2022 D1 Selection Committee

[rolldodge]

The committee diverged from LAFs formula to pick ND over Harvard. Now, we know that is is not a set formula, and things shift from year to year. Perhaps its time they set some stricter guidelines.

[1] Strength of Schedule (SOS) Only Top 10 based on RPI*. Advantage ND
[2] Results of Rating Percentage Index (RPI) Advantage ND
[3] Record against teams ranked 1-5, 6-10, 11-20, and 21+. Advantage Harvard, Advantage ND, Even, Even
[4] Average RPI win (average RPI of all wins) Advantage ND
[5] Average RPI loss (average RPI of all losses) Advantage ND
[-] Head-to-head competition N/A
[-] Results against common opponents Even (Both lost to OSU)
[-] Significant wins (defeating teams ranked higher in RPI) Advantage Harvard
[-] Significant losses (defeated by teams ranked lower in RPI). N/A

I think I understand why they did what they did, but ND has a legit gripe and its not about straight RPI.

[HooDat]

ACC guy here - the only team that got hosed was Army.... Jacksonville has a small right to grumble. The beneficiary of their rear-ending was Harvard.

The fact that Duke was even in the discussion is a joke. ND' strongest win was over Duke (see joke).

Duke's lone signature win over UVA was not enough to make up for a train-wreck of a season by Danowski/Caputo standards.

I don't understand these people who say the ACC needs a tournament. Is it because you think ND would have won it and gotten in? This year the ACC deserved ONE bid and they got ONE bid. If there was an ACC tournament and UVA lost - their season would have been over.

You sir just moved up on Quints "most hated" list just ahead of the Woodruff lady, and just behind joewillie78.
GOBIGRED
Joewillie78

thank you sir!

[Crease Crank]

The "eye test" cracks me up. I've seen football games where mediocre teams play each other and it turns out it was one of the best games I've ever seen. Why? because the talent was similar but less than stellar. Same applies to college lacrosse, I've watched evenly matched teams this year play to one goal / OT games, and I was entertained. But when those 2 teams that just played a great game against each other played an out of conference opponent, well... not good. Remember, the eye test is what IL uses for high school lacrosse recruiting, which is also why many Blue Bloods are average teams now...

[The Orfling]

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.

But those years that Rutgers was left out there was no one to blame but the committee right?

As Rutgers was flippantly told by people like Quint and Anish specifically (and some on this board), too bad. Your RPI was too low. Having beaten Hopkins twice who made the tournament or number 2 OSU in the last game of the season while going to an OT game with number 1 Maryland was passing an eye test, but that doesn't matter. That's what they said then.

Now they have a huge problem and want an eye test. Comical to say the least.

Let's be specific about what "eye test" means here, too. If you read Patrick Stevens's article this morning, he interviewed Lars Tiffany, who said that a subjective, human element needs to be put back into the selection process. As if what the committee did last night didn't include that. They literally DIDN'T follow the RPI as an inclusion criterion. They used it as a comparative criterion for wins and losses. What is really meant by most of these people by "eye test" is actually "name on the front of the jersey." I'd at least respect it more if they just came out and said it. There are several teams over the years that have been excluded by the RPI, and the ACC people didn't cry for them. WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?!!! That's what you're hearing now. Since it didn't happen to them for years, they didn't think it existed. Now that it's happened to them, they're demanding change.

Kevin Corrigan shouldn't be mad at the selection committee. He should be mad at Syracuse and Duke. Duke has to stop dropping early season games the way they do to lesser teams. Anish, Quint, and Carc need to stop telling the same story about "Duke gets better as the season goes....Dino is all about learning...you don't want to play them in May." I think Dino and his team did learn something this year. Stop losing to mid-majors when you have one of the most talented rosters in the nation.

And if anyone can figure out what's going on at Syracuse, god bless them.

But that's who cost Corrigan's Irish a bid. Duke and Cuse devalued Notre Dame's wins. And obviously, if ND wins one of those early games, they're getting ready to play next weekend. IMO, they clearly deserve to be in over Harvard.

It's also funny that no one is crying for Duke. Had they not imploded in the 2nd half on Saturday, they'd be getting ready to host a first round game. For those who think the committee didn't watch games (as Anish said on Twitter), I bet they watched that ND-Duke game and immediately removed Duke from consideration. That vomitous second half showed they didn't belong.

Maybe an old spiteful egyptian god?

Thanks for the spit-take at work! You are killing it, farfromgeneva.

[fordmaddoxford]

Any video on the Wednesday games?

[Ezra White]

The "eye test" cracks me up. I've seen football games where mediocre teams play each other and it turns out it was one of the best games I've ever seen. Why? because the talent was similar but less than stellar. Same applies to college lacrosse, I've watched evenly matched teams this year play to one goal / OT games, and I was entertained. But when those 2 teams that just played a great game against each other played an out of conference opponent, well... not good. Remember, the eye test is what IL uses for high school lacrosse recruiting, which is also why many Blue Bloods are average teams now...

Didn’t lacrosse use the “eye test” until 1971? No wonder certain commentators want a return to the “good old days.”

[10 10 2]

ACC guy here - the only team that got hosed was Army.... Jacksonville has a small right to grumble. The beneficiary of their rear-ending was Harvard.

The fact that Duke was even in the discussion is a joke. ND' strongest win was over Duke (see joke).

Duke's lone signature win over UVA was not enough to make up for a train-wreck of a season by Danowski/Caputo standards.

I don't understand these people who say the ACC needs a tournament. Is it because you think ND would have won it and gotten in? This year the ACC deserved ONE bid and they got ONE bid. If there was an ACC tournament and UVA lost - their season would have been over.

Why did UVA deserve to make it into the tournament this year? All they beat were Notre Dame and Duke, and lost to Richmond.

[HooDat]

ACC guy here - the only team that got hosed was Army.... Jacksonville has a small right to grumble. The beneficiary of their rear-ending was Harvard.

The fact that Duke was even in the discussion is a joke. ND' strongest win was over Duke (see joke).

Duke's lone signature win over UVA was not enough to make up for a train-wreck of a season by Danowski/Caputo standards.

I don't understand these people who say the ACC needs a tournament. Is it because you think ND would have won it and gotten in? This year the ACC deserved ONE bid and they got ONE bid. If there was an ACC tournament and UVA lost - their season would have been over.

Why did UVA deserve to make it into the tournament this year? All they beat were Notre Dame and Duke, and lost to Richmond.

Their seeding kind of reflects that. I suspect it is because they won the ACC (I know there is no AQ, but they are still their conference champs), are the two-time reining champions, and if fully healthy just might have the best chance of competing with UMD - second only to Princeton (imho).

by the way - they LOST to Duke (still scratching my head on that performance).....

[wgdsr]

ACC guy here - the only team that got hosed was Army.... Jacksonville has a small right to grumble. The beneficiary of their rear-ending was Harvard.

The fact that Duke was even in the discussion is a joke. ND' strongest win was over Duke (see joke).

Duke's lone signature win over UVA was not enough to make up for a train-wreck of a season by Danowski/Caputo standards.

I don't understand these people who say the ACC needs a tournament. Is it because you think ND would have won it and gotten in? This year the ACC deserved ONE bid and they got ONE bid. If there was an ACC tournament and UVA lost - their season would have been over.

Why did UVA deserve to make it into the tournament this year? All they beat were Notre Dame and Duke, and lost to Richmond.

we could do this all day.hoo did rutgers and ohio state beat?
duke should've been good wins but a committee decided they weren't.
we need a system, and one that's better than rpi or "whatever the committee thinks".

[1766]

ACC guy here - the only team that got hosed was Army.... Jacksonville has a small right to grumble. The beneficiary of their rear-ending was Harvard.

The fact that Duke was even in the discussion is a joke. ND' strongest win was over Duke (see joke).

Duke's lone signature win over UVA was not enough to make up for a train-wreck of a season by Danowski/Caputo standards.

I don't understand these people who say the ACC needs a tournament. Is it because you think ND would have won it and gotten in? This year the ACC deserved ONE bid and they got ONE bid. If there was an ACC tournament and UVA lost - their season would have been over.

Why did UVA deserve to make it into the tournament this year? All they beat were Notre Dame and Duke, and lost to Richmond.

we could do this all day.hoo did rutgers and ohio state beat?
duke should've been good wins but a committee decided they weren't.
we need a system, and one that's better than rpi or "whatever the committee thinks".

Ohio St. beat ND. Loyola beat Duke. Rutgers beat Loyola and Ohio St. Twice.

Now that the Acc got beat at it's own game, the system needs to be burned down. The meltdown has reached hysterical proportions.

The question now being asked is the right one. Why was Duke even considered by some and how is ND ranked so highly in the polls?

Beating a terrible Syracuse team twice means nothing.

[nyjay]

I see a consensus taking shape: the ACC just has to get out more.

This will be interesting in future years, because it’s a readily observable path to recovery. We shall see.

So the thing is, they don't.

The ACC (along with Hopkins) has perfected rigging the RPI game, and 5'll get you 10 that they go right on doing it. Oh, maybe they'll tweak the formula here and there, but throw the baby out with the bathwater? Never.

The typical ACC RPI circle-jerk was disrupted by one thing and one thing only this year: Syracuse. Syracuse lost, what, 4 OOC games? Including to Albany (?!?) (Ironically, they've been playing Albany for a decade, and played them @ Albany for the first time this season. And lost. To a pretty subpar Albany team).

Sure, Duke's OOC loses didn't help, but they always have one or two of those, and the ACC weathers the storm. But for the RPI cj to work, you can't have a team like Syracuse killing your small sample size and dragging everyone else down with them.

And even then, Duke/ND managed to have RPIs good enough to get into the tourney; the committee just looked beyond that and weighed other factors as well.

In other words, if it ain't broke...well, don't spend too much time fixing it. This year was an outlier and I imagine the ACC teams will go right on doing what they've been doing - and most years it'll go right on working. Schedule Yale in New Haven or Penn in Philly? I just don't see it.

Not fair to lump Hopkins in with the ACC teams. Hopkins has definitely benefited from the ACC/RPI game and there are lots of things to fairly hate Hopkins for, but their scheduling isn't one of them. They don't have to schedule three ACC teams every year. I don't think scheduling three ACC teams every year really counts as rigging the RPI game - because, well, the ACC teams do actually tend to be really, really good. If scheduling the hardest OOC schedule you can counts as rigging the RPI game, then I don't really mind.

[nyjay]

It is hilarious and satisfying to see the same group of posters who defended teams like JHU getting in the tourney in the past with 8-6 records because of RPI and SOS and good losses etc now complaining when the same criteria benefiting another conference. Karma is a b*itch sometimes.

For years, the ACC teams fed off intra conference games building up RPIs. For years, the ACC tournament raised those RPIs and played into the selection criteria. That is why other conferences added post season tourneys - to compete with the monopoly on NCAA at large selections the ACC had built.

In past years, the ACC/JHU crowd told the fans of those schools on the wrong side of the bubble to play a tougher schedule, that wins against low rated teams mean nothing, that head to head was not important, that late season surges mean nothing, that the eye test meant less than the "criteria"

Now you know how it feels to be on the wrong side of the rules of the game created by ACC.

I hope this brings about some changes. For example, as some have mentioned, more OOC games in locations outside of the ACC/Baltimore region. Until then, you'll just have to live with the results that came from the rule book you wrote. It backfired on the ACC - for once - in 2022 and the whining is incessant. It is not flattering for those that are whining. In the past, you told us to shut up. Maybe it's time to listen to your own advice from past years.

This is an exceptional post.

I see a consensus taking shape: the ACC just has to get out more.

This will be interesting in future years, because it’s a readily observable path to recovery. We shall see.

I can tell you that Rutgers offered every Acc team a home and home. This was after Syracuse dropped the game. All said no.

Think that wouldn't have helped one of them? And no, a series all at their place wasn't happening. Sorry.

You know what the lamest thing in all of college lacrosse is? Cuse making Army go to the Dome EVERY YEAR. And still losing pretty regularly. So yeah, this isn't wrong.

[wgdsr]

ACC guy here - the only team that got hosed was Army.... Jacksonville has a small right to grumble. The beneficiary of their rear-ending was Harvard.

The fact that Duke was even in the discussion is a joke. ND' strongest win was over Duke (see joke).

Duke's lone signature win over UVA was not enough to make up for a train-wreck of a season by Danowski/Caputo standards.

I don't understand these people who say the ACC needs a tournament. Is it because you think ND would have won it and gotten in? This year the ACC deserved ONE bid and they got ONE bid. If there was an ACC tournament and UVA lost - their season would have been over.

Why did UVA deserve to make it into the tournament this year? All they beat were Notre Dame and Duke, and lost to Richmond.

we could do this all day.hoo did rutgers and ohio state beat?
duke should've been good wins but a committee decided they weren't.
we need a system, and one that's better than rpi or "whatever the committee thinks".

Ohio St. beat ND. Loyola beat Duke. Rutgers beat Loyola and Ohio St. Twice.

Now that the Acc got beat at it's own game, the system needs to be burned down. The meltdown has reached hysterical proportions.

The question now being asked is the right one. Why was Duke even considered by some and how is ND ranked so highly in the polls?

Beating a terrible Syracuse team twice means nothing.

keep the same system and be prepared to be upset yourself. there is no system. for 3 years there was, bad as it was. you remember pre-2017, right? we are back there now. don't live on the bubble.

[calourie]

First team out inevitably will feel screwed regardless of what system gets employed. Constant hyping of Duke-ND as a play-in game didn't do this year's committee any favors. Howling of ACC afficionados is music to my ears despite my "gut test" feeling that Notre Dame should have been selected over Harvard.

[HGK]

If ND’s resume was let’s say Drexel’s, i think the conversation would be very different. It would probably go something like “they picked a bad year to beat a non tournament Duke 2x and lost to every tournament team they played. Great season but just not enough given lost to OSU head to head and Harvard had some very strong wins. Great season Dragons but just not quite enough”

Do I think ND is a top 10 team - I 100% do. Do I think their resume merited inclusion in the tournament - I honestly don’t.

[Gobigred]

If ND’s resume was let’s say Drexel’s, i think the conversation would be very different. It would probably go something like “they picked a bad year to beat a non tournament Duke 2x and lost to every tournament team they played. Great season but just not enough given lost to OSU head to head and Harvard had some very strong wins. Great season Dragons but just not quite enough”

Do I think ND is a top 10 team - I 100% do. Do I think their resume merited inclusion in the tournament - I honestly don’t.

Concise summary of the situation

[Big Dog]

Just a thought - how about a minimum RPI or other metric be put in place for a conference to get an AQ. You then get a much stronger field without expanding the total number of teams by growing the AL bids. Not sure why lacrosse has to follow the hoops model.

Just not the point of the AQ. It’s about broader participation and equal access, actually never ever been about putting only the very best teams in.

A discussion to change the AQ system comes with a much larger and broader conversation about how the sport should grow in the future without being a closed loop system an keep schools engaged and participating. It’s fine if you only want 35 schools participating but drop the AQ and you’d lose 10-15 schools within 5-7 years.

Great points. Consider: the west coast is a sleeping giant. One day, instead of praising players from Oregon who come east, we may praise Oregon’s team stocked with WC players. Something similar can be said about the southwest.

But there must be a transition period, hence keep the AQ. But it’s also important to keep lacrosse a sport where factory schools with megabucks revenues from televised football and, to a lesser extent, basketball, can’t subsidize minor sports, like lacrosse, to make them part of the money game.

I'm a big fan of lax, but there is no way a P5 school is gonna add another non-rev men's sport. Just no way, and particularly not on the west coast.

(How many P5 schools have added lacrosse in the past decade(s)? I beleive that is just two: Michigan and Utah, and the latter was a result of an alum paying for it all.)

No one knows how NIL will work through college athletics yet. Football is the tail wagging the dog and title 9 isn’t going away but predicting any future in college athletics, other than that most SEC schools will continue to prioritize football over all else including academics, right now is asking to be wrong.

Well, of course, predictions can and will be wrong. But let's look at the facts: only two P5 schools have added men's lax in decades. And this was before NIL.

Utah 2019
Michigan 2012

Despite 'fastest growing sport' marketing, there is no other interest in the p12 whatsoever. On the contrary, most of the p12 are looking to cut athletic expenses -- even the wealthy schools like Stanford and USC, the latter of which is all-in for football.

But this is getting off point adn only relevant when planning for the future tourney size.

You were projecting weren’t you? Post NIL. Which it seems is a bigger thing than you appear to be valuing it as given the “sure predictions can be wrong” but then apply a pre major SCOTUS ruling analysis given how it’s going to flip college sports on its head. I can’t even tell you what P5 is going to mean in ten years. Vandy and Wake included? What about Rice. What if interdivisional programs/ play we’re allowed and suddenly some NESCAC or UAA schools decided to move up with their war chests and lack of AI?

Since I haven't the faintest idea what you mean by that, the answer is No. Yes, NIL is big. Never said it wasn't. And yes, I fully expect the P5 to shrink, a lot. Regardless, the NIL and everything else going on supports my point which is that no [current, if that improves your understanding] P5 team will be adding 50-60 mostly non-diverse male D1 athletes in a sport called lacrosse. There have been only two teams added in teh past two decades, under more favorable conditions (for adding men's D1). It is just illogical to think that there will be much support to add them in the future..

[wgdsr]

If ND’s resume was let’s say Drexel’s, i think the conversation would be very different. It would probably go something like “they picked a bad year to beat a non tournament Duke 2x and lost to every tournament team they played. Great season but just not enough given lost to OSU head to head and Harvard had some very strong wins. Great season Dragons but just not quite enough”

Do I think ND is a top 10 team - I 100% do. Do I think their resume merited inclusion in the tournament - I honestly don’t.

in our new system, no one knows what's important. notre dame's resume is cornell 2019's resume.
head to head is if teams are equal-ish for your important metrics. which for this year, the committee said were top wins and worst losses among examined teams. then they decided what mattered was different between losses and wins.

this is exactly what you get when the committee decides year to year what's important. and the cutoffs are as bad as rpi. in 2023, there will be complaints on the circular logic, but the jerseys will likely be different.

[CU77]

we need a system, and one that's better than rpi or "whatever the committee thinks".

Straight RPI would have had Duke in and seeded, ND in, UVa in (but getting pasted by Duke having cost them a seed), Harvard and OSU out.

I've said for decades that DI lacrosse should go the way of DI hockey, and select and seed by RPI. These discussions do NOT happen on hockey boards, because everyone (coaches, players, fans) knows what the formula is, and that the committee will not mess with it. So there are no bias claims to be made.

[CU77]

in our new system, no one knows what's important.

What do you mean, "new"? This system has been in place since 2009.

Prior to that, the same criteria were rank-ordered in importance, with strength-of-schedule officially most imporant.