2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

D3 Mens Lacrosse
SixBySix
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by SixBySix »

HomerCoach wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 2:01 am Good question...what do the numbers say the Power Rankings are for conferences this year? NESCAC, Liberty, Centennial, ODAC?

I agree...all 5 Centennial teams were better than the THREE ODAC tournament teams.
A quick look at the Laxpower ratings (average power rating by conference):

Liberty: 91.39
NESCAC: 91.28

Centennial: 87.29

SUNYAC: 81.66
E8: 79.18
MAC-C: 79.11
ODAC: 78.78
Landmark: 78.32
MAC-F: 76.95

Now, whether the overall average, average dropping top and bottom team, average of top 50% of teams, etc. are the best metric is up for debate. But I think this mostly passes the eye test: Liberty and 'CAC in a league of their own, then Centennial, then everyone else. ODAC being more on par with the Landmark and MAC-C than the Centennial is an interesting result, though.
JustOneTime
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by JustOneTime »

Conferences don't have the same number of teams and the bottom teams in a conference can really weigh down the ratings numbers. If you took away the bottom three teams in the NESCAC so they had the same number of teams as the Liberty and redid the ratings they would be number 1. The ODAC has 11 teams of which the bottom 4 are very bad. If you remove those teams the ratings are bound to go up.
SixBySix
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by SixBySix »

JustOneTime wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 10:31 am Conferences don't have the same number of teams and the bottom teams in a conference can really weigh down the ratings numbers. If you took away the bottom three teams in the NESCAC so they had the same number of teams as the Liberty and redid the ratings they would be number 1. The ODAC has 11 teams of which the bottom 4 are very bad. If you remove those teams the ratings are bound to go up.
I mean, Vassar is on par with Bates, so are we dropping them from the Liberty's numbers? Does Roanoke get a Pool C bid without those 4 "free" conference wins?

As I mentioned in my initial comment, raw average is not the clear-cut best metric for comparing conferences, but I don't think there is an approach that doesn't have some problems and there isn't one that is more logically consistent. "The best teams in this conference are better than the best teams in those conferences" is a different argument in my mind, and opens up an ad nauseum cycle of cherry-picking to get the desired results.

FWIW, the Liberty was 7-4 in games against the NESCAC, with most of those games between top teams in the respective conferences.
ah23
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by ah23 »

LaxCrusader1 wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 12:12 am Here's my controversial question... is the Liberty about to supplant the NESCAC as the best conference in DIII?
Definitely not controversial, it's an interesting question! My TL;DR would be - very top of the conference yes, as a whole no.

Breaking it down:
  • We know what best-on-best looks like at the top: RIT finally broke through in 2021 and proved it wasn't a fluke in 2022. Beating the NESCAC's best in back-to-back years (this year in dominant fashion) means there's no debate about which conference has the best team right now.
  • Union was also better this year. I would say they need to play at or near this level more than once before they can be considered a legit second elite team for the purpose of this conversation. They have obviously been a good program for a while, but this is very far above their normal level. Is it an outlier, or closer to the new normal?
  • St. Lawrence just lost by five goals to a Bowdoin team playing without its best player. They beat Midd earlier this season. That briefly summarizes where I'd have them - somewhere in the middle. Are they hosting a conference tourney game? Are they better than Amherst or Wesleyan? Not sure about that. They're at least in the mix with those two.
  • RPI is clearly not on the same level as any of the teams mentioned so far, and probably below one more. They'd fight for around #6 (maybe #5) in the NESCAC - there's no argument in favor of them in the top four. They beat Midd, but lost to both Williams and Wesleyan this year. Neither game was close until RPI made late runs to make the final scores look respectable - RPI was down 11-2 in the 4th vs. Williams and 15-7 in the 3rd vs. Wesleyan. I am aware that they beat RIT. Middlebury beat Tufts (a lot more convincingly than RPI beat RIT). Swarthmore beat Gettysburg. Entire body of work > the stars aligning for one huge upset.
  • Ithaca reminds me of Springfield, or a worse Middlebury. Good program with a legendary coach that hasn't been particularly relevant nationally for a while. As things stand now, they would barely make the NESCAC playoffs; I don't think they're even better than Hamilton at #7. Look at common results and margins against top opponents. IMO they could at least push the Continentals for the 7 seed and would probably bump Conn for the #8 seed, but the Bombers don't really belong in this conversation at all.
  • Clarkson, Vassar, and Skidmore aren't really worth mentioning here. Comparable to Trinity, Colby, and Bates.
ah23
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by ah23 »

SixBySix wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 10:44 am I mean, Vassar is on par with Bates, so are we dropping them from the Liberty's numbers?
I feel like this kind of misses the point and unintentionally makes the point anyway. Vassar was the #7 Liberty League team. Bates was the #11 NESCAC team.
FWIW, the Liberty was 7-4 in games against the NESCAC, with most of those games between top teams in the respective conferences.
Not really...

Three of those wins were between top teams: RIT and Union each beat Tufts, and RIT beat Bowdoin.

The other four wins were Union/St. Lawrence/RPI beating Middlebury, and Union beating Williams. Middlebury was a .500 team this year; Williams was sub-.500. Neither was close to being a top team in the NESCAC.

The losses are St. Lawrence losing by 5 to a Bowdoin team playing without its best player, RPI being down by large margins in losses to both NESCAC #4 Wesleyan and #6 Williams before late runs to make the scores look respectable, and Skidmore losing to Bowdoin.
Last edited by ah23 on Mon May 23, 2022 11:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
ah23
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by ah23 »

For my fellow visual learners out there, here's a heat map of the LaxPower rankings that SixBySix mentioned above. I think it illustrates the point pretty well. LL and NESCAC stand alone at the top, Centennial is in the next 'tier' by itself, then the NEWMAC + everyone else.

Pretty useful for visualizing conference depth as well. I had a good time with this one.

Image
FosterLax3
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by FosterLax3 »

ah23 wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 11:33 am For my fellow visual learners out there, here's a heat map of the LaxPower rankings that SixBySix mentioned above. I think it illustrates the point pretty well. LL and NESCAC stand alone at the top, Centennial is in the next 'tier' by itself, then the NEWMAC + everyone else.
Big thing with the data for the Liberty League this year is how this is the first normal season without Bard in the conference. It sucks to see a school drop its lacrosse team but they significantly brought down the strength of the conference when looking at the rankings and also opened up an extra out of conference game for each team. This years data better reflects the strength of the conference as a whole and it shows by being ranked above the NESCAC. That being said, I agree with what you said in an early post that while the top of the LL is better/equal to the top of the NESCAC, the bottom of the LL is still not quite as good as the bottom of the NESCAC.
JustOneTime
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by JustOneTime »

Since I have nothing better to do, here are some more numbers for you all.
Using the Top 7 teams in each conference;
NESCAC - 93.74
LL - 92.53
Cent - 89.12
ODAC - 86.08
NEWMAC - 83.59
SUNYAC - 82.63
MAC C - 82.23
CCC - 80.49
LANDMARK - 80.37
E8 - 79.18

Using the Top 4 teams in each conference;
LL - 95.64
NESCAC - 95.36
Cent - 91.14
ODAC - 88.70
MAC C - 87.83
NEWMAC - 87.76
E8 - 86.17
LANDMARK - 85.63
SUNYAC - 85.50
CCC - 83.67

You can see how bad the bottom teams bring down a conference like the ODAC. If the top 4 teams in the ODAC did not have to play the bottom 4 teams they would schedule a few more out of conference games that would only help their strength of schedule and rpi ratings.
BallHunt
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by BallHunt »

ah23 wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 11:33 am For my fellow visual learners out there, here's a heat map of the LaxPower rankings that SixBySix mentioned above. I think it illustrates the point pretty well. LL and NESCAC stand alone at the top, Centennial is in the next 'tier' by itself, then the NEWMAC + everyone else.

Pretty useful for visualizing conference depth as well. I had a good time with this one.

Image
Very cool!

FanLax computer would be jealous if smoke wasn't coming out of it from it's bracket.
poster formerly know as "wherestheslide"
jlibcon
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by jlibcon »

ah23 wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 11:33 am For my fellow visual learners out there, here's a heat map of the LaxPower rankings that SixBySix mentioned above. I think it illustrates the point pretty well. LL and NESCAC stand alone at the top, Centennial is in the next 'tier' by itself, then the NEWMAC + everyone else.

Pretty useful for visualizing conference depth as well. I had a good time with this one.

Image
MIAA is better than I thought…still a big drop off I know.
OHLaxDad
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by OHLaxDad »

jlibcon wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 1:38 pm
ah23 wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 11:33 am For my fellow visual learners out there, here's a heat map of the LaxPower rankings that SixBySix mentioned above. I think it illustrates the point pretty well. LL and NESCAC stand alone at the top, Centennial is in the next 'tier' by itself, then the NEWMAC + everyone else.

Pretty useful for visualizing conference depth as well. I had a good time with this one.
MIAA is better than I thought…still a big drop off I know.
MIAA out of conference scheduling is light at some schools. I expect that to improve with a new coach at Trine and Adrian (I think).
InsiderRoll
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by InsiderRoll »

ah23 wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 5:05 pm
InsiderRoll wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 4:16 pm He inherited a roster that played in 3 straight national championships.
Eh. Not really. From looking at their stats page, almost every starter/major contributor on the 2016 team graduated. They brought back two people with double digit points and one close defenseman.

To make my point a different way...here's a side-by-side comparison of the first five seasons of Jake Coon and Casey D'Annolfo at their respective schools:

Image

I combined the 20/21 seasons for Tufts because of the pandemic; obviously it's still fewer games than a normal season but it at least looks more like a normal year. They are remarkably similar.

If you extend out further: in Coon's first ten seasons, RIT lost at home in the playoffs to NESCAC teams seven different times. Four of those losses ended undefeated seasons. I didn't hear anyone calling Coon the most overrated coach in the country when his teams were repeatedly flaming out in the playoffs at home against lower seeds - nor should I have. RIT won their first title in Coon's 11th full season (excluding the pandemic year). They might go back to back. This stuff takes time.

Winning at this level is hard. There are plenty of great teams in DIII. Only one team gets to win a championship every year. Calling people "overrated" who win at the level these guys do just doesn't pass the smell test to me. I MUCH prefer DIII lacrosse having varied champions rather than the same team making it every single year, and I just don't think it makes sense to call guys overrated for not winning titles all the time.
Compare the accomplishments of RIT PRE-Coon to the accomplishments of Tufts PRE-D’Annolfo. Compare their resumes prior to getting those jobs as well. Anyways.
ergit
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by ergit »

InsiderRoll wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 5:00 pm
ah23 wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 5:05 pm
InsiderRoll wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 4:16 pm He inherited a roster that played in 3 straight national championships.
Eh. Not really. From looking at their stats page, almost every starter/major contributor on the 2016 team graduated. They brought back two people with double digit points and one close defenseman.

To make my point a different way...here's a side-by-side comparison of the first five seasons of Jake Coon and Casey D'Annolfo at their respective schools:

Image

I combined the 20/21 seasons for Tufts because of the pandemic; obviously it's still fewer games than a normal season but it at least looks more like a normal year. They are remarkably similar.

If you extend out further: in Coon's first ten seasons, RIT lost at home in the playoffs to NESCAC teams seven different times. Four of those losses ended undefeated seasons. I didn't hear anyone calling Coon the most overrated coach in the country when his teams were repeatedly flaming out in the playoffs at home against lower seeds - nor should I have. RIT won their first title in Coon's 11th full season (excluding the pandemic year). They might go back to back. This stuff takes time.

Winning at this level is hard. There are plenty of great teams in DIII. Only one team gets to win a championship every year. Calling people "overrated" who win at the level these guys do just doesn't pass the smell test to me. I MUCH prefer DIII lacrosse having varied champions rather than the same team making it every single year, and I just don't think it makes sense to call guys overrated for not winning titles all the time.
Compare the accomplishments of RIT PRE-Coon to the accomplishments of Tufts PRE-D’Annolfo. Compare their resumes prior to getting those jobs as well. Anyways.
Who cares…
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DeepPocket
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by DeepPocket »

ergit wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 5:12 pm
InsiderRoll wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 5:00 pm
ah23 wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 5:05 pm
InsiderRoll wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 4:16 pm He inherited a roster that played in 3 straight national championships.
Eh. Not really. From looking at their stats page, almost every starter/major contributor on the 2016 team graduated. They brought back two people with double digit points and one close defenseman.

To make my point a different way...here's a side-by-side comparison of the first five seasons of Jake Coon and Casey D'Annolfo at their respective schools:

Image

I combined the 20/21 seasons for Tufts because of the pandemic; obviously it's still fewer games than a normal season but it at least looks more like a normal year. They are remarkably similar.

If you extend out further: in Coon's first ten seasons, RIT lost at home in the playoffs to NESCAC teams seven different times. Four of those losses ended undefeated seasons. I didn't hear anyone calling Coon the most overrated coach in the country when his teams were repeatedly flaming out in the playoffs at home against lower seeds - nor should I have. RIT won their first title in Coon's 11th full season (excluding the pandemic year). They might go back to back. This stuff takes time.

Winning at this level is hard. There are plenty of great teams in DIII. Only one team gets to win a championship every year. Calling people "overrated" who win at the level these guys do just doesn't pass the smell test to me. I MUCH prefer DIII lacrosse having varied champions rather than the same team making it every single year, and I just don't think it makes sense to call guys overrated for not winning titles all the time.
Compare the accomplishments of RIT PRE-Coon to the accomplishments of Tufts PRE-D’Annolfo. Compare their resumes prior to getting those jobs as well. Anyways.
Who cares…
At minimum, the two people arguing which coach’s success has been more a direct result of their own abilities.
MAC - The SEC of DIII lacrosse.
Doid23
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by Doid23 »

I think it's pretty clear that NESCAC is the strongest conference in lacrosse over time. But every so often a conference will have an exceptional year, which the Liberty League did this year, and take the throne. But it always reverts back to NESCAC. NESCAC has too much history, a large advantage in terms of the level and depth of competition, and the academic strengths of their schools, to not be the most attractive conference (not necessarily individual schools) for recruits.
JustOneTime
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by JustOneTime »

Doid23 wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 6:18 pm I think it's pretty clear that NESCAC is the strongest conference in lacrosse over time. But every so often a conference will have an exceptional year, which the Liberty League did this year, and take the throne. But it always reverts back to NESCAC. NESCAC has too much history, a large advantage in terms of the level and depth of competition, and the academic strengths of their schools, to not be the most attractive conference (not necessarily individual schools) for recruits.
I think we can all agree on this.
ah23
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by ah23 »

InsiderRoll wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 5:00 pm Compare the accomplishments of RIT PRE-Coon to the accomplishments of Tufts PRE-D’Annolfo. Compare their resumes prior to getting those jobs as well. Anyways.
In case it's unclear...the point has never been to compare D'Annolfo and Coon against each other or to say that D'Annolfo is a better coach. The point is that burying a coach whose teams win 18+ games and are a threat to win a title every year doesn't make sense. I brought up Coon at RIT to point out how similar his start was to D'Annolfo's at Tufts - but with even worse playoff flameouts than Tufts has had - and, again, to point out how silly I think it is to criticize guys whose teams win at this level but don't finish their season holding the trophy. What RIT looked like before Coon took over isn't really relevant (though FWIW RIT was a very good program). There's always a bit of a grace period, but after that point his - and every coach's - teams should be measured against their own expectations.

As a sidebar: what Daly did at Tufts is something that literally only a handful of people have ever accomplished at the D-III level. I don't think that's a reasonable standard at all. Middlebury won three titles (six CGs) but has been a middle of the pack NESCAC team for years. Nazareth won three titles (six CGs) and is completely irrelevant now. Cortland won two titles (seven CGs) and is now a fringe top 25 team. Sustaining success at the level we're talking about is really, really hard. It's even harder when your team plays in the toughest conference in the country. It just doesn't check out to say that what Tufts has done since Daly left is some massive failure.
DeepPocket wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 5:18 pm At minimum, the two people arguing which coach’s success has been more a direct result of their own abilities.
Just to clarify, that's never been my argument. My argument is just with the idea that D'Annolfo is "the most overrated coach in America" or "a horrible coach". You can't win at the level Tufts does - especially given the conference they play in - without being a very good coach. That's all. I also think this stuff seems more about personal dislike than anything on the field, but that's a separate conversation.
Pegasus5
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by Pegasus5 »

I often find this "whose conference is the best" a funny, if not silly discussion. Funny because it happens often. As if there is somehow some pride in having "your team" associated with a strong conference which perhaps justifies all of your "quality" losses. It smacks of cocktail party snobbery as if, "my kid isn't going DI but he is going to this quality school, in this conference" so he somehow is an elite athlete who could have gone DI but chose academics over athletics.

Yes NESCAC fans, WE ALL CAN agree that you have "historically" had the best conference...unless we can ALL agree that this historically best conference was absolutely irrelevant when Hobart was running the table for 12 in a row in the 80's and 90's. Don't recall a single NESCAC team making it to Boswell field for an annual late May beat down in the DIII championships back then. But then again, as Churchill once said, "history will be kind to me because I intend to write it." So I guess it depends when you decide "history" starts. Go to the DI thread and read the Hopkins posts about history. They are giving Churchill a run for his money.

It is just silly. Silly because the very best thing the NCAA did was to increase the at large field. Division III is still very tightly connected to the geography of the "old" recruiting hot spots in New England, the Chesepeake region...Northern Virginia,Philly, Maryland, Long Insland and Upstate NY. That demographic is overly represented at the DIII level and for years, those schools who were on the bubble never made it to the tournament while AQ's got throttled.

In past years, under the old at large Pool C set up, there is a good argument that at least one if not two of the three LL teams not getting an AQ: Union, RPI and St Lawrence this year would not have gotten a Pool C at large bid. RPI is the only team to beat RIT and SLU is the only other team to beat Union besides besides RIT. In past years the idea of more than 2 teams from the LL making the tournament was always very remote.

The discussion of who got screwed by teams on the bubble will still not end but who has the "best" conference discussion took a major blow by expanding the at large bids. Now it is about who got screwed by having the easier bracket but that is a hell of a lot better than those teams sitting home and wondering what might have been if they were at least given an at large bid.
Switzerland
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by Switzerland »

They really need to get the finals back televised on The Ocho. This NCAA webcasting nonsense is for sh!t.
ah23
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Re: 2022 D3 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Post by ah23 »

Sketchy video and no on-screen clock in the national championship…sigh.

Love a nice defensive battle. RIT D has been good early - Union shots have almost all been really low angle.
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