Last season, High Point beat Duke. This was a huge upset. Then, two weeks later, an undefeated High Point team beat UVA. High Point was riding high. Five days later, High Point lost to St. John’s. Then to Jacksonville. Then to Richmond. But, overall, High Point had a good 2019 season and finished the season ranked #17. Duke went to the Final Four where they lost to UVA and finished the 2019 season ranked #5. UVA beat Duke and then Yale to win the National Championship and finished the 2019 season ranked #1. For both Duke and UVA, the High Point losses were their worst losses of the 2019 season. These losses were not so bad that they precluded Duke and UVA from being invited to the 2019 NCAA Tournament. But, most certainly, their 2019 worst losses. And, in hindsight, while most certainly upsets, these weren’t such bad losses.
Alternatively, in their first game of the 2019 season, Syracuse lost to Colgate. Syracuse went on to have more losses including to an under-performing UNC. But this Colgate loss was, by far, their biggest blemish. While Duke and UVA’s High Point went on to have a respectable season, Colgate went on to have a win over #25 BU and their next best win was over #60 Lafayette. (There are 73 teams in NCAA D1 Men’s Lacrosse.) Even more troubling, Colgate lost to #55 Canisius and #43 Hobart. Syracuse’s loss to Colgate was not inherently a problem. The problems only arose when Colgate was not beating good teams and was losing to not-so-good teams. Syracuse did get invited to the NCAA Tournament (where they lost to #10 Loyola) but this invitation was far from obvious. Especially with Cornell making a very strong case for an invite. And a big part of the reason why Syracuse experienced such invitation turmoil was their loss to a poorly performing #37 ranked Colgate. Which leads us back to our original question…
Why Do Upsets Matter?
Upsets matter for two reason:
1- Upsets matter because they’re fun. A, B, C, Q is fun. Faking left and going right is fun. Unless you’re a Duke fan, when Air Force beats Duke, it’s fun.
2- The point of the season is (a) to be invited to the NCAA Tournament and (b) to make sure your last game of the season is a win. In order to be invited to the NCAA Tournament, you need to beat good teams and not lose to bad teams. Inevitably, teams will win and teams will lose. And when they do, they want the wins to be against good teams and the losses to not be against bad teams. And, what makes a team on your schedule better or worse is whether those teams have beaten good teams and not lost to bad teams. Win or lose, all teams want their opponents to be top-ranked teams. But especially for losses.
Losses
Currently, Duke’s best win is against Denver. With Penn, Syracuse, UNC, Notre Dame, UVA, and more on their horizon, the odds are good that, as the season progresses, Duke will have better wins than Denver. Duke’s win over Denver will most likely become all but irrelevant to Duke’s resume. This is the nature of most wins. But losses are very different. Duke’s loss to Air Force will not so easily be erased. The best that Duke can hope for is that this Air Force team wins the rest of their games, preferably against teams that win the rest of their games, so that this loss will be deemed a loss to a really good team.
Villanova beating Maryland will not destroy Maryland’s invitation to the Tournament. Nor will Duke’s loss to Air Force destroy Duke’s invite. Nor will Army’s loss to Marist destroy Army’s invite. Nor will etc. But, if Villanova, Air Force, Marist, or any team that Team A loses to doesn’t beat good teams and loses to not-so-good teams, everything changes. For the rest of the 2020 season, Maryland will be inextricably connected to Villanova, Duke will be inextricably connected to Air Force, Army will be inextricably connected to Marist, etc. And that is why upsets matter. Because an upset takes a lower ranked team and, for the rest of the relevant season, that lower ranked team’s season is inextricably connected to the Resume and, as a consequence, the NCAA Tournament Invitation, of Team A. Come May 3rd, Selection Sunday, Fans will do their best to minimize these losses. But it was the first game of the season! It was so long ago! etc. But the only words that will carry water are, It wasn’t that bad a loss! From now until May 3rd, the fates of Maryland, Duke, Army, and more to come are inextricably connected to these lower-ranked teams that beat them.
