Catbird wrote: ↑Mon Feb 28, 2022 10:30 am
Can Opener wrote: ↑Sun Feb 27, 2022 7:44 pm
Brown played UNC tougher than Hopkins despite running into Tucci’s best FO performance of the year. The last time Brown played JHU head-to-head the Bears prevailed 17-8. The mystique of Hopkins in the polls continues. For that matter, Brown is 6-1 against Princeton since 2014, but gets ranked lower every year. Brown deserves to be in the top 20 this week.
Playing the "we lost better than you" game and a playoff matchup from 5 years ago?
Hopkins is getting credit for winning right now. Only a handful of teams have a scalp more valuable than Jacksonville, maybe that changes in the next few weeks. I thought that's what you all wanted?
FTR I thought Brown looked pretty good while losing on Wednesday. Would not be surprised to see them end up in the Top 20 or 15 this year.
Not trying to troll Hopkins here, since it's just barroom banter at this point in the season until more proof points are in. Having said that, objectively Brown did much better against their only common opponent this year. JHU trailed Carolina 14-6 at one point in the fourth quarter. Brown was tied with UNC with less than 5 minutes to go. My only point in bringing up the 17-8 win a few years ago is just to call out the phenomenon of "Sure they're ranked ahead of Brown, they're John MFing Hopkins." Hop was ranked ahead of Brown in early polls that season, too. Not to go way down a rabbit hole, but Maryland teams are typically overweighted in the early polls -- and sometimes the more important ones leading into the tournament. I mean, who are the voters who included 0-3 Loyola in their top 20 this week? Huge respect for Toomey, but that team needs an intervention in some key roles.
My bigger beef is with BU and Princeton. Again, Brown has won 6 of the last 7 meetings against the Tigers and several of those were with Sowers in the lineup. Now without their (arguably) best player ever, Princeton only has wins against Monmouth and Binghamton and a 15-10 loss to Maryland. BU has wins over Merrimack, Bryant and a struggling UMass. Brown defeated BU 12-5 only 10 months ago and returns most of its key components including 3 grad students and 14 seniors from that game. Goss is the most noticeable absence, of course, but don't sleep on Blaze, I mean Connor, Theriault.
Again, this is just the silly season, but Daly kept his guys together all of last season despite playing only one game. Unless practice and team cohesion are overrated, I am confident that the hard work last spring will boost the Bears over other Ivies that chose to disperse and do small group work in sunny locales around the country. We will know a lot more about Brown after hosting Nova tomorrow.