Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

D1 Womens Lacrosse
Badlands
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by Badlands »

Good points, Doc. I particularly agree about MD and UNC not having any holes. Smart coaches are skilled at exploiting the one weak link on the field even if their counterpart is working hard to mask that weak link.
wlaxnut
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by wlaxnut »

In other words, there is no end (or parity) in sight. Sounds like how the Montreal Canadiens used to have first dibs on all the best French Canadian hockey players.
Last edited by wlaxnut on Fri Jul 19, 2019 10:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
DMac
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by DMac »

Depends on how far you can see. If and when wlax becomes more than a little tiny niche sport that few girls play, you'll undoubtedly see more parity. Then you have to define parity. I've seen posters right here call teams that make it to the national championship game failures. So what is parity, competitive teams or different teams winning the title?
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Dr. Tact
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by Dr. Tact »

DMac wrote: Fri Jul 19, 2019 10:06 am Depends on how far you can see. If and when wlax becomes more than a little tiny niche sport that few girls play, you'll undoubtedly see more parity. Then you have to define parity. I've seen posters right here call teams that make it to the national championship game failures. So what is parity, competitive teams or different teams winning the title?
I think the top 10/20 (or 30) are fairly close . Yes there are obvious tiers within that (top 5) (top 10).

When more girls play, the parity (as I see it), will be that the top 5 tier becomes a true top 10. The top 20 extends to top 30 (in quality of play). The other 80+ D1 schools will get better and yes the disparity will become less, but the quality of the top 10-20-30 will get to a point that it will be hard for those 80+ to move up. Michigan is an example of the one off that makes the leap....

The UMD, UNC's arent likely to get worse, the only hope is for more of the top 5/10 to get better. If growth does occur, then the quality of all goes up and the gap between top 3-5 to 10 gets smaller.
wlaxnut
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by wlaxnut »

DMac wrote: Fri Jul 19, 2019 10:06 am Depends on how far you can see. If and when wlax becomes more than a little tiny niche sport that few girls play, you'll undoubtedly see more parity. Then you have to define parity. I've seen posters right here call teams that make it to the national championship game failures. So what is parity, competitive teams or different teams winning the title?
Failures, huh? Interesting. Who was the poster? I’d be interested to read what they wrote.

For me, yes—parity is when you have an assortment of different teams winning the conference championships and national championship each year.
Nereo12
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by Nereo12 »

Difficult given that the most powerful programs will always look for the best players.
laxrat1976
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by laxrat1976 »

Any hint of parity went away with the new recruiting rules.

The big programs had their 9th and 10th grade HS classes essentially filled out because they would lose out to other schools that offered the top girls early. That left the late bloomers and diamonds in the rough for the mid-majors to pickup.

Now the top programs don't have to make the early rush and now we don't see the late bloomers making it to the mid level programs.

It's an unfortunate byproduct of the new recruiting rules.
casuallaxfan
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by casuallaxfan »

A point that has been missed is athletic department money and the presence of power 5 (or at least 1A) football.

1.) Power 5 football brings money and scholarship need for fully funded programs
2.) Lucrative apparel/eqiupment contracts
3.) better travel
3.) Access to the best training staff, nutritionists and weight rooms
4.) and biggest forgotten point, palatial 100 yard indoor practice Facilities.

Now you may say, Rutgers & Vandy have those advantages and they aren't that strong. That is more how much the athletic departments care/allocate for Wlax.

But the top teams: UNC, Maryland, BC, Cuse, Florida, Northwestern, UVA, etc. all have power 5 football and all the advantages that brings
the up and comers: Michigan, Colorado, USC, Stanford, OSU, Notre Dame are all football powers
The remaining top teams are historic powers that care about wlax: Penn, Princeton, Loyola, g-town, etc.

I love the JMU, towson, Stony Brook, tier that the sport has and hope the new recruiting rules don't squash these type of teams. I was happy to see the Baltimore Sun HS player of the year from McDonogh is going to Towson to play. Those teams can and do beat all but the top top teams regularly, but they are the exception, not the rule.
Badlands
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by Badlands »

laxrat1976 wrote: Fri Jul 19, 2019 2:51 pm
Now the top programs don't have to make the early rush and now we don't see the late bloomers making it to the mid level programs.
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. Could you elaborate please? Seems to me that the new rule would benefit late bloomers.
laxrat1976
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by laxrat1976 »

It benefits the late bloomers that want to go to a top program. It does not help parity. It’s the rich get richer for UNC MD etc.

Now those mid level schools have no late bloomers to grab because the top schools haven’t filled their recruitment classes during players freshman and sophomore years.
BCLaxfan02
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by BCLaxfan02 »

BC very recently built their indoor practice facility for the start of the 2018 football camp. I think this bodes well for recruiting.
DMac
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What's the definition of parity?

Post by DMac »

Is it a different team winning the NC every year, or on any given day any/most teams can beat one another? I lean toward the latter and think it's happening more and more.
From this casual fan who doesn't know jack about wlax and its history, I foresee big changes coming regarding parity. I believe until the very recent past a lot of good female athletes wanted nothing to do with (w)lacrosse as it was far too frustrating of a game to play. Stop every two seconds, reposition, fouling team gets the advantage (good way to stop a fast break), too many girls on the field, no kicking the ball, draw was a big cluster ...., stalling for the last ten minutes, etc. With the new game and rules, I would guess a whole lot more girls will be attracted to the game. Had I had daughters I doubt I would have steered them toward lacrosse, and that's coming from a pretty big lacrosse nut. The game was just awful (no disrespect intended to the purists...I do get it), I kind of liken it to buttermilk (nothing better with a balogna sandwich..aint bad with liverwurst either), it's a real acquired taste but wlax took even longer to like than buttermilk. Odds are my daughter(s) would have been the catcher(s) on their softball team(s), as that's what I would have encouraged them to do, there's a whole lot more action there than on a lacrosse field (in the old game). If I had daughters today I'd certainly encourage them to play lacrosse...it's come a long way, baby. The whole point being, just as what has happened in the mlax world, there are going to be more and more girls attracted to this game (the way I see it anyway) and more and more good athletes who stick with the game which will result in a much bigger pool of good players and they all can't go to the same schools (Hop and Cuse sure aren't the dominant teams they once were, same thing will happen in wlax). JMHO.
wlaxphan20
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by wlaxphan20 »

Looking at the landscape of wlax now compared to 7, 10, or 15 years ago, there's definitely a lot more parity. Are the blue bloods still the blue bloods? For the most part, yes, but some have declined while other non-traditional powers have made names for themselves. I can understand for fans who have only really began closely following in the past 3-4 years that it seems as though there is very little parity, but I would argue differently. Parity is something that happens gradually, and until the rest of the power 5 conferences and the remaining schools in the B1G and ACC get involved, I don't see the process speeding up.
8meterPA
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by 8meterPA »

I guess it depends on what your definition of "parity" is, IMO there are only 4 - 6 teams that realistically capable of winning net year, then you have the next tier of 10 or so teams that are competitive but have no chance of winning, and then the next tier filling out the top 30.

I don't consider that parity but others may...
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Dr. Tact
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by Dr. Tact »

8meterPA wrote: Thu Aug 15, 2019 3:50 pm I guess it depends on what your definition of "parity" is, IMO there are only 4 - 6 teams that realistically capable of winning net year, then you have the next tier of 10 or so teams that are competitive but have no chance of winning, and then the next tier filling out the top 30.

I don't consider that parity but others may...
I tend to agree with you on the above. After top 30, it gets pretty rough....
wlaxphan20
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by wlaxphan20 »

I wasn't saying that there is sufficient parity, just that there is more parity than there was 7-10 years ago. It is trending in the right direction. I was more so discussing that the talent gap within the top 30 has gotten closer over the years. Top to bottom there is definitely room for improvement.

The top 4-6 teams account for about 5% of all teams. And in virtually all of college athletics, the top 5% are realistically capable of winning. 5% might even be generous...in men's basketball that would mean the top 17 teams are all equally and realistically capable of winning. I don't think that is going away.
8meterPA
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by 8meterPA »

Also, if I could add, we hear all the time “grow the game”! which would add parity.

Issue is that there are literally only 2 websites/publications that cover women’s lax and it would be nice if they would focus on teams/players other than the top 4. Grow the game by covering ALL the conferences, which contain incredible players, coaches and stories. Otherwise it’s Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers 24/7 and game doesn’t grow and there is little parity.

When does fall ball start??
wlaxnut
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Re: What's the definition of parity?

Post by wlaxnut »

DMac wrote: Wed Aug 14, 2019 9:35 am Is it a different team winning the NC every year, or on any given day any/most teams can beat one another? I lean toward the latter and think it's happening more and more.


From this casual fan who doesn't know jack about wlax and its history, I foresee big changes coming regarding parity. I believe until the very recent past a lot of good female athletes wanted nothing to do with (w)lacrosse as it was far too frustrating of a game to play. Stop every two seconds, reposition, fouling team gets the advantage (good way to stop a fast break), too many girls on the field, no kicking the ball, draw was a big cluster ...., stalling for the last ten minutes, etc. With the new game and rules, I would guess a whole lot more girls will be attracted to the game. Had I had daughters I doubt I would have steered them toward lacrosse, and that's coming from a pretty big lacrosse nut. The game was just awful (no disrespect intended to the purists...I do get it), I kind of liken it to buttermilk (nothing better with a balogna sandwich..aint bad with liverwurst either), it's a real acquired taste but wlax took even longer to like than buttermilk. Odds are my daughter(s) would have been the catcher(s) on their softball team(s), as that's what I would have encouraged them to do, there's a whole lot more action there than on a lacrosse field (in the old game). If I had daughters today I'd certainly encourage them to play lacrosse...it's come a long way, baby. The whole point being, just as what has happened in the mlax world, there are going to be more and more girls attracted to this game (the way I see it anyway) and more and more good athletes who stick with the game which will result in a much bigger pool of good players and they all can't go to the same schools (Hop and Cuse sure aren't the dominant teams they once were, same thing will happen in wlax). JMHO.
For me--it’s who wins the national championship each year. In the NFL they have a saying “any given Sunday“ meaning that any team can beat any other team on any particular day, which is not completely true. That doesn’t include the championship. In order to win the final game, you have to beat some very good teams to get there. A good for instance of that was last year when the Tennessee Titans kicked the crap out of the New England Patriots 34  to 10--during the regular season. Yet when it got to the postseason, the New England Patriots won yet another Super Bowl and the Tennessee Titans didn’t even make the playoffs. Also, the analogy doesn’t hold true consistently with women’s lacrosse. Name the last time an unranked team or a much lesser ranked team defeated Maryland, North Carolina, Boston College, etc.
wlaxnut
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by wlaxnut »

8meterPA wrote: Thu Aug 15, 2019 10:05 pm Also, if I could add, we hear all the time “grow the game”! which would add parity.

Issue is that there are literally only 2 websites/publications that cover women’s lax and it would be nice if they would focus on teams/players other than the top 4. Grow the game by covering ALL the conferences, which contain incredible players, coaches and stories. Otherwise it’s Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers 24/7 and game doesn’t grow and there is little parity.

When does fall ball start??
Fall Ball is right around the corner. Usually sometime in early/mid September. Check the teams news/schedule on their website.
laxmom22
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Re: Women’s Lacrosse Needs Parity

Post by laxmom22 »

So the top players should stop going to the top 10 programs, so the fans can feel better about the potential for more parity in the sport.
That’s funny!
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