FanLax Forum Poll

[Typical Lax Dad]

...Losing to good teams proves nothing. You haven't shown yourself to be a good team until you beat one. Polls aren't intended to predict the winner in May, they're to assess what you've done to date...

Losing is easy!

[Can Opener]

I haven't submitted a poll, but if I did, I would automatically drop a team at least one ranking position if they scheduled an OOC game against NJIT. I have no reason to hate on the Highlanders (learned that nickname today), but it's remarkable to me that real programs agree to play them every season. This year their OOC opponents include Delaware, Lehigh, Harvard and Army. Princeton stopped playing them after 2018. NJIT is 7-90 since 2015 with 4 of those wins coming against an emerging Hampton program. Monmouth, UMass Lowell and Dartmouth (2016) are the other victims. I'm all for growing the game, but I don't believe that playing top 20 teams helps NJIT at this point in their evolution.

[Henpecked]

I haven't submitted a poll, but if I did, I would automatically drop a team at least one ranking position if they scheduled an OOC game against NJIT. I have no reason to hate on the Highlanders (learned that nickname today), but it's remarkable to me that real programs agree to play them every season. This year their OOC opponents include Delaware, Lehigh, Harvard and Army. Princeton stopped playing them after 2018. NJIT is 7-90 since 2015 with 4 of those wins coming against an emerging Hampton program. Monmouth, UMass Lowell and Dartmouth (2016) are the other victims. I'm all for growing the game, but I don't believe that playing top 20 teams helps NJIT at this point in their evolution.

That is a great idea. Do you drop Notre Dame one position for playing Detroit Mercy, Georgetown one position for playing Mt. St. Marys, Ohio State two positions for playing Detroit Mercy AND Cleveland State, Princeton two positions for scheduling Monmouth and Binghamton, Syracuse has to be dropped a position for playing Holy Cross, Army probably THREE positions for playing Siena, Holy Cross and NJIT...

Where does it end? You have to schedule 13-16 games a year. There are only 71 D1 teams. At some point the possibilities with conflicts of dates make your options pretty limited. I don't blame any of these teams for scheduling weaker teams. Would you prefer good teams to ignore the bottom third? I can give you a list of about 20 teams that have virtually zero chance at being competitive against top 30 programs. So why do they bother fielding a team if nobody will play them?

[Typical Lax Dad]

I haven't submitted a poll, but if I did, I would automatically drop a team at least one ranking position if they scheduled an OOC game against NJIT. I have no reason to hate on the Highlanders (learned that nickname today), but it's remarkable to me that real programs agree to play them every season. This year their OOC opponents include Delaware, Lehigh, Harvard and Army. Princeton stopped playing them after 2018. NJIT is 7-90 since 2015 with 4 of those wins coming against an emerging Hampton program. Monmouth, UMass Lowell and Dartmouth (2016) are the other victims. I'm all for growing the game, but I don't believe that playing top 20 teams helps NJIT at this point in their evolution.

That is a great idea. Do you drop Notre Dame one position for playing Detroit Mercy, Georgetown one position for playing Mt. St. Marys, Ohio State two positions for playing Detroit Mercy AND Cleveland State, Princeton two positions for scheduling Monmouth and Binghamton, Syracuse has to be dropped a position for playing Holy Cross, Army probably THREE positions for playing Siena, Holy Cross and NJIT...

Where does it end? You have to schedule 13-16 games a year. There are only 71 D1 teams. At some point the possibilities with conflicts of dates make your options pretty limited. I don't blame any of these teams for scheduling weaker teams. Would you prefer good teams to ignore the bottom third? I can give you a list of about 20 teams that have virtually zero chance at being competitive against top 30 programs. So who do they bother fielding a team if nobody will play them?

Wasn’t Monmouth recently in the tournament? NJIT is building a program in a tough sector. Excellent engineering and tech school probably reduces the recruiting pool also.

[calourie]

https://usila.org/

Here's the USILA poll from today with the same top twenty that the FanLax forum poll has in only slightly different order. Guess we all should have been lacrosse coaches.

[Matnum PI]

https://usila.org/ Here's the USILA poll from today with the same top twenty that the FanLax forum poll has in only slightly different order. Guess we all should have been lacrosse coaches.

group·think
/ˈɡro͞opˌTHiNGk/
noun: group-think
the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility.

[Can Opener]

I haven't submitted a poll, but if I did, I would automatically drop a team at least one ranking position if they scheduled an OOC game against NJIT. I have no reason to hate on the Highlanders (learned that nickname today), but it's remarkable to me that real programs agree to play them every season. This year their OOC opponents include Delaware, Lehigh, Harvard and Army. Princeton stopped playing them after 2018. NJIT is 7-90 since 2015 with 4 of those wins coming against an emerging Hampton program. Monmouth, UMass Lowell and Dartmouth (2016) are the other victims. I'm all for growing the game, but I don't believe that playing top 20 teams helps NJIT at this point in their evolution.

That is a great idea. Do you drop Notre Dame one position for playing Detroit Mercy, Georgetown one position for playing Mt. St. Marys, Ohio State two positions for playing Detroit Mercy AND Cleveland State, Princeton two positions for scheduling Monmouth and Binghamton, Syracuse has to be dropped a position for playing Holy Cross, Army probably THREE positions for playing Siena, Holy Cross and NJIT...

Where does it end? You have to schedule 13-16 games a year. There are only 71 D1 teams. At some point the possibilities with conflicts of dates make your options pretty limited. I don't blame any of these teams for scheduling weaker teams. Would you prefer good teams to ignore the bottom third? I can give you a list of about 20 teams that have virtually zero chance at being competitive against top 30 programs. So why do they bother fielding a team if nobody will play them?

I am not cool enough to understand which emoji represents sarcasm. I guess I just should have written [sarcasm] next to my ranking drop proposal. I hear ya that the numbers don't work to have the top 30 teams only play other top 30 teams. It is just remarkable to me that one of the worst 5 programs in the country year in, year out, is able to schedule four top 25 OOC games. One or two -- sure. I am sincerely just curious about this phenomenon. Is there something more to the story? Harvard could play seven other New England schools that sit within an hour or two of Cambridge, but they choose NJIT instead. I am sure GB would rather play a Long Island team for recruiting reasons rather than NJIT. Again, not trying to be a hater, just really scratching my head.

[smoova]

Corrigan is poison. Needs to be put out to pasture.

It's amazing how one man can do so little with so much.

[HillsLax]

It is embarrassing, or should be to any poll that has Notre Dame in the top 20. The team has won one game, against a team that also has won just one game. Perhaps the team will perform better in the future, but it may win only one, or maybe two more games.

[lorin]

It is embarrassing, or should be to any poll that has Notre Dame in the top 20. The team has won one game, against a team that also has won just one game. Perhaps the team will perform better in the future, but it may win only one, or maybe two more games.

All’s they need to do is beat Michigan and Marquette, and go 500 in ACC play and they are in the tournament

[HGK]

I hear you but that philosophy basically says teams should schedule down as you and other pollsters are massively discounting losses to good teams. Nova to me is another example. I get their resume isn’t great but they are a tough team and I guarantee that manifests itself when Big East play starts. I think my issue with how the resume voting crowd works is that I truly think the eye test is way more relevant to who advances in May than discounting good losses and valuing uninspiring wins in February and March.

Anybody can lose to good teams. The 60th best team can lose to good teams. Losing to good teams proves nothing. You haven't shown yourself to be a good team until you beat one. Polls aren't intended to predict the winner in May, they're to assess what you've done to date. If you want to predict what results will be in May, start a prediction contest.

“Anybody can lose to good teams”. GBR you clearly have an uncanny grasp of the obvious. Congrats.

I think assessing what you have done to date as you say, should include weighing wins, losses, the quality of those wins and losses as well as the overall performance of those opponents year to date. Not just your record with no nuanced thought to the inputs to how that record came to be.

[wgdsr]

It is embarrassing, or should be to any poll that has Notre Dame in the top 20. The team has won one game, against a team that also has won just one game. Perhaps the team will perform better in the future, but it may win only one, or maybe two more games.

All’s they need to do is beat Michigan and Marquette, and go 500 in ACC play and they are in the tournament

maybe. if they were 2 and 2 right now, they'd be right on the cutline.

[joewillie78]

It is embarrassing, or should be to any poll that has Notre Dame in the top 20. The team has won one game, against a team that also has won just one game. Perhaps the team will perform better in the future, but it may win only one, or maybe two more games.

I can't argue with this even though I was one of the pollsters who had them in my top 20. It's brutal to rate a team that you know in your heart and head is a very good team, that on any given day can beat ANY team in the country, yet for some reason has come up short in all its major tests. Obviously, if they lose their next game and go 1-4, they would be out. Syracuse is another one that has immense talent but with 6 games played, I think we have a better idea of Syracuse, so that's why I dropped them completely out of the poll.
GOBIGRED
Joewillie78

[jrn19]

There shouldn’t be such a thing as quality losses. If you’re performing well in games I don’t in I that’s a fair component to incorporate, but QL’s shouldn’t be a metric and when you only have 1 win over a bad team, how you’ve performed in losses doesn’t matter, you’re not winning any of these games and so you should be dinged for that

Additionally, while all of ND’s losses could be described as “close” and you could argue they’ve played well in them…they haven’t really led for that long in any of them. They led for around 10 mins or so against Maryland, and then for <20 mins against OSU. So out of 180 mins, they’ve led for less than 20% of them. They’re in the games, but they’ve never looked anything but not quite as good.

[Gobigred]

I hear you but that philosophy basically says teams should schedule down as you and other pollsters are massively discounting losses to good teams. Nova to me is another example. I get their resume isn’t great but they are a tough team and I guarantee that manifests itself when Big East play starts. I think my issue with how the resume voting crowd works is that I truly think the eye test is way more relevant to who advances in May than discounting good losses and valuing uninspiring wins in February and March.

Anybody can lose to good teams. The 60th best team can lose to good teams. Losing to good teams proves nothing. You haven't shown yourself to be a good team until you beat one. Polls aren't intended to predict the winner in May, they're to assess what you've done to date. If you want to predict what results will be in May, start a prediction contest.

“Anybody can lose to good teams”. GBR you clearly have an uncanny grasp of the obvious.

And you, clearly, do not.

[faircornell]

As a lacrosse comment, and not a polling comment, I wonder if the fact that Notre Dame has played only four games has anything to do with the fact that they have been less competitive than expected. Their ACC/Big Ten peer group seems to have been much more active.

[rolldodge]

It is embarrassing, or should be to any poll that has Notre Dame in the top 20. The team has won one game, against a team that also has won just one game. Perhaps the team will perform better in the future, but it may win only one, or maybe two more games.

yet for some reason has come up short in all its major tests.

Maybe because they are not as good a team as you expected them to be.

[rolldodge]

Winning a game by one versus losing a game by one is not just the difference between scoring two more goals or not. Winning vs losing is like a phase change of water to steam. It does not scale linearly. It take a large amount of energy (talent/effort/teamwork) to get over that hump. That's why you often see games where the lesser team hangs in there and loses by 1 or 2 or so, but the game really was never in much doubt. This is why "good losses" are fairly useless in evaluating rankings. Thats not to say that losses play no part. If two teams have equal quality wins, then you might take a look at losses to break ties, etc.

[jersey shore lax]

Any reason certain people are only picking 20 instead of 25? I think it would best if we are consistent, especially this year because the difference between a team ranked 15 and 25 might not be that much.

Jersey Shore Lax's picking strategy is very interesting. I guess he could not decide who should be ranked 11
]

I was having difficulty logging in and finally Matnum PI helped me and I logged in at 11:55 so I was under pressure and my Rutgers pick at 11 did not get in. I pick by eye test and lower ranks for teams I just do not like. so i generally do not pick more than 20 because I just have not seen these teams yet or know any thing about them (Hobart, Bucknell, St Joe's, Harvard to name a few)

[drunkmonkey30]

There shouldn’t be such a thing as quality losses. If you’re performing well in games I don’t in I that’s a fair component to incorporate, but QL’s shouldn’t be a metric and when you only have 1 win over a bad team, how you’ve performed in losses doesn’t matter, you’re not winning any of these games and so you should be dinged for that

Additionally, while all of ND’s losses could be described as “close” and you could argue they’ve played well in them…they haven’t really led for that long in any of them. They led for around 10 mins or so against Maryland, and then for <20 mins against OSU. So out of 180 mins, they’ve led for less than 20% of them. They’re in the games, but they’ve never looked anything but not quite as good.

A loss to MD = loss to NJIT?