2022 D1 Selection Committee

[nyjay]

The Ivies have been screwed in selections and seedings year after year for the past 15 years or more. And the ACC was placing 5 teams in the tourney year after year, with 4 and sometimes 5 of those teams seeded. Teams like Hopkins got in the tourney many times because of SOS and "good" losses while teams that won games were on the outside looking in. Cornell has been underseeded multiple times starting in 06. Getting the 4 seed in 07 after beating Duke, playing SU on the road after beating them in the regular season, missing out in 2019 (and there are more).

So now the Ivy League beats up on the lax world in 2022 (after the lax mafia sounded the death knell for the league for sitting out 2021) and gets justly rewarded by the tournament committee the same way the ACC and other schools (JHU) were rewarded in past seasons and now it's an outrage? Cry me a river Duke and ND. Now you know how it feels.

Want to make the tourney Duke and ND? Win some OOC games against top teams. That's it. Beating each other at the end of the season when most of the ACC lost its key OOC games means nothing. And how can you use the "eye test" when it's ACC vs ACC at the end of the season? The ACC fans complaining about the selection process are hypocrites.

And I give the selection committee tremendous kudos for using head to head for some of the last slots. There is nothing more telling about whether team A or team B should get a bid when the resumes are similar then when team A beat team B.

Great post, except that I don't think the Ivies have been screwed over for the last 15 years. They have historically not been close to the top 2 in conference rankings and they've gotten the bids they deserved. This year they were the number 1 conference (based on quality OOC wins) and thus get 6 bids (probably should have been 5, but you get my point).

[PizzaSnake]

A farce...I'd put money on the Notre Dame playing right now to beat any of the Ivy teams. Hell, I'd pick Duke to beat most of them. No disrespect, but this is comical. It's funnier than Scarface trying to do a drug deal with Kermit the Frog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FukghSV6Ct8

Gonna wager some bitcoin (fake money) in your imaginary matchups?

Gotta make the tourney first.

That’s my point. My opinion only. I think Notre Dame would beat the majority of Ivy teams that made it and that this year’s bracket is a farce. What don’t you understand?

Your grasp of reality.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

Didn’t.

Deal.

[Farfromgeneva]

So Woodruff said the discussion came down to four spots for six teams. I think we can safely guess those teams were Cornell, Brown, Harvard, OSU, ND, and Duke.

Cornell’s resume is pretty strong - beat Yale, Princeton, won head-to-heads against OSU, Harvard, worst loss is to Army. No question they get a ticket.
Brown was pretty strong too. Beat Yale, Penn, and Cornell, with only a bad loss to UMass on the resume. So they get in.
Duke has only one top 10 win against #9 UVa, and three bad losses to Syracuse, Loyola, and Jax. They’re out.

Here’s where it gets tricky. OSU has the advantage over ND and Harvard in that they beat both of them. Only loss to a non-top 7 team is Denver (#20). So despite being ranked 14th in the RPI, I think they get selected on head-to-head and lack of bad losses.

So it’s down to Harvard vs. ND. Harvard beat Brown, Princeton, and BU (#13). Their only losses were to seeded tournament teams, and OSU.

Notre Dame only beat Duke. They had zero quality wins besides Duke. If it’s decided that Duke is not tournament caliber, then it’s really tough to argue for Notre Dame. They had four opportunities to get a marquee win, and lost all of them fairly convincingly (except against Maryland at home).

So clearly the committee looked at quality wins (i.e. top-5 and top-10), bad losses, and head-to-head. Which is pretty much exactly what the NCAA criteria says they’re supposed to look at.

Again - the problem is that all of the Ivy's good wins and not-bad losses were against each other. The real issue is in determining the quality of the league. All this comes down to (1) Princeton beating Georgetown and Rutgers and (2) Penn beating Duke. As a result of those three wins, every intra-Ivy game became a good win or a not-bad loss. Hence we get six Ivies in the tourney. So Harvard and Cornell can thank Princeton for beating Georgetown and Rutgers, without which the whole field would be different.

The logic you criticize has been used to give bids and high seeds to ACC teams in recent seasons. And JHU got bids for losing to those same ACC teams, raising its RPI and SOS. So it didn't go your way this year, for the first time in modern lax history, and its a travesty? Just stop.

They aren’t here to talk about the past. Besides, Android wasn’t on the banned list at the time.

Citation: Mark McGuire.

[nyjay]

So Woodruff said the discussion came down to four spots for six teams. I think we can safely guess those teams were Cornell, Brown, Harvard, OSU, ND, and Duke.

Cornell’s resume is pretty strong - beat Yale, Princeton, won head-to-heads against OSU, Harvard, worst loss is to Army. No question they get a ticket.
Brown was pretty strong too. Beat Yale, Penn, and Cornell, with only a bad loss to UMass on the resume. So they get in.
Duke has only one top 10 win against #9 UVa, and three bad losses to Syracuse, Loyola, and Jax. They’re out.

Here’s where it gets tricky. OSU has the advantage over ND and Harvard in that they beat both of them. Only loss to a non-top 7 team is Denver (#20). So despite being ranked 14th in the RPI, I think they get selected on head-to-head and lack of bad losses.

So it’s down to Harvard vs. ND. Harvard beat Brown, Princeton, and BU (#13). Their only losses were to seeded tournament teams, and OSU.

Notre Dame only beat Duke. They had zero quality wins besides Duke. If it’s decided that Duke is not tournament caliber, then it’s really tough to argue for Notre Dame. They had four opportunities to get a marquee win, and lost all of them fairly convincingly (except against Maryland at home).

So clearly the committee looked at quality wins (i.e. top-5 and top-10), bad losses, and head-to-head. Which is pretty much exactly what the NCAA criteria says they’re supposed to look at.

Again - the problem is that all of the Ivy's good wins and not-bad losses were against each other. The real issue is in determining the quality of the league. All this comes down to (1) Princeton beating Georgetown and Rutgers and (2) Penn beating Duke. As a result of those three wins, every intra-Ivy game became a good win or a not-bad loss. Hence we get six Ivies in the tourney. So Harvard and Cornell can thank Princeton for beating Georgetown and Rutgers, without which the whole field would be different.

The logic you criticize has been used to give bids and high seeds to ACC teams in recent seasons. And JHU got bids for losing to those same ACC teams, raising its RPI and SOS. So it didn't go your way this year, for the first time in modern lax history, and its a travesty? Just stop.

I totally agree with you. That's the logic that's been used. And I'm not really a fan of it. Would prefer to downgrade teams that finish 4th, 5th, 6th in their conference and not give them bids. Prefer to give to 2nd and 3rds in other conferences. I'm not complaining about this year's field. Kind of enjoying the anger coming from the ACC programs. But it's very much a case of what goes around comes around.

[RopeUnit]

2 things can be true:
1. Notre Dame could likely beat anyone in the field this weekend
2. Notre Dame didn’t do enough to earn a tournament invite—they are 0-4 against teams that made the cut. One win against those and they’re in.

[TheBigIguana]

2 things can be true:
1. Notre Dame could likely beat anyone in the field this weekend
2. Notre Dame didn’t do enough to earn a tournament invite—they are 0-4 against teams that made the cut. One win against those and they’re in.

I'm just not sure why 1 is the prevailing line of thinking given 2. That's 1/3 of their season where they played the teams at the level people swear they can beat now and went literally 0 for. All multi goal losses too. But now they're winning 4 in a row?

[PizzaSnake]

This thread: A “Counter-factuality” of Dunces.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_thinking

So which of these are people trafficking in?

“Downward counterfactuals are thoughts about how the situation could have been worse; and people tend to have a more positive view of the actual outcome. Upward counterfactuals are thoughts about how the situation could have been better. These kinds of thoughts tend to make people feel dissatisfied and unhappy; ”

[Laxter]

When do members rotate off? I think Breschi has done enough. I’m sure he just HATED these outcomes. He should not be one of the five voices in that room deciding the fate of his recruiting rivals.

[Wheels]

Harvard: two top 10 wins including 1 top 5 win

Notre Dame: two top ten wins to a team the committee decided wasn’t an at large.

Looks like the “big wins” rationale and performance against field made a comeback.

This is exactly what happened. Duke's habit of no showing up against weaker opponents finally did them in. Notre Dame got no credit for "good losses."

[masondixonlax]

2 things can be true:
1. Notre Dame could likely beat anyone in the field this weekend
2. Notre Dame didn’t do enough to earn a tournament invite—they are 0-4 against teams that made the cut. One win against those and they’re in.

I'm just not sure why 1 is the prevailing line of thinking given 2. That's 1/3 of their season where they played the teams at the level people swear they can beat now and went literally 0 for. All multi goal losses too. But now they're winning 4 in a row?

BC other teams have an objectively better resume and that's all you objectively can go off of.

[Wheels]

Tidbits from the selection show for those who couldn’t watch:
-Quint defended OSU getting in over ND, due to beating them and Harvard
-No one defended, or really even talked about, Duke.
-Carc was apoplectic over Notre Dame not making it in. Quint was upset too.
-Cotter flashed a graphic that showed the top 12 RPI teams. Next to the teams was a column labeled “In Tourney?” All yes’s except Duke and ND of course.
-Donna Woodruff, who headed the selection committee, took questions afterwards like the total pro that she is.
-On another graphic, UVa was incorrectly labeled as a 3-seed.
-Anish was relegated to facelessly reciting the number of times each seed has been upset or has reached the final four, over a montage of championship clips. He seems to be on the outs. I think Cotter threatened to beat him up if he didn’t give him his air time.

Only surprise to me was seeing Harvard get in over Notre Dame. My guess is Byrne and his Crimson will show well against Rutgers

The second Harvard popped on the screen, it was over for both Duke and Notre Dame because OSU had head-to-head wins over Harvard and Notre Dame. Showed that Harvard was the last team in and OSU got in ahead of them.

[wgdsr]

So, yeah, Dano is a hall of fame coach; but is there a worse coached team than this Duke team? It's criminal how they've underperformed relative to their talent. Zero excuses.

Dino is very highly regarded and he is definitely a players coach. All that talent though and you have start to question his strategic coaching. If his team doesn't make the tournament, with all of that talent, it would be fair to ask some questions. Especially when the acc is having a seemingly down year.

looking like we won't have to ask questions, then.

You think they are a lock for the NCAA bid? That would be an outlier opinion. We will see tomorrow. No doubt they will be sweating it out.

lock? 90+%.
i have duke, you have tosu.

You got my venmo bruh? 1 acc team? Ouch!

venmo for what?

acc conference had a rough night. there's one team in the entire nc$$ i'm happy to see miss the tourney, they're in the acc and it looks like they did.

you can be a conference homer if you'd like, don't make everybody be one.

[Wheels]

Let’s assume the rest of the field was settled and it came down to deciding between Notre Dame and Harvard — which I would wager there is a pretty high likelihood happened.

* Both teams have 8-4 records.
* Both teams have two top 10 RPI wins.
* Harvard has a top 5 RPI win
* Harvard has beaten 3 teams in the tournament field (Princeton, Brown, BU) including two seeded teams.
* Notre Dame has beaten none.

It’s kind of a no-brainer. What other objective criteria could you bring into it to tip the scales the other way?

The criteria is Anish and Carc said so

EYE TEST!!!

[1766]

2 things can be true:
1. Notre Dame could likely beat anyone in the field this weekend
2. Notre Dame didn’t do enough to earn a tournament invite—they are 0-4 against teams that made the cut. One win against those and they’re in.

ND, and Duke, have no one to blame but themselves. In ND's case, sure they finished well. But they started terribly for almost half the season.

It will be interesting to see how some of the Acc teams schedule moving forward. Not all, but some beating up on regional mid majors, for the most part, and counting on the Acc portion of their schedules to put them in tournament doesn't seem like a great strategy moving forward. They are going to have to travel to places perhaps they traditionally haven't.

[Typical Lax Dad]

I thought an Ivy would get gipped. Glad to see Brown and Harvard in.

[MoralTerpitude]

So Woodruff said the discussion came down to four spots for six teams. I think we can safely guess those teams were Cornell, Brown, Harvard, OSU, ND, and Duke.

Cornell’s resume is pretty strong - beat Yale, Princeton, won head-to-heads against OSU, Harvard, worst loss is to Army. No question they get a ticket.
Brown was pretty strong too. Beat Yale, Penn, and Cornell, with only a bad loss to UMass on the resume. So they get in.
Duke has only one top 10 win against #9 UVa, and three bad losses to Syracuse, Loyola, and Jax. They’re out.

Here’s where it gets tricky. OSU has the advantage over ND and Harvard in that they beat both of them. Only loss to a non-top 7 team is Denver (#20). So despite being ranked 14th in the RPI, I think they get selected on head-to-head and lack of bad losses.

So it’s down to Harvard vs. ND. Harvard beat Brown, Princeton, and BU (#13). Their only losses were to seeded tournament teams, and OSU.

Notre Dame only beat Duke. They had zero quality wins besides Duke. If it’s decided that Duke is not tournament caliber, then it’s really tough to argue for Notre Dame. They had four opportunities to get a marquee win, and lost all of them fairly convincingly (except against Maryland at home).

So clearly the committee looked at quality wins (i.e. top-5 and top-10), bad losses, and head-to-head. Which is pretty much exactly what the NCAA criteria says they’re supposed to look at.

Again - the problem is that all of the Ivy's good wins and not-bad losses were against each other. The real issue is in determining the quality of the league. All this comes down to (1) Princeton beating Georgetown and Rutgers and (2) Penn beating Duke. As a result of those three wins, every intra-Ivy game became a good win or a not-bad loss. Hence we get six Ivies in the tourney. So Harvard and Cornell can thank Princeton for beating Georgetown and Rutgers, without which the whole field would be different.

The logic you criticize has been used to give bids and high seeds to ACC teams in recent seasons. And JHU got bids for losing to those same ACC teams, raising its RPI and SOS. So it didn't go your way this year, for the first time in modern lax history, and its a travesty? Just stop.

I totally agree with you. That's the logic that's been used. And I'm not really a fan of it. Would prefer to downgrade teams that finish 4th, 5th, 6th in their conference and not give them bids. Prefer to give to 2nd and 3rds in other conferences. I'm not complaining about this year's field. Kind of enjoying the anger coming from the ACC programs. But it's very much a case of what goes around comes around.

Believe you’re oversimplifying, Jay. Every game between the B1G, Ivy, and ACC affected the RPI of each conference’s teams.. OSU beat UNC and ND, which lowered the value of wins by other ACC teams against them. Maryland obviously beat Syracuse, UVa, and ND. Penn beat Duke, as you mentioned. Cornell beat Syracuse (which ended up probably being a very key win for the Ivies).

Ultimately, the ACC had multiple opportunities to get wins against the top 6 Ivies and the top 3 B1Gs, as well as Georgetown. And out of all of those opportunities, they got one win against Brown. And that wasn’t even by their tournament contenders.

[TheBigIguana]

Let’s assume the rest of the field was settled and it came down to deciding between Notre Dame and Harvard — which I would wager there is a pretty high likelihood happened.

* Both teams have 8-4 records.
* Both teams have two top 10 RPI wins.
* Harvard has a top 5 RPI win
* Harvard has beaten 3 teams in the tournament field (Princeton, Brown, BU) including two seeded teams.
* Notre Dame has beaten none.

It’s kind of a no-brainer. What other objective criteria could you bring into it to tip the scales the other way?

The criteria is Anish and Carc said so

EYE TEST!!!

It's so funny when they do this. My eye test saw Duke play the worst half of lacrosse I saw from any team all season at Ridley. They aren't even on my bubble. So ND isn't either if that's the best win they have.

Except I'm not a moron so I know that would be a crazy way to try and do it.

[Jlax92]

There were only two games between the acc and the ivy this year: Duke lost to Penn 13-14 and Unc beat brown 14-11. It’s hard to draw comparisons between conferences from only two games. But dukes loss to Penn was huge. Hopefully we can see more interconference games in the future

[nyjay]

So Woodruff said the discussion came down to four spots for six teams. I think we can safely guess those teams were Cornell, Brown, Harvard, OSU, ND, and Duke.

Cornell’s resume is pretty strong - beat Yale, Princeton, won head-to-heads against OSU, Harvard, worst loss is to Army. No question they get a ticket.
Brown was pretty strong too. Beat Yale, Penn, and Cornell, with only a bad loss to UMass on the resume. So they get in.
Duke has only one top 10 win against #9 UVa, and three bad losses to Syracuse, Loyola, and Jax. They’re out.

Here’s where it gets tricky. OSU has the advantage over ND and Harvard in that they beat both of them. Only loss to a non-top 7 team is Denver (#20). So despite being ranked 14th in the RPI, I think they get selected on head-to-head and lack of bad losses.

So it’s down to Harvard vs. ND. Harvard beat Brown, Princeton, and BU (#13). Their only losses were to seeded tournament teams, and OSU.

Notre Dame only beat Duke. They had zero quality wins besides Duke. If it’s decided that Duke is not tournament caliber, then it’s really tough to argue for Notre Dame. They had four opportunities to get a marquee win, and lost all of them fairly convincingly (except against Maryland at home).

So clearly the committee looked at quality wins (i.e. top-5 and top-10), bad losses, and head-to-head. Which is pretty much exactly what the NCAA criteria says they’re supposed to look at.

Again - the problem is that all of the Ivy's good wins and not-bad losses were against each other. The real issue is in determining the quality of the league. All this comes down to (1) Princeton beating Georgetown and Rutgers and (2) Penn beating Duke. As a result of those three wins, every intra-Ivy game became a good win or a not-bad loss. Hence we get six Ivies in the tourney. So Harvard and Cornell can thank Princeton for beating Georgetown and Rutgers, without which the whole field would be different.

The logic you criticize has been used to give bids and high seeds to ACC teams in recent seasons. And JHU got bids for losing to those same ACC teams, raising its RPI and SOS. So it didn't go your way this year, for the first time in modern lax history, and its a travesty? Just stop.

I totally agree with you. That's the logic that's been used. And I'm not really a fan of it. Would prefer to downgrade teams that finish 4th, 5th, 6th in their conference and not give them bids. Prefer to give to 2nd and 3rds in other conferences. I'm not complaining about this year's field. Kind of enjoying the anger coming from the ACC programs. But it's very much a case of what goes around comes around.

Believe you’re oversimplifying, Jay. Every game between the B1G, Ivy, and ACC affected the RPI of each conference’s teams.. OSU beat UNC and ND, which lowered the value of wins by other ACC teams against them. Maryland obviously beat Syracuse, UVa, and ND. Penn beat Duke, as you mentioned. Cornell beat Syracuse (which ended up probably being a very key win for the Ivies).

Ultimately, the ACC had multiple opportunities to get wins against the top 6 Ivies and the top 3 B1Gs, as well as Georgetown. And out of all of those opportunities, they got one win against Brown. And that wasn’t even by their tournament contenders.

I probably am oversimplifying. But if you're in a conference where certain members have great OOC wins and the conference games reflect a level of parity, that conference is going to do great in RPI. And that's what happened in the Ivy this year and what usually happens for the ACC.

[rolldodge]

There were only two games between the acc and the ivy this year: Duke lost to Penn 13-14 and Unc beat brown 14-11. It’s hard to draw comparisons between conferences from only two games. But dukes loss to Penn was huge. Hopefully we can see more interconference games in the future

Cornell beat Cuse also. More inter conference games would be great.