LaxPower Back-Up Stick

To be fair, I thought Wesleyan's struggles on offense were the bigger story of the NESCAC final. Middlebury obviously has a great defense, but Wes really didn't make them work at all - they looked slow and tired pretty much the whole game. Conversely, while Midd only scored 5 in the 1st 3 quarters, ...

Yeah, it's kind of wild how much better Middlebury has been than the rest of D3 wlax since like 2019. They also seem poised to continue their run for at least the next couple years with how many underclassmen they have contributing. I can't think of many college sports where there's such a gap betwe...

I feel like at this time in the year, the time for future roster development has passed (or at least is rightfully not a priority to coaches). Sure, coaches should try to play as many players as possible during blowouts in the regular season, and some coaches definitely do a better job than others. ...

Gtown is always seeded correctly (perhaps even favorably), but I don’t think it’s controversial to say they’ve had an unlucky draw the past couple of years in terms of the relative caliber of their QF opponents.

Colby dominated the draw and their D was legit. Wes had a decent amount of chances in the 1st quarter that they didn’t put away, and opportunities were limited the rest of the way. Both the Colby and Wes goalies also made a bunch of great saves. Colby is a good team that definitely has Wesleyan’s nu...

A few close games today (Gettysburg/Trinity, WS/MIT, Babson/Stevens), but there weren’t really any upsets. I guess some might argue that Colby upset TCNJ, but IMO 15-11 seems like the right score. I’d imagine there are some better games next weekend.

William Smith being in the Midd bracket would have set up a third WS/Ithaca game, and you probably want to avoid that. It was unavoidable to have a Gettysburg/WS-type game in the Round of 16, it just happens to be in the Wes quadrant. However, given that, it probably would have made sense to not hav...

Have no issues with the bracket. Agree that Midd's region is a little weaker, but I think all the teams in the Wes region would rather be where they are than having to play Midd before MDW. Will be interesting to see if anyone can actually challenge Middlebury. Wes/Tufts did in the regular season, b...

Sure, that's fair. The weak SOS and some questionable scores are definitely knocks against Ithaca. My opinion of Ithaca is more based on my high regard for WS, which I think should be favored in any game not against Midd, Wes, or Tufts (maybe that's a hot take idk). WS does have that blowout loss to...

I think the hosts should be Midd, Wes, Ithaca, and F&M. Beyond that I think they are the most deserving, it's also geographically diverse enough where you can avoid having contending teams play each other a third time before MDW. While not the most important factor, I don't think it makes sense ...

Assuming no Midwest host, I agree that there will likely be two NESCAC hosts (Midd and the winner of Tufts/Wes), with the remaining two spots likely just being the winner of Ithaca/WS and F&M/Gettysburg. I would probably view a 1-loss Ithaca team above WS/F&M/Gettysburg (would also group in ...

If you look at the 23-24 manual, the regions are broken down by specific conferences, not actual geographic locations. Per the manual, St. Mary's (MD)'s conference is in the same region as those IL and OH teams. Kind of odd, but not incorrect.

Agreed, there doesn't seem to be any competitive justification for F&M at #2. They have a nice win vs. Salisbury, but were beat pretty bad by the other top teams they played (Midd and W&L). Wes and Tufts simply have better resumes. Based on results, F&M probably belongs somewhere in the ...

Wes D / goalie made some timely stops late in the game, but the Tufts offense had their way for the most part. The game was definitely more of an offensive affair, with both offenses playing quite well. I thought Tufts was incredibly efficient on offense in particular, at least through the first 3 q...

Lovelax wrote: In the WS bracket, how do two top 7 teams play each other in the round of 16? (Tufts and Wesleyan) Anti-Nescac bias? The bracket ensures that no more than two Nescac teams can make the final four. It seems to me that any conference that receives 4 at-large bits in a 46 team tournamen...