LIBERTY LEAGUE 2020

[LibertyL]

Please put any LL predictions, preseason rankings, recruit info, player losses, fall ball/captain's practice buzz in this thread.

[richard]

SLU,
Union
RIT
RPI
Ithaca
Clarkson
Vassar
Skidmore
Does Bard still have a team?

The league is not top heavy in 2020

[Empirelaxer]

RIT and SLU both bring back goalies and top defensemen so they should be in every game. SLU it seems has a lot to replace on O

Union brings back almost everyone, but goalie will be the question mark

RPI needs to replace a lot of graduating starters but had really good production from freshman at attack, which gives them hope

Ithaca’s out-of-conference with St John Fisher, Cabrini, Tufts and Cortland (the first three being played in the first five games) is insane

Vassar’s FOGO will keep them in a lot of games

Hopefully Bard doesn’t forfeit more games. Last year their men’s basketball team had same number of players as lax team

Will be interesting to see if pre-season rankings reflect the strength of the Liberty League or if it will just be the usual suspects from NESCAC, Centennial, etc. with Liberty League teams other than RIT having to play their way into rankings during season

[LibertyL]

Quite true regarding the Union goalie situation. Great opportunity for someone who really hasn't
had any minutes and certainly not against top LL teams to step up. It could hurt them though.

St. Lawrence really only lost Connor Caffery to graduation with regard to goals and offense is
pretty young and balanced for the future. Terry is back in the cage and this could be his best
year yet.

Not sure anyone knows about Bard at the moment. In my opinion they should be replaced
with a St John Fisher- someone like that from Northern NY- why not. It's kind of a LL problem
and it hurts LL integrity.

Ithaca is pretty balanced and has a goalkeeper who is young and should improve since taking
the reins as a freshman. Staff seems to be behind him.

RIT and RPI both lose about the same at the top of scoring; RIT has Hare in net and RPI has their starter back
as well

[Empirelaxer]

nj.com posted list of 2019 recruits from NJ high schools. Looks like Ithaca went all-in on NJ for defensive side

Justin Eischen, Ramapo, Def/LSM, Ithaca
Billy Winters, Northern Highlands, Def., Ithaca
Wesley Hudkins, Ridge, Def., Ithaca
Ryan LaForty, Ridgewood, Goal, Ithaca

Harry Gregory, Morristown-Beard, Def/LSM, St. Lawrence
Elliot LaGorce, Pingry, Goal, St. Lawrence 
Chase Malatesta, Seton Hall Prep, Mid., St. Lawrence

Charlie Phillips, Rutgers Prep, Goal, Union
Gray Humphrey, Summit, Mid., Union

Anthony Mazzella, Madison, Mid., RPI

Anthony Mirkovic, Ramapo, Def., Skidmore

Christian Perrine, East Brunswick, Mid., Clarkson

Jack Bagin, Don Bosco Prep, Goal, Vassar

[JBFortunato]

Jackson LaLonde (Connecticut) will make a difference for St. Lawrence, wouldn't be surprised if he gets run as a freshman.

[Farfromgeneva]

Quite true regarding the Union goalie situation. Great opportunity for someone who really hasn't
had any minutes and certainly not against top LL teams to step up. It could hurt them though.

St. Lawrence really only lost Connor Caffery to graduation with regard to goals and offense is
pretty young and balanced for the future. Terry is back in the cage and this could be his best
year yet.

Not sure anyone knows about Bard at the moment. In my opinion they should be replaced
with a St John Fisher- someone like that from Northern NY- why not. It's kind of a LL problem
and it hurts LL integrity.

Ithaca is pretty balanced and has a goalkeeper who is young and should improve since taking
the reins as a freshman. Staff seems to be behind him.

RIT and RPI both lose about the same at the top of scoring; RIT has Hare in net and RPI has their starter back
as well

LL cares about common philosophies and educational profiles. There was a reason they rejected ithacas initial attempts to join and SJF isn’t even close in profile to ithaca. Bard fits in much better.

So when your talking LL integrity and then talking about swapping Bard for SJF, I have to question the understanding of conference alignment. It’s why Hamilton will hang onto its affiliation w the NESCAC for dear life even though it’s probably a perfect fit for the LL.

Otherwise just a very myopic comment that misunderstands why conferences exist.

[LibertyL]

Bard Smard. I don't have the answer. The Liberty League is pretty
flexible with football schools i.e Buffalo State.Hopefully someone will apply and be
able to join for lax.

[Farfromgeneva]

Associate member which is due to a ton of conference shuffling. We had tried to pry Carnegie Mellon to join for FB but the travel didn’t work. I’m quite well versed in it all. For football, a different animal w 230+ D3 programs, probably 50-60% in the NE including PA & a New England conference splitting in two plus newer conferences being created to work the AQ system, Buff St was brought in while holding their noses bc a couple of the schools vowed to never have a state school in the league for football. It’s not that the league wants to be flexible for football, they have to, but they’re also associate members unlike Ithaca which is a full member. It’d be like saying we should bounce UofR and pick up Cortland for football reasons. Makes no sense.

SJF is a commuter school in a league with Hartwick (in danger of going under), Utica, etc. Half the schools are commuter schools in the E8.

For better or worse, football still matters far more than lacrosse to league members, especially Union, RPI, SLU and you don’t even have Hobart for lacrosse but they’ve been pretty good for the last twenty years in FB including having the national DPOY (Tyre Coleman) and the highest D3 draft pick and 5yr starting OL in Ali Marpet somewhat overshadowing the difficult task the lacrosse program has not being able to give scholarships (Ben reeves was originally committed to hobart as was star BU player Jack wilson). Union alums still value their mid 80s - early 2000s run in FB and RPI made the national semi finals for the second time after doing it in 2003 as well.

In addition, northeastern schools are expected to see a 25% decline in enrollment over the next 20yrs according to economists. You get a lot of tuition paying makes (80-100) out of the football programs.

[overandback]

Quite true regarding the Union goalie situation. Great opportunity for someone who really hasn't
had any minutes and certainly not against top LL teams to step up. It could hurt them though.

St. Lawrence really only lost Connor Caffery to graduation with regard to goals and offense is
pretty young and balanced for the future. Terry is back in the cage and this could be his best
year yet.

Not sure anyone knows about Bard at the moment. In my opinion they should be replaced
with a St John Fisher- someone like that from Northern NY- why not. It's kind of a LL problem
and it hurts LL integrity.

Ithaca is pretty balanced and has a goalkeeper who is young and should improve since taking
the reins as a freshman. Staff seems to be behind him.

RIT and RPI both lose about the same at the top of scoring; RIT has Hare in net and RPI has their starter back
as well

LL cares about common philosophies and educational profiles. There was a reason they rejected ithacas initial attempts to join and SJF isn’t even close in profile to ithaca. Bard fits in much better.

So when your talking LL integrity and then talking about swapping Bard for SJF, I have to question the understanding of conference alignment. It’s why Hamilton will hang onto its affiliation w the NESCAC for dear life even though it’s probably a perfect fit for the LL.

Otherwise just a very myopic comment that misunderstands why conferences exist.

Disagree. The combo of defaults and their location puts bard in play for expulsion or at least a huge warning in the short term. Chain...weakest link?
Unfortunately for vassar, they are a pair.
Even before dobbins, StJF made sense for the LL.
Adding vassar and Bard to LL never felt right.
Geography isn’t everything, but 7 hours for d3 teams in south and Midwest is unusual. In the northeast it’s ridiculous.

[Farfromgeneva]

Does the IVY league exist because the sports are all on a competitive plain? NESCAC? What’s the distance between IC/Hobart and SLU? The LL core has always been Hobart/Union/RPI/SLU going back to the 90s as the predecessor UCAA. Notice they all have one DI sport and that 3/4 are in the eastern half of the state. They’re all 150yrs old or more and have a national profile, Fisher is a regional school that’s what 70yrs old? RIT was a nod to RPI who lost WPI as an associate member in football and a program that also has a DI sport.

Fisher doesn’t fit with Hobart/IC/Clarkson/RPI/Union/SLU/Vassar/Skidmore/Bard/Clarkson

We’ve added NYU, Mt Holyoke & wellesley as associate members far outweighing buff st associate, not full, membership and University of Rochester is a long time dual member with the UAA (NYU, mellon, case western, wash u).

The LL is also stupid expensive schools, which matters when looking at athletic parity and why basically state schools are out (buff st may not be in it for the long haul). Fisher is on the cheap side of private’s with its own peers and places like leMoyne.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_League

Fisher independent of the Catholic Church in 1968c $69mm endowment compared with poor a** Hobart still north of $200mm and waiting for Abby johnson to eventually open up her checkbook. You all really have to understand how this conference thing works.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John_Fisher_College

[LibertyL]

Drop Bard from lacrosse and go back to 8 teams as was the case prior to Ithaca joining.
Done.

[Farfromgeneva]

They’re a full member of the conference. You’re looking at this like only one sport matters. I’m tying to convey that these alignments are about a much more holistic approach. Between hockey, soccer, football and basketball within the league lacrosse is probably the fifth most important sport overall. Maybe if, and I hope they never do for my own schools reasons, Hobart dropped down it would change things, but it is what it is.

[overandback]

Cop out.
We are talking about a team that defaulted games because they could not field a team. As far as I know, the reason was not injury or illness.
Hard to believe the LL - and not just LL mens lax -is saying “it is what it is”. There need to be consequences!
As a member institution they are counted on (obliged?) to field a competitive team. If they can’t, they harm the integrity of the league, which they did last season IMO.

[Farfromgeneva]

Sure don’t use reason or understanding and keep narrowly focusing on one sport amongst a common grouping of like minded institutions.

Let me say it even though I don’t believe it SHOULD matter:

Bard, nationally recognized, strong academic colleges near NYC and with well known programs nationally not including a pharmacy school.

STJF, mediocre commuter school in a region the LL is flush with schools (RIT, URoch, Hobart, Ithaca - all far superior academically and reputation ally with 3x - 25x the endowment size) with a $69mm endowment similar in size to hartwicks who was forced to drop soccer to D3 over money and making their future less stable. Significantly higher probability of not existing or being folded into SUNY Brockport in the next 25yrs (like Harper college was absorbed by suny Binghamton or Mt Ida was absorbed by UNass Dartmouth) than any LL school.

The notion of swapping Bard for stjf is so ludicrous I have to assuming I’m discussing with people under 21.

If there’s a grievance with bard with respect to
One half of one sport, since we’re talking men, not both men and women’s lacrosse here, perhaps the league can collectively help the school improve their situation with respect to this one men’s sport, but otherwise you guys really don’t understand anything when it comes to college conferences at all or anything involving reputation management in higher ed. The LL wants to move closer to the NESCAC and stay with the CC overall from a reputation standpoint, not move towards the E8 or some of these weaker New England conferences in academic perception. Someone will be offended but the swap thrown out would do reputatational damage to all
The existing members for what? Adding a modestly better men’s lacrosse program to a league that’s doing fine if the schools would schedule a little tougher (SLU and union specifically). It ain’t going to happen and also not happening but you should be pining for Hobart to drop down, not add Fisher. Just nonsense.

[Empirelaxer]

Interesting that the criteria being applied to schools outside of the LL to show they wouldn’t fit also illustrates perfectly why Bard is a square peg in a round hole.

So let’s apply the criteria laid out above to Bard. First, sports like football, hockey, soccer and basketball matter more. Bard - no football, no hockey. Conference records in the sports they do have that align with the criteria and this discussion - men’s and women’s soccer - 0-9; women’s basketball 0-18; women’s lacrosse 0-10; men’s lacrosse 0-5 plus 3 forfeits. But hey, if we’re focusing on one sport, men’s basketball was .500.

Financial standing: Bard’s debt is junk status with a negative outlook. Bard relies on fundraising to cover a higher percentage of its operating costs than any other LL school.

Finding a replacement for Bard may be difficult or even impossible. But that doesn’t mean they are a fit in the league.

[Farfromgeneva]

56th in US news national liberal arts ranking, on a train line to NYC and historical relationship w Columbia. $267mm endowment, SJF $69mm in an area thebleague already has RIT and UofR and Hobart nearby.

The point of the hockey is that it generates national recognition that SJF doesn’t have, not that that sport or any sport is important. Why did Hamilton drop out of LL affiliation altogether to be with the NESCAC?

Still don’t get it, sports isn’t what the leagues are about, it’s about academic reputation and regional mix for marketing purposes and it all started w the Ivy League.

Ask the Mapstone family if they would’ve considered any E8 schools when Alex transferred to SLU. Watch how quickly you get an answer back.

Told Bard if you can get Hamilton back fully. Or a decent CC school or UAA school (NYU?, Case?) to jump but academic reputation and proximity to NYC are the main drivers of their inclusion. I tried to not make this a this school is strong and this one weak but leagues aren’t fundamentally about sports at the end of the day. Your all missing the point.

The only e8 school that would be added at this point might be Alfred which could hang w RIT, RPI and Clarkson to a degree in engineering. That’s it.

[richard]

The LL showed that it would stray from its philosophical ideals when it admitted Ithaca. Ithaca is not like any of the other schools the only possible exception being Rochester. Football and athletics were the deciding factor. Bard will stay as a full member lax or no lax. That is not a concern. Neither is Hobart dropping down to D3 or admitting another school unless football becomes an issue again.

[Farfromgeneva]

Agree with all of that except Ithaca has a common set of applicants with Hobart and SLU. Maybe a little less prep school orientation.

[richard]

Agree with all of that except Ithaca has a common set of applicants with Hobart and SLU. Maybe a little less prep school orientation.

As it does with Hartwick too.

Everything else does not jive.