FanLax Forum Poll

[Matnum PI]

This Forum is really shaping up, is it not?
Matnum Pi, you should be proud. And the rest of us should be grateful.
Thank you for preserving what was built by our little community...

My pleasure and... I feel the opposite. The post-ers make the greatest contributions to FanLax and, for that, I'm grateful. So, thank you.

[DocBarrister]

*Group Hug*

DocBarrister

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

Boy, that’s a refreshing comment MPI. That’s how LP felt in the early years, but as it got bigger, it got to where those who ran it got ground down into it being a major chore instead of in the original spirit of fun. And that came across in how the customer base was treated.

Poll: Shouldn’t people wait until after Sunday’s results?

[NElaxtalent]

Early season resumes of 0, 1 or 2 games come in several flavors that are tough to compare. My weighting is essentially:

1) Teams w/ QWs vs ranked &/or at least Top 25-30 teams
2) Teams w/ Ws vs weaker teams (TCB-took care of business but . . .)
3) Teams that haven't played yet (hard to downgrade much over no data)
4) Teams that have actually played & lost or looked "less impressive than expected"

By week 3 the Top 20-25 contenders should all have some games in Category #1 . . .

1. UVA strong 1st half Vs Loy. Lost style points in the 2nd.
2. Penn St lost my coin toss for preseason #1 (though is my pick to win NC). Solid W vs Vill after meh Laf game.
3. Yale 0-0 no reason to change.
4. Syracuse only up 9-6 at half on 'Gate but found their groove. Scanlon's 7,0 caught the headlines bur Rehfuss' 1,7 contribution is noteworthy.
5. Penn 0-0 but the beneficiary of (2) slips from my pre-season Top 5.
6. ND see #5
7. Maryland dominated for 3Q (down 5g?) by an unranked Richmond team. Gutted out 2OT W, aided by UR's unforced Q4 TOs. See criteria.
8. Denver deadlocked 5-5 mid Q3 w/ AF despite 75% FO dominance. Finished strong. Two Frosh led the Pios (FO Stahakis 16-21 & Sillstrop 5g).
9. Hop my biggest Top 15 mover. Impressive W over Tow without Epstein
10. UNC Gray-era offense off to great start but hard to gauge vs 'Gate/Mercer. Still TCB. Lafayette up next before Hop showdown.
11. Army thrashed Top 25 UMass.
12. OSU TCB x2 but neither Detroit nor Gray-less BU Top 10 proving ground.
13. Cornell 0-0 but slipping due to criteria 1 & 2 taking precedence.
14. Duke Solid bounce-back W vs preseason Top 20 HPU. Balanced scoring post-Robertson. G change? Upgren 35.7% after AF & 1st half vs HPU...
15. Georgetown Warne's boys roll vs Lafayette. No Top 25 foes until March.
16. Air Force impressive road W vs Duke & solid 2+Q vs Dev. FO <25% putting too much pressure on outstanding G Braden Host & MDD unit.
17. Rutgers Charalambides the offensive engine vs SJ. Trip to WP this weekend will be telling.
18. Lehigh Utah no answer for Soph Tommy Schelling 7,2. UVA tough litmus test if Mountain Hawks are a Top 15 team.
19. Loyola deceivingly respectable 12-9 final score vs UVA after 9-2 halftime deficit. Host Hop, need W to stay in Top 20.
20. Richmond Pro: dominant 3Qs to lead 12-7 vs Top 5 Md vs Con: unforced errors let Terps escape in 2OT.

Others considered: Delaware, Towson, Hobart, PU, Michigan

[molo]

Sure, we should wait for today’s results. For me, the bigger issue is how to rate the Ivy teams, who haven’t played yet, now that several teams have notched a significant victory. For example, we can be reasonably sure that Yale is an excellent team, but it’s tough to rank them now over a couple of teams that are 2 and 0 or even 1 and 0 with a good win. Therefore, I’ll probably have a team or two “overrated” for a week or so.

[ICGrad]

I'm travelling for work this afternoon, and will be somewhat limited in terms of my ability to play around on the internet for the next few days. So here's mine; subject to change as I'll take today's games into account before submitting my final votes tomorrow:

1. Yale -DNP
2. PSU - 2 solid wins; 2 weeks until the Yale rematch.
3. Virginia - Easy-ish win against a Loyola team I had ranked pretty high; great start.
4. Notre Dame - DNP
5. Maryland - watched the second half of the Richmond game; the Maryland comeback had an air of inevitability about it. Nice win and good job sidestepping the early-season upset.
6. Denver - Solid opening against an AFA team coming off an upset win over their next opponent, Duke.
7. Syracuse - I'm less impressed with the offense scoring 21 goals than I am concerned with the defense giving up 14. But in February, a win's a win.
8. North Carolina - 2 games, 2 solid wins, but yet to be really tested
9. Johns Hopkins - Maybe I was expecting too much from Towson or too little from Hopkins. An impressive win. Loyola and UNC up next; this team could find itself in the top 5 if they're not careful.
10. Cornell - DNP
11. Ohio State - 2 games, 2 solid wins, but yet to be really tested
12. Air Force - Nice win against Duke, and were down by 1 heading into the 4th quarter against a good Denver squad.
13. Army - Wasn't expecting the beatdown of UMass.
14. Duke - Easy win over High Point; the injury report is every bit as disconcerting as one goal loss to Air Force. @ Denver next week for a chance to return to the top 10.
15. Delaware - Solid - but kind of meh - opening win.
16. Georgetown - ditto
17. Penn - DNP
18. Brown - DNP
19. Loyola - Manhandled in first half against UVA.
20. Rutgers - 2 nice wins with Army and Loyola up next; we'll know more soon enough

Hopefully I haven't forgotten anyone...

[ICGrad]

So, as I'm almost out the door, I went ahead and submitted my picks. St. Joseph's/St. Bonny isn't going to impact my top 20 at this point. Honestly, the Army/NJIT game tomorrow is more likely to have an impact, but I think generally speaking I won't be considering Monday games for my weekly vote.

A couple of items about the submission process:

1) Still find the picklists mostly unreadable on Chrome.
2) Given 1, is it possible to have a "Review" page before you make your final submission? I almost voted for Manhattan instead of Maryland...d'oh!
3) If not, can we at least get a verification that the picks were properly submitted? I hit submit and the page just refreshed to a cleared-out version of the voting form, with no indication that the Submit was successful.

Thanks for everything. I think I spent more time on #s 16-20 than I did picking the top 15, lol.

[calourie]

Boy, that’s a refreshing comment MPI. That’s how LP felt in the early years, but as it got bigger, it got to where those who ran it got ground down into it being a major chore instead of in the original spirit of fun. And that came across in how the customer base was treated.

Poll: Shouldn’t people wait until after Sunday’s results?

I admit I jumped the gun, and of course even the almost unimaginable can happen out on a lacrosse field, but Sunday's games weren't going to change my top twenty without such an outcome. Only variable left now that would change my thinking is a possible NJIT upset of Army at West Point on Monday, but I'll venture a guess that many voters will submit their lists prior to such a result.

[Big Dog]

NELax, your comment after Epstein was terrible. Mental health and suicides among young people are a big problem in this country and not a joking matter.

[The Orfling]

I went ahead and submitted -- won't be sure if work will allow a minute tomorrow! Here are my rankings and explanations. Definitely a bias towards "teams that have been tested so far" and I'm sure a larger sample size will shake things up in "TOP" ("The Orfling Poll" -- trademark registration pending).


1 UVA The defending champs looked strong in their one game so far, a 12-9 win over Loyola. We knew that the Cavalier offense was hard to stop, but the outstanding play of Alex Rode in goal (19 saves) might be the most exciting take-away for UVA fans. UVA was outshot by Loyola 55 to 44, in part because the Cavaliers drew 7 penalties, but the outcome was never in doubt.

2 Penn St. Penn State cruises to 2-0 with 35 goals in two games, including a confident 19-10 win over a solid-looking Villanova team. As advertised, the attack line of Ament, Foulds, and O'Keefe is piling up the goals, and Arceri is winning face-offs at a 73% clip so far.

3 Maryland I'm keeping the Terps at #3 despite a narrow escape in a double OT win against Richmond. To go the distance a team needs to be able to come from behind, and the dormant Terp office roared to life with 6 4th quarter goals to reel in Richmond and show that with Wisnauskas and Bernhardt no opposing lead is safe. The Terps are still figuring things out a bit at the face-off X, it seems, but a defensive push to generate quick post-face-off turnovers helped neutralize a 14 for 31 day at the X.

4 Syracuse Seven goals in his first game for the Orange removed any doubt about whether Chase Scanlan's transfer will have an impact on the 2020 lax season. 'Cuse fans probably won't worry too much about the defensive side of the football score against Colgate of 21-14, given that star defender Nick Mellen was out for most of the second half but by all accounts will be back in the llineup for the next game.

5 UNC The Tarheels have yet to be truly tested but are looking good with two week 1 wins in which they scored a total of 34 goals and held both Colgate and Mercer to signle digits. The 1-2 punch of Nicky Solomon and Chris Gray will be hard to stop, and goalie Caton Johnson has a 63% save percentage so far.

6 UPenn We won't have to wait long to see if UPenn can pick back up where they left off last year, as they face Maryland, Duke, and Penn State in their first three games. The biggest question mark may be in goal, after the graduation of star Reed Junkin, and we'll see in Penn's opener if UVA transfer Patrick Burkinshaw steps into the cage as Junkin's replacement.

7 Yale In the pre-season scrimmage against Syracuse, Yale looked like it will get plenty of firepower from its midfield despite the departure of the entire 1st midfield line. Most of the real questions seem to be on the defensive side of the ball including man-down defense, the effectiveness of the rope unit, and save percentage in goal. Yale opens with Villanova, a team that has handed them 1-goal losses in each of the past two season openers.

8 Denver Facing an Air Force team with one of the hottest goalies in the country (Braden Host, with 38 saves and a 68% save percentage in two games), Denver, unlike Duke, was able to solve him in large part due to a monster day from Pio freshman JJ Sillstrop.

9 Hopkins Hop shoulders into my top 10 ranking after an impressive 15-7 win over Towson in the opener. In the absence of top returning scorer Joey Epstein, the Blue Jays saw Cole Williams (7 points) shoulder the load with ample help from DeSimone, Degnon and Zinn. The Blue Jays also had a lot to be happy about at the X, with Kyle Prouty and Matt Narewski combining to give Hopkins the 20-6 edge on face-offs.

10 Notre Dame As with the Ivies, Notre Dame starts the season late with a Feb. 15 opener against Cleveland State. From then on in we should learn a lot, as they face Richmond, Maryland, Denver and Ohio State in games 2-5.

11 Ohio State Hard to really tell much about Ohio State's ceiling from two easy wins over undermanned opponents (Detroit Mercy and BU), but the team certainly appears to have top 10 upside.

12 Duke The Blue Devils bounced back from a tough opening game loss to a team with a hot goalie (Air Force) to pull away from High Point for a solid win to get back to .500. I'm dropping Duke out of my own top 10 not because of an overreaction to the Air Force loss, but in recognition that Duke's offensive capabilities took a hit with the loss of Joe Robertson for the season due to injury.

13 Loyola Loyola turned in a respectable effort against the defending champs, coming back from a 9-2 first half deficit to eventually lose 12-9. FOGO Bailey Savio will do well for Loyola at the X this year and Sam Shafer, starting in goal after the graduation of star Jacob Stover, had a strong effort with 15 saves. Pre-season predictions that Loyola should challenge for the Patriot League title are looking solid.

14 Cornell Cornell drops two spots in my rankings only because some other teams looked good and there's not much information from Cornell's scrimmages. The Big Red won't have a home game until March 1 but will have a chance to show what they can do against non-league opponents like Albany, Towson and Ohio State before a big home-opener vs. Yale.

15 Army I thought about ranking Army #15 in my pre-season rankings, but went with Lehigh instead. Army's 17-4 shellacking of UMass (getting out to a 9-0 halftime lead and never looking back) convinces me that the Black Knights should be my second Patriot League team after Loyola.

16 Richmond One team's great comeback is another team's game-that-got-away. Richmond couldn't hold on to a 5-goal lead against Maryland but showed plenty of flashes of brilliance in the double OT loss.

17 Lehigh Lehigh attackman Tommy Schelling (9 points) led the Mountain Hawks to a 16-11 win over a physical Utah team. Lehigh was not as dominant at the face-off X in this game as they'll need to be to contend for the Patriot League title or, in the short term, against defending champs UVA next week.

18 Rutgers After strong offensive showings led by Adam Charalambides in their first two games (the team scored 37 combined goals against Quinnipiac and St. John's), the Scarlet Knights will face a tougher test when they play Army and Loyola in succession.

19 Georgetown Dylan Watson and Jake Carraway combined for 10 goals against Lafayette in the Hoyas' opening 17-3 victory. A 42-20 edge in groundballs was testament to the impressive intensity of Georgetown. They'll face a relatively less challenging early season schedule so we may not see them really pushed until mid-March.

20 Air Force Academy Big win against Duke on the back of goalie play from Braden Host gets Air Force into my top 20; they are a real threat to win the SoCon. Host also shined against Denver with 21 saves but after a close first half the Pios put the Falcons away.

[laxpere]

Games that had an impact on my rankings:
Army up and Mass moved to unranked
Hopkins up and Towson down
UVA flat and Loyola now ranked
Maryland down and Richmond moved up
Denver up and Air Force down
Syracuse down and Colgate remained unranked
Navy moved to unranked and Manhattan remained unranked

Everyone else played within expectations and their performances confirmed the prior week's rankings.

[OCanada]

Matt. Would you or someone send me the link or post it. I used the links in this notestream and could not submit. Didn’t ask for PW either

[molo]

Just sent mine in. This is a tough week. I moved my top four around, shooting PSU, the favorite of many, to the top spot in light of their taking care of business twice now. I know Gate is not top tier team this year, but I was high on SU preseason and they looked too sharp not to move them up to two. I wasn't sure what to do with Maryland, now 2-0 with a near miss against Richmond, and UVA, who showed why I had them at number one for a half and then got doubled up in the second half against Loyola. These teams will continue to jump each other until one loses or picks up a bigger win in a given week. While UNC has not beaten a high level team yet, the Heels, who I liked preseason, have shown why against two teams they should have beaten. Is Yale better than any of these teams? Maybe, maybe even probably, but they haven't played yet. They will go up if they deserve to once they start to play. Hopkins looked good against Towson. Can they make it two in a row against Loyola? OSU has looked dominant against opponents they should have beaten comfortably. Denver topped Air Force, who beat Duke. Sorry Quakers, but I had to put some teams with a couple of wins or a quality win over a team that has neither won nor lost. I had to drop Duke for losing to Air Force, but I their schedule should afford enough quality wins to offset an early season loss. I am enough of an NCAA football fan to think that losses matter even when they are part of a good team's historical pattern. I expect the to move up.

[Matnum PI]

*Group Hug*

DocBarrister

Everything ruined. No longer grateful...

[Matnum PI]

Matt. Would you or someone send me the link or post it. I used the links in this notestream and could not submit. Didn’t ask for PW either

http://fanlax.com/fanlax/2020/01/30/fan ... ll-d1-men/

[calourie]

Matt. Would you or someone send me the link or post it. I used the links in this notestream and could not submit. Didn’t ask for PW either

http://fanlax.com/fanlax/2020/01/30/fan ... ll-d1-men/

The "submit" button on my Mac using Firefox as my browser appears as a blank white box at the bottom of the select list (I believe when I click on it the word "submit" does appear.). Don't know if anyone else's link does the same, but I simply clicked it and was rewarded with my list from last week getting to Matt as I'm assuming my this week's poll will as well

[Wheels]

Matt. Would you or someone send me the link or post it. I used the links in this notestream and could not submit. Didn’t ask for PW either

http://fanlax.com/fanlax/2020/01/30/fan ... ll-d1-men/

The "submit" button on my Mac using Firefox as my browser appears as a blank white box at the bottom of the select list (I believe when I click on it the word "submit" does appear.). Don't know if anyone else's link does the same, but I simply clicked it and was rewarded with my list from last week getting to Matt as I'm assuming my this week's poll will as well

I get that, too, using Safari.

[OCanada]

I must be locked out . Is that possible because of my earlier attempt? In any event I can't get in with the PW,

I was using my cell with a different search engine than most use and that may have been the problem. I am now on my Mac. I will check back later today so see if I can get in

[Matnum PI]

the page password isn't that high tech. (i.e. I doubt you're locked out.) it's probably Caps Lock or something similar. or you're using the wrong password. message me if you need it resent.

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

the page password isn't that high tech. (i.e. I doubt you're locked out.) it's probably Caps Lock or something similar. or you're using the wrong password. message me if you need it resent.

Hmm. He has trouble spelling. How the hell is he going to enter a password???!!!!!