NESCAC 2019

D3 Mens Lacrosse
HappyGilmore
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by HappyGilmore »

ah23 wrote: Tue May 07, 2019 8:50 pm
HappyGilmore wrote: Tue May 07, 2019 10:48 am
ah23 wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 9:20 pm One of these years the NCAA will not force all the NESCAC teams to play each other in the first few rounds of the tournament. If you can't beat the NESCAC, make them beat each other. Foolproof.
So you think every year the selection committee says let’s bag the league that every conference should model themselves after.
I think the NCAA selection committee should in a vacuum seek to have national championship contenders or highly ranked teams play as late as possible in the tournament. Year after year, the NESCAC has multiple highly-ranked teams with aspirations of playing on championship weekend. Having those teams play before the quarters (or in some cases even the semis) is contrary to the nature of the NCAA tournament, as it knocks contenders out early while artificially creating "parity". Yet the selection committee often does just this, crowding multiple top 10/15 NESCAC programs in one section of the bracket and ensuring that NESCAC contenders will be knocked out earlier rather than later.

As an example of this being both a solvable problem and one fairly limited to the NESCAC, look at how the selection committee dealt with other conferences in 2019. The Centennial has three teams in, and the ODAC and Capital each have two. Yet no team from any of those conferences can face a conference opponent before the national semifinals. The Liberty League is the only league with multiple (it has two) tourney teams that can have its schools meet before the national semifinals, and in that case Union is not good enough to have an argument about being unfairly denied a run deep into the tournament. Even so, I still think the selection committee should have tried to avoid a Union-RIT matchup that early.

I suppose there are two main counters. One is: "but geography!!!!" I do not think this argument is a serious one. St. John Fisher is being sent 6+ hours to play Gettysburg in the opening round; Elizabethtown has the same drive to face Amherst. John Carroll will drive five hours to play RIT; so will SUNY-Maritime to play Salisbury (Grove City would have had closer to a seven hour drive if they had won). Hamilton College might as well be on the moon, yet those players (and the rest of the NESCAC) manage to not fall to pieces or beg on the street to pay for hotel rooms when driving 4-8 hours every weekend to play conference games. Long distances between opponents is not something that is new or uncommon, and I don't think it's a valid excuse.

The second is that the tournament is also about "growing the game". This is a clear focus of the NCAA tournament. Look no further than the AQ system, which gives AQ slots to an increasingly long list of horrendous conferences in order to boost interest and spread D3 lacrosse to new regions*. Goosing the bracket to ensure that one or two conferences with multiple contenders don't dominate is in the same idea. It technically "grows the game" by ensuring a wider variety of teams make multi-game runs each year and thus increases interest in places that otherwise might not have a viable path to a deep tourney run.

So I dunno. I obviously don't think some shadowy cabal sits in a dark room at NCAA HQ laughing as they schedule Amherst and Williams to play a first-round game. I do think that they group NESCAC teams together so that they knock each other out earlier and there can be more conference parity in the later rounds of the tournament. Maybe that makes me a D3 lacrosse selection committee conspiracy theorist, in which case I will begrudgingly accept my title as "worse than flat earthers".

*FWIW I'm not against AQ system itself - the NCAA should always try to grow the game in new regions. I just think there need to be more Pool C spots so teams deserving of a bid (ex. St Lawrence, Bates, RPI) are not excluded just because Southern Tennessee College of Pottery won the "lose by a hundred goals to Salisbury" raffle.
Took a look at the brackets again and I see your point, but sure that anything can be done to correct. The problem is the Nescac gets penalized for having too many highly ranked teams.
SixBySix
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by SixBySix »

As long as the NCAA is footing the bill for tournament travel, the prime directive for the D3 championship in every sport will be avoiding flights.
Scarlet
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by Scarlet »

I believe that the D3 tournament invited 8 conference champions until 2001, and that it was 12 teams from 2092-09, with 4 play-in games with the winners meeting the top 4 seeds in the quarterfinals. So, through 2009, there really wasn’t much of an issue of multiple teams from the same conference. The tournament expanded to 16 teams in 2010, then slowly increased in size proportionate to the number of schools sponsoring lacrosse until the present format, consistent with NCAA policy on the ratio of sponsoring teams and tournament size.

Since 2000, 11 NESCAC teams have played in the finals, winning 7 championships and losing in the finals 4 times. At some point, all but one of the teams in the North and South brackets will lose by the end of the semifinals. Whether that is in the round of 32, 16, 8, 4, or 2 really is of no moment. Every team has to win the game in front of it to continue in the tournament.
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admin
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by admin »

Wesleyan up 4-3. (video)
nourishment
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by nourishment »

Murphy and Helfrich not on the stat sheet for Tufts against NEC. Anyone happen to know whether they played?
D-III
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by D-III »

nourishment wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 11:21 pm Murphy and Helfrich not on the stat sheet for Tufts against NEC. Anyone happen to know whether they played?
They didn’t. Wouldn’t worry about it.
pcowlax
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by pcowlax »

Amherst over Wes, 16-13
Williams over SJF, 17-12
Dehuntshigwa’es
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by Dehuntshigwa’es »

W&L sliding too early and when they do they aren’t just showing but doubling. York all 3 goals two passes to the back side step Down goals. Just show don’t double ...Hodgson struggling. Lots of lax to play, Generals also need to hit the cage. Mize beautiful goal making it 4-3 middle second
ah23
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by ah23 »

Tufts blows out Stevenson 19-4. Jumbos started the game with four-goal run and SU just rolled over. Tufts got called for what seemed like a billion penalties (fact check: it was seven), started their backup goalie (Joe Theuer, who was lights out) and still SU had nothing. The game was never close - I can't remember seeing a Mustangs team so lifeless.

FWIW, I don't think this is some seismic shock to the rest of the country - Stevenson was 2-7 agains ranked teams entering the game and already got whacked 19-6 by Tufts back in March - but dismantling a good team so thoroughly is impressive nonetheless. Amherst-Tufts on Wednesday night in Medford should be a barnburner.
richard
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by richard »

Stevie is not really a good team. I wouldn't read too much into the score.
ah23
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by ah23 »

richard wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 8:31 pm Stevie is not really a good team. I wouldn't read too much into the score.
Yep. As I said, I don't think this tells us much about Tufts - I was more surprised by Stevenson than anything else. Not what I'm used to seeing from that program. Cantabene & Co. were laying into the sideline at various points and there was no response. At one point they called timeout just 23 seconds into the 4th quarter and went red dog (pulled the goalie out and doubled)...seven seconds later Ben Connelly was uncovered on the doorstep and had all day to casually toss the ball into the empty net. This was out of a timeout! Just a really weird performance.
JumboFan4
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by JumboFan4 »

ah23 wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 8:41 pm
richard wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 8:31 pm Stevie is not really a good team. I wouldn't read too much into the score.
Yep. As I said, I don't think this tells us much about Tufts - I was more surprised by Stevenson than anything else. Not what I'm used to seeing from that program. Cantabene & Co. were laying into the sideline at various points and there was no response. At one point they called timeout just 23 seconds into the 4th quarter and went red dog (pulled the goalie out and doubled)...seven seconds later Ben Connelly was uncovered on the doorstep and had all day to casually toss the ball into the empty net. This was out of a timeout! Just a really weird performance.
Straight up embarrassing for Stevenson. Heard a lot about JT Thielen during the game cast, given his prolific scoring, but he was a complete non-factor today. Also seemed like they were playing a ton of young guys, which obviously didn’t play into their favor. That said, Stevenson’s going to have to grow up real quick in order to field a competitive team next year considering their tough out of conference schedule. Not sure who they can look to in the wake of this effort.

As far as Tufts goes, that’s the exact performance you’re looking for heading into the quarters and with a man-sized test ahead. It really is too bad that the selection committee couldn’t have mixed these NESCAC squads more evenly into the north and south brackets. If Williams beats RIT, and that’s a big if, then Tufts basically has to win the NESCAC again to make it to the finals. I like their odds against anyone in the south if they can run the gauntlet again. Other than York and Salisbury, the south bracket seems pretty thin.
ah23
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by ah23 »

What a performance from the Mammoths' defense yesterday.

Amherst shut down what Tufts does on the offensive end and made them work for everything. In the regular season meeting won by Tufts, Max Waldbaum and Ben Connelly - Tufts' most prolific inside and outside finishers - were 7/13 shooting. Yesterday those two combined to shoot 3/17. Danny Murphy struggled in both meetings. Just 1g/1a on 8 shots in the regular season, and 1g/2a on only one shot (!) yesterday. Even Garrett Samuelson needed 18 shots to hit 5 goals (and two of those were man-up goals).

The poles and and SSDMs were excellent pretty much all game, but I think Gib Versfeld was the player of the game on defense. He was unreal in the cage - made tons of tough saves he had no business making in the first half (14 in all) to prevent Tufts from responding to Amherst runs and then made just enough good ones at the right time in the second to snuff out Tufts comebacks.

And now Amherst's reward for defeating the #2 and #1 seeds in the NESCAC tourney back to back...is the NESCAC's #3 seed. Shout out to the selection committee, love your work. Jokes aside, I have no rooting interest and I am obviously excited to watch Amherst-Williams III. I'd be more excited (and more confident that the championship is actually a matchup of the two best teams) if the NCAA tournament wasn't just a rehash of the NESCAC tournament.
PicLax
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by PicLax »

ah23-
I watched the Amherst/Tufts game yesterday and I completely agree with your assessment on strong defensive/SSDM play, as well as your assessment on goalies outstanding play. Definitely the player of the game and really helped keep it in Amherst’s favor, particularly in the first half (maybe co-player of the game, along with their FOGO). From what I understand in talking to others who have watched him play in recent games, goalie is very talented and has been playing at a very high level.
I’ve commented in other posts that I think it is unfortunate that the NESCAC schools were all on the same side of the draw, and three of the four were in the same quarter. Think they should have been spread out much like the Centenial schools. I hope in future years if there is a dominant conference with three or four teams in the tournament that they get spread around.
ah23
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by ah23 »

Proof that the NESCAC is far and away the best conference in D-III lacrosse: a FOGO who doesn’t have one of the top ten FO% in the conference is an All-American!

:roll:

I’m obviously trolling about the NESCAC, but what on earth is the criteria for AA, just making the team at a good program? Why does it even exist if it is just awarded to whoever plays at top programs regardless of how good they actually are?
Boomakegga
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by Boomakegga »

As a Cabrini fan, I was wondering if someone who watched the finals can tell me if Amherst was playing their typical level of play. I was expecting more out of the players this thread highlights. Down in Q4 I kept waiting to see The POY. If I didn’t know his number I wouldn’t have known who to look for. Did they lay an egg ( not meant disrespectfully) or is that their game?
DuckLax
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by DuckLax »

Boomakegga wrote: Mon May 27, 2019 8:58 pm As a Cabrini fan, I was wondering if someone who watched the finals can tell me if Amherst was playing their typical level of play. I was expecting more out of the players this thread highlights. Down in Q4 I kept waiting to see The POY. If I didn’t know his number I wouldn’t have known who to look for. Did they lay an egg ( not meant disrespectfully) or is that their game?
I certainly dont think it was the best showing from the Lord Je....oh, sorry, mammoths i've seen this season. Its a lot different playing on the big stage Memorial Day weekend. Cabrini certainly adapted well to it, and showed up to play.
palaxoff
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Re: NESCAC 2019

Post by palaxoff »

Boomakegga wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2019 7:58 pm
As a Cabrini fan, I was wondering if someone who watched the finals can tell me if Amherst was playing their typical level of play. I was expecting more out of the players this thread highlights. Down in Q4 I kept waiting to see The POY. If I didn’t know his number I wouldn’t have known who to look for. Did they lay an egg ( not meant disrespectfully) or is that their game?
I certainly dont think it was the best showing from the Lord Je....oh, sorry, mammoths i've seen this season. Its a lot different playing on the big stage Memorial Day weekend. Cabrini certainly adapted well to it, and showed up to play.
Just my observation, I think this was a game of different styles, Amherst was definitely a more finesse team moved the ball well, moved off the ball, and some nice running shots for goal the first half. I think Cabrini's more physical style wore them down allowing Cabrini to get the opportunities the second half was the difference.
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