with just a few games of sample size. But now, we can really see what direction teams are heading, and can start understanding if a team is improving or declining.

There were actually a few things that made me think of Duke as the team to check out first. One is the fact that their loss to Syracuse wasn’t due to some late comeback, as the Blue Devils never tied or led the game from the point where Syracuse scored the first goal. Compounding this was Syracuse is a team going trough their own struggles, making the game the de facto last place in the ACC game. Then you can layer in the broader lacrosse program reputation at Duke, which is that they are a team that improves throughout the season. This is largely due to the few years where they had an early season loss and still won the national championship. But that’s something that typically only holds up when they lose to good teams early. When they lose to teams they really should be beating, it’s typically not a good season in Durham. So, how are the Blue Devils looking so far in the 2022 season with twelve games under their belt? Well, it’s not encouraging.

Starting with the offense, let’s peak at their offensive efficiency:

Following their Jacksonville loss, it actually looked like that was what they needed to turn things around, and the offense was steadily improving over the next four games. But since then? Steady decline. And this is where the Opponent Adjusted calculation comes in. Both Richmond and Towson were wins where the Blue Devils put up 14 points, which is not bad by any means. But the 10 goals against both Syracuse and Loyola were not encouraging by any means. But where is the silver lining?

It’s not going out on a limb to say that Duke has the lacrosse talent and coaching to turn things around and get back on track as they march through their ACC schedule in April, but it needs to happen immediately. They do have Dyson Williams as the third most accurate shooter in the country and they have the second best man-up unit Men’s division 1.

For reference on the graph above, most teams are in the 3-40% range, which means changes within that 10% window can have a big impact. Duke is actually fourth in the country overall at 37.4% behind that stretch of games from Denver to High Point. But again, the trend is what’s concerning.

Now, let’s take a look at the faceoff dot to see how well they’re doing to feed that offense:

At the high level, Duke sits at 13th in the country with a 57.3% Adjusted Faceoff percentage. Their raw NCAA percentage has them at 15th with 56.7%. So while their past three games are a bit down, Jake Naso has taken almost 80% of the team’s faceoffs and is sitting just under a 60% win rate personally. So are faceoff down a bit as of late? Yes. Is it a problem or something I’d worry about? Definitely not. More concerning would be how late against Syracuse the Blue Devils couldn’t win one at all, but the high level numbers are still very respectable.

So if offense is sputtering, but faceoffs are OK, how’s the defense look? Not great.

The shape of the curve is actually a little deceiving since the lower percentage is actually a good thing since the metrics is number of goals divided by number of possessions.

Similar to the offense, the Blue Devils defense was improving up to the High Point game before they started their current four game decline resulting in a 2-2 stretch. But unlike the offense which had a similar arc, the defense is at a much worse starting point. Their adjusted team defense is 28.1% on the season, which puts them all the way down to 27th in the country, making them a very middle of the road squad. The the trend is getting better, but it’s still not in a good spot. They’re just now getting games under the 30% mark, which is where teams in the 45-51th range are nationally. The direction is good, but Duke needs to step it up if they want to compete with some of the best lacrosse programs in the country come playoffs, if they even make it out of the ACC alive.

Now finally, we can take a look between the pipes. If we know the defense is struggling, what about Mike Adler in net?

For reference, Adler has started every game for the Blue devils this year, which accounts for just under 94% of total minutes played. Nationally in raw save percentage, he sits at #17 with 54.2%. Drilling into more detailed keeper metrics on Lacrosse Reference, Adler has a value of .003 excess saves per shot attempt, which puts him at #51 in the country. Basically what that stat tells you is Adler’s basically doing what you would expect from a goalie right now. He’s not making a ton of extra saves statistically, but he’s also not giving up the goals he shouldn’t be. This does mean that if Duke were to get their defense on the right track and really get better about limiting opponent’s shots, you would also likely see Adler’s numbers climb at a similar rate.

So where does that leave us? Is the Duke lacrosse program a lost cause this season? Absolutely not. But where they need to improve is definitely clear. Their defense is the biggest area to focus on at the moment is absolutely what is holding them back right now. Their offense can absolutely be better, and it *should* be better, but the issues on defense need to be addressed first. So the trending is not great at the moment, but there is still time for the Blue Devils to get things on the right track. But, just not much of it. Their next chance: this Saturday in Chapel Hill against North Carolina.

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This is the final week before being almost entirely a conference-only slate of games around all of DI Men’s lacrosse. The Big East had a huge week and was able to capitalize on the CAA’s poor week.

Scoreboard

Tuesday

Dartmouth 6 v Ohio State 12 (Ivy v Big Ten)

Boston U 10 v Harvard 13 (Patriot v Ivy)

St. John’s 17 v Fairfield 14 (Big East v CAA)

Saturday

Georgetown 14 v Lehigh 11 (Big East v Patriot)

Stony Brook 10 v Albany 12 (America East v America East)

Air Force 16 v Marquette 9 (ASUN v Big East)

Bellarmine 8 v North Carolina 15 (ASUN v ACC)

UMBC 8 v Binghamton 12 (America East v America East)

Bryant 14 v Hobart 11 (NEC v NEC)

Colgate 6 v Bucknell 14 (Patriot v Patriot)

Dartmouth 10 v Harvard 19 (Ivy v Ivy)

Delaware 13 v Villanova 18 (CAA v Big East)

Towson 9 v Denver 12 (CAA v Big East)

Detroit Mercy 8 v High Point 18 (ASUN v SoCon)

Drexel 14 v Robert Morris 15 (CAA v ASUN)

Richmond 20 v Hampton 5 (SoCon v SoCon)

Hofstra 9 v Providence 10 (CAA v Big East)

St. John’s 4 v Jacksonville 25 (Big East v SoCon)

Michigan 12 v Johns Hopkins 15 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Army 14 v Loyola 12 (Patriot v Patriot)

Manhattan 9 v St. Bonaventure 15 (MAAC v MAAC)

Siena 10 v Marist 11 (MAAC v MAAC)

Mercer 9 v Utah 23 (SoCon v ASUN)

UMass-Lowell 8 v NJIT 7 (America East v America East)

Cornell 11 v Penn 15 (Ivy v Ivy)

Princeton 12 v Yale 14 (Ivy v Ivy)

Canisius 6 v Vermont 15 (MAAC v America East)

VMI 10 v Cleveland State 22 (SoCon v ASUN)

UMass 10 v Brown 7 (CAA v Ivy)

Lafayette 11 v Boston U 21 (Patriot v Patriot)

Holy Cross 8 v Navy 14 (Patriot v Patriot)

Saint Joseph’s 12 v Wagner 6 (NEC v NEC)

Monmouth 9 v Quinnipiac 8 (MAAC v MAAC)

Merrimack 7 v LIU 16 (NEC v NEC)

Duke 10 v Syracuse 14 (ACC v ACC)

Mount St Marys 14 v Sacred Heart 13 (NEC v NEC)

Notre Dame 8 v Virginia 12 (ACC v ACC)

Sunday

Ohio State 7 v Rutgers 18 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Maryland 18 v Penn State 7 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

My Top 20

Since transparency is a good thing, here’s my Inside Lacrosse Media Poll ballot for this week:

1. Maryland
2. Georgetown
3. Penn
4. Virginia
5. Yale
6. Cornell
7. Princeton
8. Notre Dame
9. UNC
10. Rutgers
11. Jacksonville
12. Ohio State
13. Harvard
14. Army
15. Denver
16. Boston U
17. High Point
18. Utah
19. Villanova
20. Syracuse

Dropping from my Top 20 this week were Duke and Brown. To be honest the last 4 teams gave me the hardest time this week. I knew Brown was dropping, but as talented as Duke is, their losses cannot be ignored. The loss to Syracuse was bad on so many different levels for the Blue Devils. They were just outplayed in pretty much every phase of the game. I also had a hard time trying to decide on whether or not to reintroduce Syracuse, but when looking at the other options, they got the nod for now.

Conference Comparison

This is the section of the rundown to keep track of how conferences are doing against each other. This year we actually don’t have any teams playing as independents, which is a huge step forward. The big reason I keep track of this is it helps roughly gauge how many teams from each conference to expect in the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. Unless you’re in the top 3 of conferences, you’re probably only sending one team. There are some rare exceptions, but it does help to be aware of what’s going on once everyone switches to conference games and beat eachother up.

As more and more teams head into their conference-only slates, the variability in this table week to week is definitely slowing down. Over half of the leagues plays just two out-of-conference games or less this week.

But a big new thing for this section this week comes from of all places and Instagram comment by Jimmy Kenny on our post last week. He just mentioned “Would be interesting to see the SOS adjusted results.”.

So, it’s not perfect, but what you see above takes the NCAA’s past game SOS for each team, average across each conference. It’s not perfect because it also included in-conference games, but it does get a good feel for if a conference is overperforming or underperforming relative to their given schedule. For example, the top three conferences are all doing a great job against strong competition. Whereas the Patriot League may be slightly inflated compared to the Big East and CAA.

Now, in terms  of what happened this week, Ivy had a weird below .500 week, but they’re far enough ahead that it didn’t affect their standing at all. The big mover was actually the Big East with a seven game week to pull them ahead of the CAA and their rough 1-5 showing.

This Week’s Games

Tuesday

Cornell 16 v Colgate 9 (Ivy v Patriot)

Lafayette 16 v Sacred Heart 8 (Patriot v NEC)

Lehigh 12 v Binghamton 10 (Patriot v America East)

Saturday

Georgetown @ Denver (Big East v Big East)

Albany @ UMass-Lowell (America East v America East)

Utah @ Air Force (ASUN v ASUN)

Cleveland State @ Bellarmine (ASUN v ASUN)

Binghamton @ NJIT (America East v America East)

LIU @ Bryant (NEC v NEC)

Army @ Bucknell (Patriot v Patriot)

Cornell @ Dartmouth (Ivy v Ivy)

Delaware @ UMass (CAA v CAA)

Robert Morris @ Detroit (ASUN v ASUN)

Towson @ Drexel (CAA v CAA)

Hobart @ Saint Joseph’s (NEC v NEC)

Hofstra @ Fairfield (CAA v CAA)

High Point @ Jacksonville (SoCon v SoCon)

Loyola @ Holy Cross (Patriot v Patriot)

Canisius @ Manhattan (MAAC v MAAC)

Marist @ Quinnipiac (MAAC v MAAC)

Providence @ Marquette (Big East v Big East)

Mercer @ VMI (SoCon v SoCon)

Penn @ Yale (Ivy v Ivy)

Princeton @ Brown (Ivy v Ivy)

Virginia @ Richmond (ACC v SoCon)

UMBC @ Vermont (America East v America East)

Villanova @ St. John’s (Big East v Big East)

Navy @ Boston U (Patriot v Patriot)

Maryland @ Michigan (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Penn State @ Ohio State (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Sacred Heart @ Wagner (NEC v NEC)

Lehigh @ Lafayette (Patriot v Patriot)

Siena @ Monmouth (MAAC v MAAC)

Mount St Marys @ Merrimack (NEC v NEC)

Colgate @ Harvard (Patriot v Ivy)

Syracuse @ Notre Dame (ACC v ACC)

Duke @ North Carolina (ACC v ACC)

Sunday

Johns Hopkins @ Rutgers (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Games to Look Out For

There are only a few non-conference games this weekend, but they’re not one that are expected to shakeup the rankings too much. Of course, if Richmond beats UVA, there would definitely be an impact! But as far as conference matchups go, below are a few of my favorite. The two headline games for me are the Penn & Yale game in the Ivy League and over in the Patriot with Bucknell and Army.

Sneaky Good Matchups

Delaware @ UMass (CAA v CAA)

Hobart @ Saint Joseph’s (NEC v NEC)

High Point @ Jacksonville (SoCon v SoCon)

Johns Hopkins @ Rutgers (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Not So Sneaky Matchups

Georgetown @ Denver (Big East v Big East)

Army @ Bucknell (Patriot v Patriot)

Penn @ Yale (Ivy v Ivy)

Princeton @ Brown (Ivy v Ivy)

Syracuse @ Notre Dame (ACC v ACC)

Duke @ North Carolina (ACC v ACC)

Lacrosse All Stars - Grow The Game® Powered by Fivestar

Welcome back to the next edition of our collaboration with Zack Capozzi over at Lacrosse Reference. Each week, we are putting together a stat of the week to highlight a game, team, or individual from Men’s or Women’s lacrosse to focus on.

It might be from a game the previous weekend, or it might be for an upcoming matchup. But either way, it will allow me to use some stats combined with a little bit of commentary for why I think that particular one jumps out to me in a given week.

This week’s focus: Tension Score.

The whole basis for Lacrosse Reference was calculating live in-game win odds based on the play-by-play. What is interesting is Capozzi was able to take a look at that final output of information and create a tension score to see how close, or not, any particular game was.

Essentially it boils down to how much of a “nail biter” a game was. We’ve all see those games where neither team ever really pulls ahead and it feels like either team can win from the opening whistle. Alternatively, there are the blowouts where someone jumps out to a massive lead right away and the outcome is never in question. Based on this scoring system, the game with the lowest tension score, which means it was the most intense, was the 9-8 Air Force win over Canisius with a value of 35. The highest, AKA the biggest blowout, was the early season Duke win over Robert Morris where they won 21-12 after the Blue Devils built a massive early lead.

Looking at these games in particular, here’s what the probability graphs looked like.

Air Force (9) – Canisius (8)

As you can see, it’s back and forth line until the very end, when Air Force scored the game winner in overtime. Now, when you compare that to Duke’s win, it looks quite a bit different.

Duke (21) – Robert Morris (12)

This was truly straight in some sections and the game barely dipped below 80% for Duke’s win probability.

Now, with those two extremes seen, the next question for me is which team can we characterize as the Cardiac Kids? Namely, whose tension score has the lowest average across all of their games? Well, here are the Top 5 and their average tension scores.

Top 5 Teams Based on Average Tension Scores (Close Games)

Marquette’s your winner! If you like close games, time to hop over to the Big East and check out the Golden Eagles. When you look at their schedule so far, it’s not a shock to see them lead the way here. Out of their seven games, three have been decided by just one goal, which include both Utah and Drexel from this list. The other game was their 9-8 win over Bellarmine.

The game with their largest margin was a six point win over Detroit Mercy, but even that one was close to the 50% line for most of the first quarter:

Marquette (13) – Detroit Mercy (7)

Alternatively, who has been playing in the most “boring” games? Meaning, which teams play in games where the outcome is rarely in doubt? My guess going in is it would be the top teams like Maryland who enjoy very large win margins, but that’s not the case. It’s actually teams on the other end of the spectrum that are often on the wrong side of blowouts.

Top 5 Teams Based on Average Tension Scores (Blowout Games)

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The America East drops to the bottom, the Ivy League continues to flex their muscles, and the ACC is fighting to regain some honor. A bad week for the Big Ten made things pretty interesting overall. So, let’s dive into the rundown!

Scoreboard

Monday

Fairfield 16 v Binghamton 11 (CAA v America East)

Tuesday

Penn State 11 v Bucknell 12 (Big Ten v Patriot)

VMI 6 v Monmouth 11 (SoCon v MAAC)

Lafayette 10 v Rutgers 22 (Patriot v Big Ten)

Wednesday

Vermont 10 v UMass 12 (America East v CAA)

UMass-Lowell 9 v Stony Brook 17 (America East v America East)

Friday

Navy 11 v Johns Hopkins 10 (Patriot v Big Ten)

Saturday

Utah 6 v Georgetown 16 (ASUN v Big East)

Binghamton 18 v Albany 10 (America East v America East)

Air Force 13 v Mercer 10 (ASUN v SoCon)

Bellarmine 17 v VMI 8 (ASUN v SoCon)

Merrimack 4 v Bryant 16 (NEC v NEC)

Bucknell 9 v Loyola 13 (Patriot v Patriot)

St. John’s 10 v Dartmouth 17 (Big East v Ivy)

Drexel 12 v Villanova 15 (CAA v Big East)

Cleveland State 19 v Hampton 6 (ASUN v SoCon)

Hobart 8 v Sacred Heart 9 (NEC v NEC)

Rutgers 22 v Hofstra 10 (Big Ten v CAA)

Jacksonville 22 v UMass-Lowell 8 (SoCon v America East)

Quinnipiac 7 v Manhattan 9 (MAAC v MAAC)

St. Bonaventure 7 v Marist 6 (MAAC v MAAC)

Marquette 7 v Robert Morris 10 (Big East v ASUN)

NJIT 3 v Vermont 14 (America East v America East)

Penn 20 v Princeton 21 (Ivy v Ivy)

Boston U 16 v Holy Cross 10 (Patriot v Patriot)

Lehigh 11 v Army 10 (Patriot v Patriot)

Michigan 7 v Notre Dame 12 (Big Ten v ACC)

Brown 11 v Harvard 12 (Ivy v Ivy)

Providence 11 v Fairfield 15 (Big East v CAA)

Yale 12 v Cornell 13 (Ivy v Ivy)

Wagner 7 v LIU 12 (NEC v NEC)

Lafayette 7 v Colgate 14 (Patriot v Patriot)

Syracuse 14 v Stony Brook 9 (ACC v America East)

Saint Joseph’s 19 v Mount St Marys 6 (NEC v NEC)

Virginia 12 v Maryland 23 (ACC v Big Ten)

Towson 7 v Duke 14 (CAA v ACC)

Sunday

Johns Hopkins 10 v Delaware 12 (Big Ten v CAA)

Denver 14 v Ohio State 12 (Big East v Big Ten)

UMBC 9 v Richmond 14 (America East v SoCon)

North Carolina 14 v High Point 12 (ACC v SoCon)

Siena 8 v Canisius 9 (MAAC v MAAC)

My Top 20

Since transparency is a good thing, here’s my Inside Lacrosse Media Poll ballot for this week:

1. Maryland
2. Cornell
3. Georgetown
4. Princeton
5. Virginia
6. Penn
7. Notre Dame
8. Yale
9. UNC
10. Ohio State
11. Rutgers
12. Jacksonville
13. Denver
14. Boston U
15. Harvard
16. Army
17. Duke
18. Brown
19. High Point
20. Utah

Obviously Maryland is the No.1 team, but things became interesting after that. Had the UVA game been close, they may not have dropped at all, but the game was not close at all. I dropped them down to five behind Cornell, Princeton, and Georgetown. The Cornell and Princeton wins in particular over Yale and Penn respectively were huge for those two to stay at the top of the Ivy.

Aside from the top, there was some light shuffling, but the big changes were in the bottom five. Army fell a bit after losing to Lehigh, Brown dropped after losing to Harvard, while Stony Brook and Hopkins dropped out of my Top 20 completely. Taking their place was High Point and Harvard.

Conference Comparison

This is the section of the rundown to keep track of how conferences are doing against each other. This year we actually don’t have any teams playing as independents, which is a huge step forward. The big reason I keep track of this is it helps roughly gauge how many teams from each conference to expect in the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. Unless you’re in the Top 3 of conferences, you’re probably only sending one team. There are some rare exceptions, but it does help to be aware of what’s going on once everyone switches to conference games and beat each other up.

Plot twist! Who saw the ACC and Big Ten swapping spots this week? Especially when you look at Maryland’s dismantling of UVA in the battle of the two conferences’ top teams, the switch it surprising. But that was just one game, and the only one the ACC lost this weekend.

Syracuse getting a much needed win over Stony Brook while Duke and UNC also had wins was great. But the bonus was Notre Dame beating Michigan in the head-to-head conference matchup provided a nice swing for the ACC. The Big Ten on the other hand had to deal with two Hopkins losses, the Michigan loss, Ohio State’s game to Denver , and a Penn State loss to Bucknell. It was not a banner week for the Big Ten despite the fanfare for Maryland on top.

At the lower end of the table, there was also some shifting. The ASUN had a spectacular week behind a 4-1 record, moving them from the basement to ahead of both the MAAC and America East. That was largely due to the MAAC also only having a single non-conference game this week, which meant there was only so far they could move. But the America East had the worst week in the country, going totally winless in all five tries.

This Week’s Games

Tuesday

Dartmouth @ Ohio State (Ivy v Big Ten)

Boston U @ Harvard (Patriot v Ivy)

St. John’s @ Fairfield (Big East v CAA)

Saturday

Georgetown @ Lehigh (Big East v Patriot)

Stony Brook @ Albany (America East v America East)

Air Force @ Marquette (ASUN v Big East)

Bellarmine @ North Carolina (ASUN v ACC)

UMBC @ Binghamton (America East v America East)

Bryant @ Hobart (NEC v NEC)

Colgate @ Bucknell (Patriot v Patriot)

Dartmouth @ Harvard (Ivy v Ivy)

Delaware @ Villanova (CAA v Big East)

Towson @ Denver (CAA v Big East)

Detroit @ High Point (ASUN v SoCon)

Drexel @ Robert Morris (CAA v ASUN)

Richmond @ Hampton (SoCon v SoCon)

Hofstra @ Providence (CAA v Big East)

St. John’s @ Jacksonville (Big East v SoCon)

Michigan @ Johns Hopkins (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Army @ Loyola (Patriot v Patriot)

Manhattan @ St. Bonaventure (MAAC v MAAC)

Siena @ Marist (MAAC v MAAC)

Mercer @ Utah (SoCon v ASUN)

UMass-Lowell @ NJIT (America East v America East)

Cornell @ Penn (Ivy v Ivy)

Princeton @ Yale (Ivy v Ivy)

Canisius @ Vermont (MAAC v America East)

VMI @ Cleveland State (SoCon v ASUN)

UMass @ Brown (CAA v Ivy)

Lafayette @ Boston U (Patriot v Patriot)

Holy Cross @ Navy (Patriot v Patriot)

Saint Joseph’s @ Wagner (NEC v NEC)

Monmouth @ Quinnipiac (MAAC v MAAC)

Merrimack @ LIU (NEC v NEC)

Duke @ Syracuse (ACC v ACC)

Mount St Marys @ Sacred Heart (NEC v NEC)

Notre Dame @ Virginia (ACC v ACC)

Sunday

Ohio State @ Rutgers (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Maryland @ Penn State (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Games to Look Out For

The headliner non-conference game in a weekend where there are plenty of conference-only battles has to be Georgetown and Lehigh. Lehigh has definitely underperformed compared to preseason expectations, but that does not mean they are not incredibly dangerous to a team like Georgetown. Should the Hoyas take this one? Sure. But I would also expect this to be a great game to watch if you can.

In terms of Conference battles, I love Dartmouth visiting Harvard and Ohio State facing Rutgers. The Ivy league has plenty of sorting out to do, and Dartmouth is improved, but taking down a team like Harvard would create an absolute mess in the standings, and at this point in the season, a mess like that is wonderful. The Big Ten matchup of Ohio State and Rutgers is an excellent battle between the teams fighting for the chance to be No.2 to Maryland.

Sneaky Good Matchups

Delaware @ Villanova (CAA v Big East)

Georgetown @ Lehigh (Big East v Patriot)

Michigan @ Johns Hopkins (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Dartmouth @ Harvard (Ivy v Ivy)

Duke @ Syracuse (ACC v ACC)

Not So Sneaky Matchups

Army @ Loyola (Patriot v Patriot)

Cornell @ Penn (Ivy v Ivy)

Princeton @ Yale (Ivy v Ivy)

Notre Dame @ Virginia (ACC v ACC)

Ohio State @ Rutgers (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Lacrosse All Stars - Grow The Game® Powered by Fivestar

Welcome back to the next edition of our collaboration with Zack Capozzi over at Lacrosse Reference. Each week, we are putting together a stat of the week to highlight a game, team, or individual from Men’s or Women’s lacrosse to focus on.

It might be from a game the previous weekend, or it might be for an upcoming matchup. But either way, it will allow me to use some stats combined with a little bit of commentary for why I think that particular one jumps out to me in a given week.

This week’s focus: college lacrosse upsets.

Now, we missed this topic last week because I needed to verify exactly how some of these numbers were working with Capozzi, and fortunately a few of my assumptions were correct, and I learned a few things as well. So, that allows me to dive into quite a bit surrounding the upsets that actually have been happening so far this season.

For Capozzi’s site, college lacrosse upsets are not based on the poll value, but it’s based on each team’s head to head ELO rating and turning that into a pregame win probability. If you want to do a deep dive into how he developed the ELO system for lacrosse, take a look at his write-up here.

For these purposes, all I had to do was look at what each team’s win probability was based on the projections and see if the favored team won. Easy enough. But in going through those, there were some interesting nuggets

So who are the upset kings of men’s Division 1 college lacrosse? Turns out, there are four right now.

In looking at total upsets won there are four teams with three upsets. Ohio State, Jacksonville, Mount St. Mary’s, and Utah. But how those four went about their upsets was quite a bit different. The other helpful things with Capozzi’s ELO system is each game winds up with an “ELO Transfer”, meaning how much does one team go up or down based on that one game. In other words the bigger the upset, the more the points will swing. So let’s start with the team with the smallest upsets and work our way up to the team with the largest.

Mount St. Mary’s

Starting things out, which is not too much of a surprise is Mount St. Mary’s. In the objective eyes of the poll voters, the 3-5 squad had one of the smallest upsets (UMBC), and even their Hampton win was considered an upset based on the ELO rankings, which happened to be their biggest statistical upset mostly due to the final score being 17-5. Their other two wins over UMBC and Navy were by one and 2 points respectively. Working against them in the overall standings is the fact they were the victims of two upset losses, making five out of their eight total games were some form of upset.

Utah

After The Mount, we have Utah, who have lost two games they “should” have. Their three wins have all been upsets, starting with Marquette and Vermont. But their biggest win was over Jacksonville, which just like the Mount St. Mary’s games was their largest win in score by far. Their Marquette and Vermont wins were both by a single goal but the Jacksonville win was by six which was also after the Dolphins’ three major wins.

Ohio State

Before we go to Jacksonville, we need to talk about the highest ranked team, which also scored the largest upset out of the four and the second largest statistical upset this season. That’s THE Ohio State Buckeyes. Their two wins over Harvard and Notre Dame were notable but relatively small. Their dominating win over UNC was a massive 70 point ELO transfer, which was almost as much as Mount St. Mary’s and Utah’s entire 3 wins each. Needless to say, it was well justified why that particular win shot the Buckeyes way up in voter’s eyes to go from unranked to the Top 10. Also notable is the Buckeye’s one loss was not an upset loss, and they won the two other games they “should” have.

Jacksonville

Finally, we can dive into the team that most may have known as the 2022 upset king (so far). Jacksonville! The 6-2 Dolphins have score big wins over Denver, Duke, and even their early Mercer win counted as one. Duke was obviously the largest and the game that really put the Dolphins on the map nationally. But following that up with the Denver win was what cemented this team as legit. As previously mentioned, one of their losses was to fellow upset king contender Utah, but the other was a close one to Hopkins at the start of the season.

While we can congratulate Jacksonville on this title so far, they obviously would prefer to have the SoCon championship at the end of the year and a deep NCAA run after that, but being the best upset team is fun to talk about for now.

There were a few other interesting nuggets that came out of the numbers in trying to figure this out. So here are some quick hitters.

-Most Upset Losses: Vermont (4).

-There are 16 schools that have not been involved in an upset yet. Either by losing in won or winning it. These are: Richmond, Maryland, Virginia, Canisius, Holy Cross, NJIT, Army, Syracuse, High Point, Monmouth, Albany, Umass-Lowell, Detroit, Cornell, St. Bonaventure, and Merrimack.

-Of those, only Maryland, Virginia, and Cornell are undefeated.

-BU is undefeated, but two of their wins are considered upset.

-Bellarmine (1-8), Colgate (1-4), VMI (2-5), and Utah (3-5) only have upset wins.

-Teams only with upset losses: Drexel (4-2), Michigan (7-1), Harvard (3-1), Duke (7-3), UMBC (2-2), Rutgers (7-1), Yale (3-1), and Georgetown (5-1).

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This is the week where the Ivy League has officially taken over the D1 Men’s lacrosse scene while the ACC slowly drifts away. It is even more remarkable . So, let’s dive into the rundown!

Scoreboard

Tuesday 3/8

Albany 9 v UMass 12 (America East v CAA)

Binghamton 12 v Hofstra 6 (America East v CAA)

Vermont 7 v Dartmouth 8 (America East v Ivy)

Saint Joseph’s 17 v Drexel 18 (NEC v CAA)

Quinnipiac 10 v Fairfield 14 (MAAC v CAA)

Sacred Heart 12 v Providence 16 (NEC v Big East)

Wednesday 3/9

Canisius 6 v Robert Morris 23 (MAAC v ASUN)

Thursday 3/10

Mercer 12 v Mount St Marys 11 (SoCon v NEC)

Virginia 15 v North Carolina 11 (ACC v ACC)

Friday 3/11

Jacksonville 16 v Bellarmine 2 (SoCon v ASUN)

Marist 9 v Delaware 18 (MAAC v CAA)

Monmouth 15 v NJIT 7 (MAAC v America East)

Rutgers 11 v Princeton 16 (Big Ten v Ivy)

Towson 8 v Saint Joseph’s 11 (CAA v NEC)

Army 18 v Lafayette 12 (Patriot v Patriot)

High Point 13 v Robert Morris 11 (SoCon v ASUN)

Cleveland State 5 v St. Bonaventure 12 (ASUN v MAAC)

St. John’s 10 v Siena 13 (Big East v MAAC)

Utah 10 v UMBC 13 (ASUN v America East)

Saturday 3/12

Georgetown 15 v Richmond 10 (Big East v SoCon)

Albany 6 v Maryland 24 (America East v Big Ten)

Air Force 16 v Bryant 10 (ASUN v NEC)

Bucknell 7 v Boston U 12 (Patriot v Patriot)

Drexel 11 v Marquette 10 (CAA v Big East)

Manhattan 4 v Hofstra 8 (MAAC v CAA)

Mercer 4 v Wagner 13 (SoCon v NEC)

Vermont 10 v Providence 12 (America East v Big East)

LIU 7 v UMass 12 (NEC v CAA)

Harvard 14 v Michigan 9 (Ivy v Big Ten)

Cornell 16 v Penn State 15 (Ivy v Big Ten)

Stony Brook 7 v Brown 10 (America East v Ivy)

Sacred Heart 14 v UMass-Lowell 10 (NEC v America East)

Notre Dame 11 v Ohio State 14 (ACC v Big Ten)

VMI 11 v Detroit Mercy 16 (SoCon v ASUN)

Sunday 3/13

Yale 16 v Denver 13 (Ivy v Big East)

Syracuse 7 v Johns Hopkins 10 (ACC v Big Ten)

Duke 10 v Loyola 12 (ACC v Patriot)

Penn 8 v Villanova 7 (Ivy v Big East)

Colgate 10 v Navy 11 (Patriot v Patriot)

St. Bonaventure 11 v Cleveland State 10 (MAAC v ASUN)

Holy Cross 7 v Lehigh 17 (Patriot v Patriot)

My Top 20

Since transparency is a good thing, here’s my Inside Lacrosse Media Poll ballot for this week:

1. Maryland
2. Virginia
3. Cornell
4. Georgetown
5. Ohio State
6. Penn
7. Notre Dame
8. Princeton
9. Yale
10. UNC
11. Rutgers
12. Jacksonville
13. Army
14. Denver
15. Boston U
16. Brown
17. Duke
18. Utah
19. Stony Brook
20. Johns Hopkins

My top four didn’t change at all this week and there was only minor shuffling behind them. Even though Notre Dame’s record is terrible, I can’t punish them for their strength of schedule. Could they turn into Syracuse where they can’t beat other top 20 teams and fall out of the rankings? Sure. But they start later than others and need to have that chance to do so. I obviously don’t think they will, but it is something to keep an eye on. The other big climber was Princeton who I still have lower than most, but that may change next week! The other changes worth mentioning were BU going up to 15, Duke at 17, and Hopkins jumping in at 20.

First is BU. The Terriers are still undefeated and are playing the toughest schedule they’ve ever had. This could be the year they make a major jump forward as a program. Being on hand for their win over Bucknell reinforced what those close to this team have known: this is a fun group to watch. They have great defense, they love scoring in unsettled situations, and they refuse to play slow offense. Their risk taking as so far paid off, and as they get into the meat of the Patriot schedule, they’ll hope it continues to.

For Duke at 17, it still feels so low for a team that is this good on paper. They should be winning more than they are, but given how many games have been played by the Blue Devils, we have to admit that they just haven’t been. Their last non-conference game is this week before they head into ACC play which gives them two meetings with both Notre Dame and UNC.

Now for Hopkins at 20, they take the spot I had for the Orange. As those two faced off late Sunday it became clear than the loser of that game should not be in the top 20 until they start beating more substantial teams. Hopkins has some fantastic losses, and their season opening win over Jacksonville is much better than Syracuse’s Hobart win. But this team is just a little too inconsistent right now. The potential is there, but the consistency is not.

Conference Comparison

This is the section of the rundown to keep track of how conferences are doing against each other. This year we actually don’t have any teams playing as independents, which is a huge step forward. The big reason I keep track of this is it helps roughly gauge how many teams from each conference to expect in the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. Unless you’re in the top 3 of conferences, you’re probably only sending one team. There are some rare exceptions, but it does help to be aware of what’s going on once everyone switches to conference games and beat eachother up.

After a few weeks of being pretty stagnant, the table had quite a few shakeups this week. Most notably was the Ivy League taking the top spot following a SEVEN WIN WEEKEND! NO LOSSES! Sure they Ivy League is good, but I do wonder if this is a first for the conference. If it’s not, it has to be the first in several years. The other big thing that happened was the MAAC getting out of the basement and not only overtaking the ASUN, but due to the America East’s 2-7 week, they took over for them as well. But things are going to start to stabilize a little bit more here now. The Patriot League is fully into conference play and others are not far behind.

It is also important to point out why I like tracking this information. When the NCAA tournament rolls around, we focus on how many at-large bids different leagues will get. This helps guide that conversation since there really are not many places you’ll see the actual conference record as a whole. If things stopped today, you could fully expect teams from the NEC down to have a single bid. Win the conference, win the bid. Where things get interesting is with the ACC in third, do they now drop to just 2 bids? 1? They don’t have an automatic qualifiers, so they need to show their collective strength against the other conference before the five teams all hand eachother a bunch of losses. So far outside of Virginia, they haven’t been doing that.

This Week’s Games

Monday 3/14

Fairfield 16 v Binghamton 11 (CAA v America East)

Tuesday 3/15

Penn State 11 @ Bucknell 12 (Big Ten v Patriot)

VMI 6 @ Monmouth 11 (SoCon v MAAC)

Lafayette 10 @ Rutgers 22 (Patriot v Big Ten)

Wednesday 3/16

Vermont @ UMass (America East v CAA)

UMass-Lowell @ Stony Brook (America East v America East)

Friday 3/18

Navy @ Johns Hopkins (Patriot v Big Ten)

Saturday 3/19

Utah @ Georgetown (ASUN v Big East)

Binghamton @ Albany (America East v America East)

Air Force @ Mercer (ASUN v SoCon)

Bellarmine @ VMI (ASUN v SoCon)

Merrimack @ Bryant (NEC v NEC)

Bucknell @ Loyola (Patriot v Patriot)

St. John’s @ Dartmouth (Big East v Ivy)

Drexel @ Villanova (CAA v Big East)

Cleveland State @ Hampton (ASUN v SoCon)

Hobart @ Sacred Heart (NEC v NEC)

Rutgers @ Hofstra (Big Ten v CAA)

Jacksonville @ UMass-Lowell (SoCon v America East)

Quinnipiac @ Manhattan (MAAC v MAAC)

St. Bonaventure @ Marist (MAAC v MAAC)

Marquette @ Robert Morris (Big East v ASUN)

NJIT @ Vermont (America East v America East)

Penn @ Princeton (Ivy v Ivy)

Boston U @ Holy Cross (Patriot v Patriot)

Lehigh @ Army (Patriot v Patriot)

Michigan @ Notre Dame (Big Ten v ACC)

Brown @ Harvard (Ivy v Ivy)

Providence @ Fairfield (Big East v CAA)

Yale @ Cornell (Ivy v Ivy)

Wagner @ LIU (NEC v NEC)

Lafayette @ Colgate (Patriot v Patriot)

Syracuse @ Stony Brook (ACC v America East)

Saint Joseph’s @ Mount St Marys (NEC v NEC)

Maryland @ Virginia (Big Ten v ACC)

Towson @ Duke (CAA v ACC)

Sunday 3/20

Johns Hopkins @ Delaware (Big Ten v CAA)

Denver @ Ohio State (Big East v Big Ten)

UMBC @ Richmond (America East v SoCon)

North Carolina @ High Point (ACC v SoCon)

Siena @ Canisius (MAAC v MAAC)

Games to Look Out For

The headliner game is of course the 2021 title rematch between Maryland and Virginia. It should have zero effect on the weekly polls outside of the first two spots switching. But outside of that, I love the all-Ivy matchups of Brown/Harvard and Penn/Princeton. The other games on this list are mostly there because of teams with something to prove against those with something to lose. Saint Joseph’s is getting a ton of attention, meaning they should be able to put away Mount St. Mary’s. But that’s a team that is known to be quite stubborn. You also have to see if Syracuse can bounce back against a Stony Brook squad that is looking to be the best in a struggling conference which they can’t even win.

Sneaky Good Matchups

North Carolina @ High Point (ACC v SoCon)

Johns Hopkins @ Delaware (Big Ten v CAA)

Saint Joseph’s @ Mount St Marys (NEC v NEC)

Utah @ Georgetown (ASUN v Big East)

Navy @ Johns Hopkins (Patriot v Big Ten)

Brown @ Harvard (Ivy v Ivy)

Towson @ Duke (CAA v ACC)

Syracuse @ Stony Brook (ACC v America East)

Drexel @ Villanova (CAA v Big East)

Not So Sneaky Matchups

Denver @ Ohio State (Big East v Big Ten)

Yale @ Cornell (Ivy v Ivy)

Maryland @ Virginia (Big Ten v ACC)

Michigan @ Notre Dame (Big Ten v ACC)

Bucknell @ Loyola (Patriot v Patriot)

Penn @ Princeton (Ivy v Ivy)

Lehigh @ Army (Patriot v Patriot)

Lacrosse All Stars - Grow The Game® Powered by Fivestar

The Ivy League has made its presence known over the past few weeks. Conference play has officially started, and the non-conference slates are winding down. Oh, and the Ivies are FOR REAL. So, let’s dive into the rundown!

Scoreboard

Monday 2/28

Canisius 8 v Air Force 9 (MAAC v ASUN)

Tuesday 3/1

Mount St. Mary’s 4 v Georgetown 21 (NEC v Big East)

Michigan 12 v Marquette 10 (Big Ten v Big East)

Fairfield 19 v Sacred Heart 16 (CAA v NEC)

Hobart 12 v Cornell 15 (NEC v Ivy)

Duke 18 v High Point 14 (ACC v SoCon)

Villanova 14 v Brown 15 (Big East v Ivy)

Bellarmine 12 v Bryant 16 (ASUN v NEC)

Wagner 7 v Monmouth 9 (MAAC v NEC)

St. Bonaventure 3 v Richmond 17 (MAAC v SoCon)

Wednesday 3/2

Army 17 v Syracuse 13 (Patriot v ACC)

Towson 11 v Loyola 8 (CAA v Patriot)

Siena 7 v Albany 11 (MAAC v AE)

Friday 3/4

VMI 8 v Mount St. Mary’s 7 (SoCon v NEC)

Saturday 3/5

Hampton 0 v St. Bonaventure 21 (SoCon v MAAC)

Penn St. 9 v Penn 10 (Big Ten v Ivy)

Detroit Mercy 7 v Marquette 13 (ASUN v Big East)

Johns Hopkins 8 v UVA 19 (Big Ten v ACC)

Umass Lowell 10 v Merrimack 16 (AE v NEC)

Robert Morris 13 v Mercer 11 (ASUN v SoCon)

Delaware 8 v Michigan 18 (CAA v Big Ten)

UMBC 10 v Towson 11 (AE v CAA)

Richmond 8 v Duke 14 (SoCon v ACC)

Hofstra 6 v Villanova 8 (CAA v Big East)

Manhattan 7 v St. John’s 8 (MAAC v Big East)

Navy 7 v Lehigh 11 (Patriot)

Ohio State 11 v Cornell 14 (Big Ten v Ivy)

Dartmouth 11 v Siena 9 (Ivy v MAAC)

Boston 18 v Colgate 6 (Patriot)

Monmouth 10 v Saint Joseph’s 15 (MAAC v NEC)

Binghamton 11 v Bucknell 17 (AE v Patriot)

Marist 8 v Air Force 17 (MAAC v ASUN)

Maryland 11 v Notre Dame 9 (Big Ten v ACC)

Harvard 16 v Fairfield 12 (Ivy v CAA)

Rutgers 17 v Stony Brook 16 (Big Ten v AE)

Bellarmine 4 v High Point 16 (ASUN v SoCon)

NJIT 5 v Wagner 7 (AE v NEC)

Loyola 14 v Lafayette 12 (Patriot)

Drexel 10 v LIU 8 (CAA v NEC)

Bryant 6 v Vermont 16 (NEC v AE)

Denver 16 v UNC 17 (Big East v ACC)

Umass 12 v Yale 13 (CAA v Ivy)

Brown 22 v Providence 10 (Ivy v Big East)

Princeton 10 v Georgetown 8 (Ivy v Big East)

Sunday 3/6

Cleveland St 12 v Canisius 10 (ASUN v MAAC)

Hobart 16 v Syracuse 18 (NEC v ACC)

Holy Cross 8 v Army 14 (Patriot)

Utah 16 v Jacksonville 10 (ASUN v SoCon)

My Top 20

Since transparency is a good thing, here’s my Inside Lacrosse Media Poll ballot for this week:

1. Maryland
2. Virginia
3. Cornell
4. Georgetown
5. Notre Dame
6. Ohio State
7. Penn
8. UNC
9. Rutgers
10. Yale
11. Princeton
12. Utah
13. Denver
14. Jacksonville
15. Duke
16. Army
17. Syracuse
18. Michigan
19. Johns Hopkins
20. Boston

This week definitely became interesting. Princeton’s huge win over Georgetown got the same level of correction as Ohio State did when they beat UNC. They went from unranked to 11. Meanwhile, I decided to go with Cornell at three. The scary thing for me is that with Cornell, their offense really doesn’t look that good and they’re still able to put 14 points up on Ohio State. When that group really comes together by the end of the season, they could absolutely be a title contender. The other major upset of the week was Utah of Jacksonville. I had Utah as by #20 going into the week (Jacksonville at 11), but that was a huge win for the Utes. Jacksonville was on fire going into this game, but it was still a game they needed to win.

With where we are in the season, it’s important to remember a few things. The first being that teams do not always play their best game. Who they are playing when they are not is how you wind up with upsets and so much movement in the rankings. Also, in terms of rankings, they evolve through the season. It’s not a week to week pick of who you think will be at Championship Weekend. The preseason ballot was all about potential, and absolutely subject to change. But where we are in the season now, preseason expectations have little to now weight, which is the same for a team’s potential. I really try to look at what a team has done on the field and adjust week to week based on that. Is Duke the 15th best team in the country based on talent and potential? Absolutely not. But given their schedule and where they are, I see that as a good spot for them THIS week. Next week, we’ll see how things shift based on their performance and those around them. If everyone played their best every game and the favored team always won, the polls would be boring.

Conference Comparison

This is the section of the rundown to keep track of how conferences are doing against each other. This year we actually don’t have any teams playing as independents, which is a huge step forward. The big reason I keep track of this is it helps roughly gauge how many teams from each conference to expect in the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. Unless you’re in the top 3 of conferences, you’re probably only sending one team. There are some rare exceptions, but it does help to be aware of what’s going on once everyone switches to conference games and beat eachother up.

There was actually very little movement in the standings this week. At the top, the Ivies overtook the ACC for the number two spot while the Big Ten is just barely hanging on. But after them, everyone else stayed put until the bottom. The ASUN picked up even wins at the expense of the MAAC’s losses to move up from the bottom spot in the table.

This Week’s Games

Tuesday 3/8

Saint Joseph’s v Drexel (NEC v CAA)

Quinnipiac v Fairfield (MAAC v CAA)

Albany v Umass (AE v CAA)

Sacred Heart v Providence (NEC v Big East)

Vermont v Dartmouth (AE v Ivy)

Binghamton v Hofstra (AE v CAA)

Wednesday 3/9

Canisius v Robert Morris (MAAC v ASUN)

Thursday 3/10

Virginia v UNC (ACC)

Mercer v Mount St. Mary’s (SoCon v NEC)

Friday 3/11

Cleveland St v St. Bonaventure (ASUN v MAAC)

Utah v UMBC (ASUN v AE)

Saturday 3/12

Colgate v Navy (Patriot)

Mercer v Wagner (SoCon v NEC)

Monmouth v NJIT (MAAC v AE)

Penn v Villanova (Ivy v Big East)

Marist v Delaware (MAAC v CAA)

Air Force v Bryant (ASUN v NEC)

Cornell v Penn St. (Ivy v Big Ten)

Drexel v Marquette (CAA v Big East)

Harvard v Michigan (Ivy v Big Ten)

Holy Cross v Lehigh (Patriot)

LIU v Massachusetts (NEC v CAA)

Manhattan v Hofstra (MAAC v CAA)

Rutgers v Princeton (Big Ten v Ivy)

Stony Brook v Brown (AE v Ivy)

VMI v Detroit Mercy (SoCon v ASUN)

Bucknell v Boston U. (Patriot)

Vermont v Providence (AE v Big East)

Georgetown v Richmond (Big East v SoCon)

Notre Dame v Ohio St. (ACC v Big Ten)

Albany v Maryland (AE v Big Ten)

Duke v Loyola (ACC v Patriot)

Fairfield v Binghamton (CAA v AE)

Siena v St. John’s (MAAC v Big East)

Towson v Saint Joseph’s (CAA v NEC)

Jacksonville v Bellarmine (SoCon v ASUN)

High Point v Robert Morris (SoCon v ASUN)

Army West Point v Lafayette (Patriot)

Sacred Heart v UMass Lowell (NEC v AE)

Sunday 3/13

Syracuse v Johns Hopkins (ACC v Big Ten)

St. Bonaventure v Cleveland St. (MAAC v ASUN)

Yale v Denver (Ivy v Big East)

Games to Look Out For

This weekend could be the one that either lets the Big Ten assert its dominance over the Ivies, or for the Ivies to take control of Division 1 Men’s Lacrosse. There are a few key games between the two, but the headliners in the head to head matchups are Harvard against Michigan and Cornell against Penn State AKA the Tambroni Bowl.  Cornell should easily win that one (ON PAPER), but Michigan and Harvard could either be a super close game or a Michigan blow out. I wouldn’t be surprised with either result, honestly.

Sneaky Good Matchups

Bucknell v Boston U. (Patriot)

Stony Brook v Brown (AE v Ivy)

Rutgers v Princeton (Big Ten v Ivy) [The Battle for Jersey!!]

LIU v Massachusetts (NEC v CAA)

Penn v Villanova (Ivy v Big East)

Not So Sneaky Matchups

Virginia v UNC (ACC)

Syracuse v Johns Hopkins (ACC v Big Ten)

Yale v Denver (Ivy v Big East)

Notre Dame v Ohio St. (ACC v Big Ten)

Lacrosse All Stars - Grow The Game® Powered by Fivestar

Welcome back to the next edition of our collaboration with Zack Capozzi over at Lacrosse Reference. Each week, we are putting together a stat of the week to highlight a game, team, or individual from Men’s or Women’s lacrosse to focus on.

It might be from a game the previous weekend, or it might be for an upcoming matchup. But either way, it will allow me to use some stats combined with a little bit of commentary for why I think that particular one jumps out to me in a given week.

This week’s focus: Adjusted Faceoff Percentage.

The way adjusted faceoff percentage differs from raw faceoff percentage is by adjusting the percentage based on the opponents. So essentially, if you’re winning more against good faceoff teams, it’s a positive multiplier for you. Likewise, losing to bad faceoff teams is going to negatively affect the percentage.

So, first off, let’s take a look at the top 5 teams in the country in terms of raw faceoff win percentage, through Tuesday’s games:

Fortunately, we don’t need to spend too much time on digging into the table above. It’s just a straightforward list of each team’s total faceoff win percentage, not dependent on opponent or player taking the faceoff. So now, let’s see who is the top 5 in adjust faceoff percentage:

Obviously the team on top is the same in both tables, but that’s largely due to just how many faceoffs Ohio State is winning. In their four games, they have won 94 out of their 119 draws. Meanwhile, the second team Saint Joseph’s, and by that I mean Zac Cole who has taken every single one for them, actually drops almost two points once adjusting for opponents. The result is showing that Ohio State is currently head and shoulders above the rest of the country.

But the one that really jumps out to me is Georgetown, who goes from 13th in the country in raw faceoff percentage to fourth in adjusted. Nearly a 5% gain means there is something to look into. Here are Georgetown’s faceoff percentages against every opponent they have faced this season.

Ultimately what this all came down to was the Notre Dame game. While the sample size is still pretty small to truly account for opponent strength, Notre Dame historically is a team that you won’t win over 70% of your faceoffs against. The fact that Georgetown did this in a huge game and it was their best total all year is absurdly impressive. Definitely worth of the bump from a subjective point in addition to the objective formula.

When you dig into the box score, things become even more stark. Notre Dame won just a single faceoff in the first and fourth quarters. The first you can maybe live with and understand since Georgetown also won that scoring quarter, 6-1.

But in the fourth, Georgetown won the quarter 5-2, bouncing back from a 5-0 Notre Dame third quarter where they were staging their comeback. Coming up big with “make it take it lacrosse” to close out a game like this is one of embarrassment of riches that dominant teams have. When you already have trouble scoring on a team because of their All-American goalie, and their offense can score on anyone, you start to understand why being this good at faceoffs can be such a dangerous weapon.

Lacrosse All Stars - Grow The Game® Powered by Fivestar

The Big East is off to a shaky start as March lacrosse starts to roll around. Many teams are starting to find their footing as every conference has competed in multiple games now. Only time will tell which teams will rise to the top, but we are starting to get a good gauge on what teams have all of the pieces to make a run this season.

Scoreboard

Monday 2/21

VMI 15 v Hampton 6 (SoCon)

Tuesday 2/22

Canisius 10 v Michigan 23 (MAAC v Big Ten)

Binghamton 9 v Princeton 22 (AE v Ivy)

Bellarmine 12 v St. Bonaventure 13 (ASUN v MAAC)

Drexel 11 v Lafayette 13 (CAA v Patriot)

Delaware 14 v Duke 19 (CAA v ACC)

Wednesday 2/23

Siena 10 v Army 20 (MAAC v Patriot)

Brown 11 v UNC 14 (Ivy v ACC)

Friday 2/25

St. John’s 10 v Stony Brook 17 (Big East v AE)

Quinnipiac 10 v Sacred Heart 13 (MAAC v NEC)

LIU 14 v Hofstra 11 (NEC v CAA)

UMBC 8 v Mount St. Mary’s 9 (AE v NEC)

Saturday 2/26

Utah 12 v Marquette 11 (ASUN v Big East)

Saint Joseph’s 15 v Providence 8 (NEC v Big East)

Albany 12 v Drexel 14 (AE v CAA)

High Point 14 v Navy 13 (SoCon v Patriot)

Cleveland St. 5 v Michigan 13 (ASUN v Big Ten)

Richmond 16 v Towson 15 (SoCon v CAA)

Fairfield 9 v Villanova 16 (CAA v Big East)

Cornell 9 v Lehigh 5 (Ivy v Patriot)

Binghamton 13 v Lafayette 12 (AE v Patriot)

Princeton 10 v Maryland 15 (Ivy v Big Ten)

Umass 7 v Boston 16 (CAA v Patriot)

Georgetown 16 v Notre Dame 11 (Big East v ACC)

Harvard 12 v Ohio State 17 (Ivy v Big Ten)

Duke 13 v Penn 14 (ACC v Ivy)

Jacksonville 11 v Denver 9 (SoCon v Big East)

Rutgers 13 v Loyola 12 (Big Ten v Patriot)

St. Bonaventure 9 v VMI 8 (MAAC v SoCon)

Vermont 11 v Brown 12 (AE v Ivy)

Hampton 3 v Bellarmine 23 (SoCon v ASUN)

Dartmouth 11 v Bryant 9 (Ivy v NEC)

NJIT 4 v Army 18 (AE v Patriot)

Bucknell 15 v Marist 7 (Patriot v MAAC)

Yale 6 v Penn State 10 (Ivy v Big Ten)

Monmouth 6 v Delaware 17 (MAAC v CAA)

Wagner 5 v Manhattan 11 (NEC v MAAC)

Syracuse 11 v UVA 20 (ACC)

Sunday 2/27

Siena 14 v Umass Lowell 10 (MAAC v AE)

Jacksonville 15 v Air Force 9 (SoCon v ASUN)

Merrimack 11 v Holy Cross 9 (NEC v Patriot)

Johns Hopkins 10 v UNC 15 (Big Ten v ACC)

Canisius 9 v Denver 20 (MAAC v Big East)

LIU 6 v Stony Brook 10 (NEC v AE) – Long Island Cup Finals

St. John’s 6 v Hofstra 12 (Big East v CAA) – Long Island Cup Consolation

My Top 20

Since transparency is a good thing, here’s my Inside Lacrosse Media Poll ballot for this week:

1. Maryland
2. Virginia
3. Georgetown
4. Notre Dame
5. Ohio State
6. Penn
7. UNC
8. Rutgers
9. Syracuse
10. Yale
11. Jacksonville
12. Duke
13. Denver
14. Johns Hopkins
15. Villanova
16. Delaware
17. Army
18. Michigan
19. Cornell
20. Utah

This week didn’t see too many wholesale changes, but there were a few key movers. Georgetown and Notre Dame swapped spots at three and four due to their head to head matchup. Jacksonville also continue their rise, and they currently sit at 11 following their major statement win over Denver. Penn and Duke actually wound up switching spots completely from the previous week for me. The only other big mention is adding Cornell into the Top 20. I still have them lower than most of the other voters, but they are rising!

Conference Comparison

This is the section of the rundown to keep track of how conferences are doing against each other. This year we actually don’t have any teams playing as independents, which is a huge step forward. The big reason I keep track of this is it helps roughly gauge how many teams from each conference to expect in the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. Unless you’re in the top 3 of conferences, you’re probably only sending one team. There are some rare exceptions, but it does help to be aware of what’s going on once everyone switches to conference games and beat eachother up.

The Big Ten’s percentage actually shot up a little bit, which definitely helped via Penn State’s win over Yale especially. The ACC fell a few tenths, but that didn’t hurt their second place status because the Ivy League also dropped following losses by Yale and Brown most notably. But the biggest mover was actually the NEC, overtaking the Big East, Patriot League, and the CAA.

This Week’s Games

Monday 2/28

Canisius 8 v Air Force 9 (MAAC v ASUN)

Tuesday 3/1

Mount St. Mary’s 4 v Georgetown 21 (NEC v Big East)

Michigan 12 v Marquette 10 (Big Ten v Big East)

Fairfield 19 v Sacred Heart 16 (CAA v NEC)

Hobart 12 v Cornell 15 (NEC v Ivy)

Duke 18 v High Point 14 (ACC v SoCon)

Villanova 14 v Brown 15 (Big East v Ivy)

Bellarmine 12 v Bryant 16 (ASUN v NEC)

Wagner 7 v Monmouth 9 (MAAC v NEC)

St. Bonaventure 3 v Richmond 17 (MAAC v SoCon)

Wednesday 3/2

Army v Syracuse (Patriot v ACC)

Towson v Loyola (CAA v Patriot)

Siena v Albany (MAAC v AE)

Friday 3/4

VMI v Mount St. Mary’s (SoCon v NEC)

Saturday 3/5

Hampton v St. Bonaventure (SoCon v MAAC)

Penn St. v Penn (Big Ten v Ivy)

Detroit Mercy v Marquette (ASUN v Big East)

Johns Hopkins v UVA (Big Ten v ACC)

Umass Lowell v Merrimack (AE v NEC)

Robert Morris v Mercer (ASUN v SoCon)

Delaware v Michigan (CAA v Big Ten)

UMBC v Towson (AE v CAA)

Richmond v Duke (SoCon v ACC)

Hofstra v Villanova (CAA v Big East)

Manhattan v St. John’s (MAAC v Big East)

Navy v Lehigh (Patriot)

Ohio State v Cornell (Big Ten v Ivy)

Dartmouth v Siena (Ivy v MAAC)

Boston v Colgate (Patriot)

Monmouth v Saint Joseph’s (MAAC v NEC)

Binghamton v Bucknell (AE v Patriot)

Marist v Air Force (MAAC v ASUN)

Maryland v Notre Dame (Big Ten v ACC)

Harvard v Fairfield (Ivy v CAA)

Rutgers v Stony Brook (Big Ten v AE)

Bellarmine v High Point (ASUN v SoCon)

NJIT v Wagner (AE v NEC)

Loyola v Lafayette (Patriot)

Drexel v LIU (CAA v NEC)

Bryant v Vermont (NEC v AE)

Denver v UNC (Big East v ACC)

Umass v Yale (CAA v Ivy)

Brown v Providence (Ivy v Big East)

Princeton v Georgetown (Ivy v Big East)

Sunday 3/6

Cleveland St v Canisius (ASUN v MAAC)

Hobart v Syracuse (NEC v ACC)

Holy Cross v Army (Patriot)

Utah v Jacksonville (ASUN v SoCon)

Games to Look Out For

This week marks the start of the Patriot League’s league schedule, as a few teams are playing some within the league. But the game from there that makes me want to tune in is Navy and Lehigh. These were both preseason Top 20 teams, and their ambitions are still on the league title. With this being a league game, the stakes are very high for both teams after stumbling in their non-conference games.

The other games where teams have something to prove are Penn State against Penn and Delaware facing Michigan. Penn State struggled out of the gate BIG TIME, but then scored a huge upset over Yale last week. Now, they will face Penn, who is fresh off their own win over Duke. This sets up a great game between two teams coming off of big highs the week before. For Delaware and Michigan, it’s not quite the same stake, but Michigan is looking to really be in the Big Ten mix and a win over Delaware would definitely reinforce that. With Delaware currently sitting at the top of the CAA standings, they need to show that they can go toe to toe with the big three conferences.

Sneaky Good Matchups

Utah v Jacksonville (ASUN v SoCon)

Ohio State v Cornell (Big Ten v Ivy)

Denver v UNC (Big East v ACC)

Not So Sneaky Matchups

Maryland v Notre Dame (Big Ten v ACC)

Princeton v Georgetown (Ivy v Big East)

Johns Hopkins v UVA (Big Ten v ACC)

Lacrosse All Stars - Grow The Game® Powered by Fivestar

Welcome back to the next edition of our collaboration with Zack Capozzi over at Lacrosse Reference. Each week, we are putting together a stat of the week to highlight a game, team, or individual from Men’s or Women’s lacrosse to focus on.

It might be from a game the previous weekend, or it might be for an upcoming matchup. But either way, it will allow me to use some stats combined with a little bit of commentary for why I think that particular one jumps out to me in a given week.

This week’s focus: Offensive Efficiency. Specifically, why it was a major part of Ohio Stat’s massive upset over North Carolina.

For Capozzi, Offensive Efficiency is: “Efficiency is calculated by dividing the number of goals scored by the total number of possessions. The total number of possessions does not include failed clears and it does count possessions sandwiched around a faceoff win as 2 distinct possessions.”

Why I decided to focus on this particular game is that it was worth seeing if this was a fluke for Ohio State or UNC. Ohio State getting this win at this point in the season gave them one of the biggest jumps in the polls I’ve ever seen. There are many reasons for the Buckeyes to take that jump that like having no non-conference games in 2020, and losing in the first round of the Big Ten tournament to the lower seeded Michigan.

Basically, expectations were pretty low for the Buckeyes while they were sky high for the Tar Heels. So an upset here caused a big switch. But enough of the background, let’s bring in why Offensive Efficiency is the key for this game.

Looking at Ohio State’s other game by game metrics, it’s obvious that offensive efficiency jumps out for this game.

Here are Ohio State’s offensive efficiency against Detroit Mercy, Cleveland State, and UNC.

Here are Ohio State’s defensive efficiency against Detroit Mercy, Cleveland State, and UNC.

So then, the obvious question for me was: did everything play like this against UNC? With two games under their belts already, I took a peak at the efficiency numbers for the Tar Heels previous opponents Richmond and Colgate.

Richmond’s offensive efficiency against UNC and Marist.

Colgate’s offensive efficiency against High Point, UNC, and Airforce.

The takeaway here is that it was something specifically with Ohio State’s offense that led to the win. Richmond and Colgate were both in the in the 25-30% range for efficiency for their UNC games while Ohio State was in that same range for their non-UNC games. Ohio State in this game was absolutely an outlier. So let’s take a look at why.

One initial thought to originally look into is of course faceoffs. OSU did do well in this category, winning about 2/3 through the game, but this was actually a slight drop in how they normally do. So, they’re used to getting more initial possessions, but they don’t always turn into points. But out of the 20 OSU goals in this game, they did score three right off the faceoff, which does help their case slightly.

What else jumps out to me is UNC was perfect on clears for the game, so it wasn’t like OSU was just milking the clock and wearing down the defense to the point where they could score some easy goals on broken plays as a tired defense tries to clear. The other area to peek at is penalties. OSU definitely had opportunities here and it did factor in a bit. Overall, they scored 3 goals off 5 extra-man opportunities to UNC’s 1 goal off 3. So between faceoffs and penalties, OSU is sitting on 6 goals. What about the other 14?

That’s where just pure offense comes into play. Those other 14 goals were coming from a barrage of shots. In total, OSU sent the ball flying 53 times, and 35 of those were on cage. That in itself is a good percentage, but it also means that a bit under half of their gross shots resulted in a goal, including those off cage.

Where this leads us next is looking to see if this offensive explosion from the Buckeyes winds up being a fluke or not. Based on current information, which is a very small sample size, it is. But all it would take is one or two more games like this to completely flip the script and have us saying “nope, the Detroit and Cleveland State games were the flukes”. But where everyone does seem to agree that statistical fluke or not, the Ohio State team is for real. They have a potent offense that is looking to bring them back to postseason again.

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Now we’re officially going and the Big Ten is off to a phenomenal start! Every team has now played at least one game and every conference is in season. Not only that, but there were plenty of top 20 games to check out, which made this last week of lacrosse very interesting to say the least.

Scoreboard

Tuesday 2/15

Mount St. Mary’s 8 v Towson 13 (NEC v CAA)

Jacksonville 21 v Mercer 12 (SoCon)

Delaware 12 v Saint Joseph’s 11 (CAA v NEC)

Wednesday 2/16

Quinnipiac 7 v LIU 12 (MAAC v NEC)

Vermont 16 v Penn State 10 (AE v Big Ten)

VMI 10 v Manhattan 14 (SoCon v MAAC)

Friday 2/18

Navy 13 v Hofstra 6 (Patriot v CAA)

Saturday 2/19

NJIT 4 – Harvard 17 (AE v Ivy)

Bryant 8 – Boston 13 (NEC v Patriot)

Holy Cross 3 – Michigan 20 (Patriot v Big Ten)

UVA 18 – Towson 9 (ACC v CAA)

Denver 10 – Duke 19 (BE v ACC)

Monmouth 6 – Princeton 22 (MAAC v Ivy)

Hampton 5 – Mount St. Mary’s 17 (SoCon v NEC)

Albany 8 – Cornell 16 (AE v Ivy)

Marquette 10 – Jacksonville 14 (BE v SoCon)

Providence 13 – Siena 8 (Patriot v MAAC)

Drexel 8 – UMBC 12 (CAA v AE)

Air Force 8 – Colgate 11 (ASUN v Patriot)

Mercer 11 – Cleveland State 9 (SoCon v ASUN)

Penn St 13 – Saint Joseph’s 15 (Big Ten v NEC)

St. John’s 7 – Bucknell 23 (BE v Patriot)

Merrimack 8 – Dartmouth 6 (NEC v Ivy)

Lehigh 13 – Hobart 14 (Patriot v NEC)

Canisius 13 – Bellarmine 11 (MAAC v ASUN)

Villanova 14 – Yale 17 (BE v Ivy)

Georgetown 10 – Penn 8 (BE v Ivy)

Detroit 2 – Notre Dame 24 (ASUN v ACC)

Robert Morris 14 – Stony Brook 18 (ASUN v AE)

Army 10 – Rutgers 13 (Patriot v Big Ten)

Wagner 9 – Fairfield 16 (NEC v CAA)

Umass Lowell 9 – Umass 19 (AE v CAA)

Loyola 10 – Hopkins 11 (Patriot v Big Ten)

Ohio St 20 – UNC 8 (Big Ten v ACC)

Quinnipiac 13 – Brown 19 (MAAC v Ivy)

Marist 4 – Richmond 18 (MAAC v SoCon)

Sunday 2/20

Manhattan 6 – Navy 9 (MAAC v Patriot)

Maryland 14 – Syracuse 10 (Big Ten v ACC)

My Top 20

Since transparency is a good thing, here’s my Inside Lacrosse Media Poll ballot for this week:

1. Maryland
2. Virginia
3. Notre Dame
4. Georgetown
5. Ohio State
6. Yale
7. Duke
8. Syracuse
9. UNC
10. Rutgers
11. Denver
12. Penn
13. Jacksonville
14. Johns Hopkins
15. Villanova
16. Delaware
17. Army
18. Michigan
19. Utah
20. Loyola

Big updates this week were due with the Ivies entering the chat. I wanted to see them with my own eyes, and I have to say I was impressed.

Yale looks every bit like a top 10 team. The other shocker was Ohio State routing UNC, which made me along with several others bump the Buckeyes from unranked all the way up to the top 10. Loyola is stumbling out of the gate with a tough schedule and they need to turn things around ASAP. There was a ton of losing going on in the top 20 overall, but most of it was to each other, which made things interesting.

Conference Comparison

This is the section of the rundown to keep track of how conferences are doing against each other. This year we actually don’t have any teams playing as independents, which is a huge step forward.

The big reason I keep track of this is it helps roughly gauge how many teams from each conference to expect in the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. Unless you’re in the top 3 of conferences, you’re probably only sending one team. There are some rare exceptions, but it does help to be aware of what’s going on once everyone switches to conference games and beat eachother up.

The biggest mover this week was definitely the Big Ten, overtaking the ACC behind a pair of direct wins (Ohio State over UNC and Maryland over Cuse). You also have the Ivies go from zero games all the way to third. Outside of those two, there was some minor shuffling, but only the CAA seems within striking distance of the big three at the moment. But even they only moved one spot up in the table.

This Week’s Games

Monday 2/21

VMI 15 – Hampton 6 (SoCon)

Tuesday 2/22

Canisius 10 – Michigan 23 (MAAC v Big Ten)

Binghamton 9 – Princeton 22 (AE v Ivy)

Bellarmine 12 – St. Bonaventure 13 (ASUN v MAAC)

Drexel 11 – Lafayette 13 (CAA v Patriot)

Delaware 14 – Duke 19 (CAA v ACC)

Wednesday 2/23

Siena – Army (MAAC v Patriot)

Brown – UNC (Ivy v ACC)

Friday 2/25

St. John’s – Stony Brook (Big East v AE)

Quinnipiac – Sacred Heart (MAAC v NEC)

Hobart – Colgate (NEC v Patriot)

LIU – Hofstra (NEC v CAA)

UMBC – Mount St. Mary’s (AE v NEC)

Saturday 2/26

Utah – Marquette (ASUN v Big East)

Saint Joseph’s – Providence (NEC v Big East)

Albany – Drexel (AE v CAA)

High Point – Navy (SoCon v Patriot)

Cleveland St. – Michigan (ASUN v Big Ten)

Richmond – Towson (SoCon v CAA)

Fairfield – Villanova (CAA v Big East)

Cornell – Lehigh (Ivy v Patriot)

Binghamton – Lafayette (AE v Patriot)

Princeton – Maryland (Ivy v Big Ten)

Canisius – Air Force (MAAC v ASUN)

Umass – Boston (CAA v Patriot)

Georgetown – Notre Dame (Big East v ACC)

Siena – Umass Lowell (MAAC v AE)

Harvard – Ohio State (Ivy v Big Ten)

Duke – Penn (ACC v Ivy)

Jacksonville – Denver (SoCon v Big East)

Rutgers – Loyola (Big Ten v Patriot)

St. Bonaventure – VMI (MAAC v SoCon)

Vermont – Brown (AE v Ivy)

Hampton – Bellarmine (SoCon v ASUN)

Dartmouth – Bryant (Ivy v NEC)

NJIT – Army (AE v Patriot)

Bucknell – Marist (Patriot v Marist)

Yale – Penn State (Ivy v Big Ten)

Monmouth – Delaware (MAAC v CAA)

Wagner – Manhattan (NEC v MAAC)

Syracuse – UVA (ACC)

Sunday 2/27

Jacksonville – Air Force (SoCon v ASUN)

Merrimack – Holy Cross (NEC v Patriot)

Johns Hopkins – UNC (Big Ten v ACC)

Canisius – Denver (MAAC v Big East)

Long Island Cup: St. John’s, Stony Brook, LIU, & Hofstra TBD.

Games to look out for

Starting things off for me is the midweek Brown/UNC game. Mostly because I really want to see how UNC rebound from the drubbing at the hands of Ohio State. Both of these teams loves to play fast, so this could be a really interesting matchup.

There’s also a rare bit fun midseason tournament with four long island team. St. John’s, Stony Brook, LIU, & Hofstra start things off on Friday with LIU v Hofstra and St. John’s v Stony Brook. Depending on how those games go, there were then be additional matchups on Sunday to determine the best Men’s DI team on Long Island.

The headliner game for me this week has to be Notre Dame and Georgetown. It’s a massive top five game early in the season when both teams have little film to work from. But this should be an incredible game to check out.

Following that is Loyola facing Rutgers. This could be the end of Loyola’s time in the top 20 if they don’t get a win or at least a very close loss toa Rutgers team that is trying to prove last years’ NCAA appearance was no fluke.

Finally, there’s Jacksonville and Denver. The boys from Florida have more to prove in this one to see if their Duke win was just a good game or if it’s who they are. A win over Denver would be monumental for this program.

Sneaky good matchups

High Point – Navy (SoCon v Patriot)

Cornell – Lehigh (Ivy v Patriot)

Richmond – Towson (SoCon v CAA)

Vermont – Brown (AE v Ivy)

Hampton – Bellarmine (SoCon v ASUN)

Not So Sneaky Matchups

Duke – Penn (ACC v Ivy)

Syracuse – UVA (ACC)

Johns Hopkins – UNC (Big Ten v ACC)

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