D1 Men Rankings

[Peter Brown]

With Loyola losing, UMd should move up to 2, and with UVa losing, Yale probably moves to 3, Duke to 4 with win over UVa.
Then you have the problem of comparing Loyola and Virginia to Penn and OSU.
Loyola's loss was to a non-top 20 team BU. Several laxpower posters were claiming BU was essentially a "cake" win for OSU early this season.
1 Penn State
2 Maryland
3 Yale
4 Duke
5 Penn
6 Virginia
7 Ohio State
8 Loyola
9 Syracuse
10 Cornell

I don’t recall people saying Bu was cake, feel free to spend time finding properly contextualized quotes to the contrary, but we’re simply pointing out in the first 1-1.5mo of the season that OSUs win profile wasn’t nearly as good as others. Obviously as the season changes we see things like Colgate as now a 3 win season and BU w 9 wins (and 4 losses) so the perspectives changes.

That being said, I don’t see OSUs top wins against Bu, umass, Nd & JHU as better than UVA, Hop, GT & Lehigh. If we’re going to use the BU common opponent, the. We should note that OsU scraped by JHU Where Loyola emasculates them and throw in the RU results. I’m no Loyola booster but might note Loyola lost this game after games against lehigh and GTown (midweek) before making the trip to boston aa a factor.

To me Loyola still should be above OSU

I'm a Loyola fan. But if we're being honest, the Hounds are periphery top-20 at best given how they have played the last two games. Army is likely to beat them this weekend. The HOP and UVA wins were so early in the season, I'm not sure I even look at them as SOS so much as scrimmages.

This weekend versus BU: Spencer abandoned leadership roles on the field for some reason (internet speculation is he's hurt and Toomey isn't telling anyone); he was passed the ball, then he as quickly gave it up to a teammate. Defense was atrocious; slides were ill advised and lackadaisical. FO's suspect; wIng play was brain-dead. Middies literally played catch with the opposition for walk-in doorstep scores. If it wasn't for Stover, we'd have lost 30-11.

Team has looked demoralized for last two games. I wish I knew where it went wrong so fast. You can speculate on scheduling (why schedule a really hard OOC game like Gtown the one week where you play your two toughest in-conference foes Saturday and Saturday), with the BU game being 'away', but then again, the game this weekend is also away. The Hounds don't like traveling apparently. The problem with that is, then they aren't going to play any more games at the RAC if they lose to Army.

If they lose to Army, then I am afraid we might not see much of the Hounds in the Top-20. Something has gone wrong real fast.

OSU deserves to be way ahead of Loyola right now.

[QuakerSouth]

Certainly, people were discounting OSU wins over BSU and UMass as worth little at the time.

Who's BSU?

[Farfromgeneva]

I don’t recall people saying Bu was cake, feel free to spend time finding properly contextualized quotes to the contrary, but we’re simply pointing out in the first 1-1.5mo of the season that OSUs win profile wasn’t nearly as good as others. Obviously as the season changes we see things like Colgate as now a 3 win season and BU w 9 wins (and 4 losses) so the perspectives changes.

That being said, I don’t see OSUs top wins against Bu, umass, Nd & JHU as better than UVA, Hop, GT & Lehigh. If we’re going to use the BU common opponent, the. We should note that OsU scraped by JHU Where Loyola emasculates them and throw in the RU results. I’m no Loyola booster but might note Loyola lost this game after games against lehigh and GTown (midweek) before making the trip to boston aa a factor.

To me Loyola still should be above OSU

I would remind you that at this earlier time, of which we our speaking off, Ohio State was undefeated - while other teams had losses. Certainly, people were discounting OSU wins over BU and UMass as worth little at the time.

Again, you forgetting about the losses now, Loyola has 3 losses to OSU's 2. Perhaps, RU and BU tend to soak off. Perhaps losses, to Duke for Loyola and PSU for OSU tend to equalize. But you still have the loss to Towson for Loyola.

If we’re talking about timing of events then when OSU was undefeated Loyola lost to #1 Towson. And when we’re discussing 2 vs 3 losses against 8-10 wins then I am personally going to skew or weight win profile over losses. If it’s 2 losses to 5 then yeah it might tip the balance but not when it’s one loss delta and that win profile I highlighted before seems to lean cleanly to Loyola for me.

[Cooter]

I don’t recall people saying Bu was cake, feel free to spend time finding properly contextualized quotes to the contrary, but we’re simply pointing out in the first 1-1.5mo of the season that OSUs win profile wasn’t nearly as good as others. Obviously as the season changes we see things like Colgate as now a 3 win season and BU w 9 wins (and 4 losses) so the perspectives changes.

That being said, I don’t see OSUs top wins against Bu, umass, Nd & JHU as better than UVA, Hop, GT & Lehigh. If we’re going to use the BU common opponent, the. We should note that OsU scraped by JHU Where Loyola emasculates them and throw in the RU results. I’m no Loyola booster but might note Loyola lost this game after games against lehigh and GTown (midweek) before making the trip to boston aa a factor.

To me Loyola still should be above OSU

I would remind you that at this earlier time, of which we our speaking off, Ohio State was undefeated - while other teams had losses. Certainly, people were discounting OSU wins over BU and UMass as worth little at the time.

Again, you forgetting about the losses now, Loyola has 3 losses to OSU's 2. Perhaps, RU and BU tend to soak off. Perhaps losses, to Duke for Loyola and PSU for OSU tend to equalize. But you still have the loss to Towson for Loyola.

If we’re talking about timing of events then when OSU was undefeated Loyola lost to #1 Towson. And when we’re discussing 2 vs 3 losses against 8-10 wins then I am personally going to skew or weight win profile over losses. If it’s 2 losses to 5 then yeah it might tip the balance but not when it’s one loss delta and that win profile I highlighted before seems to lean cleanly to Loyola for me.

Actually, the discussion at that time was not so much Loyola but other teams being a head of OSU.

I don't see ignoring or diminishing losses as reasonable.

[Farfromgeneva]

It’s not a diminution of losses as much as losses dont carry the value as the quality of the win profile in my paradigm for evaluating these things which are all applying hairs right now.

But we’re sort of going back and forth in this on the value of the timing of a game (is early equal to later in season?) each on both win and loss sides or are arguments: until that’s agreed to it’d be tough for us to come to a mutual conclusion.

I personally happen to think that I can find reasonable mitigants to the BU (different points in each team’s season curve, midweek GT game then relatively long road trip couple days later) and Towson (they were at their apex, hot goalie and of), think the OSU win over BU is a good win, but it’s a win over a 15-25 team probably. The common opponents overall seems to tilt slightly towards Loyola.

This is really a microscopic arguments in fun anyways. I don’t really closely follow either team, Loyola slightly more because of the ECAC years.

More interested to see how the CAA and Big east shakes out. Seems like both denver and Towson could be out in certain reasonable scenarios and Hop gets in on the strength of Del and MSM strangely.

[admin]

Farfrom, two very real real existential questions: the value of Ws and Ls with relation to each other and should a team have different values thrughout the season or is the entire season a process to discover the one value for the team. Not simple.

[runrussellrun]

At the end of the day none of this matters the CAA and the patriot league will still only get one invitation.

[CU77]

We could end all this nonsense by having a tournament of conference champions only. Personally, I'm in favor of it.

[stupefied]

We could end all this nonsense by having a tournament of conference champions only. Personally, I'm in favor of it.

Im not, some of the best teams would be left out . Imagine SEC in football entering just one team .If anything expand the tourney

[smoova]

We could end all this nonsense by having a tournament of conference champions only. Personally, I'm in favor of it.

Im not, some of the best teams would be left out . Imagine SEC in football entering just one team .If anything expand the tourney

Some of the best teams of are left out under the current system ...

[Farfromgeneva]

And everyone here is clear that the current paradigm is to allow equal access through the AQ system. Basically guarantees it won’t be the 16 best and that’s not the stated goal of the current system.

So arguing for the best 16 is an argument to change he paradigm. Which exists for all NCAA sports. Feel free to argue for that but it’s at best a long long way off.

[LaxOverBaseball]

We could end all this nonsense by having a tournament of conference champions only. Personally, I'm in favor of it.

Im not, some of the best teams would be left out . Imagine SEC in football entering just one team .If anything expand the tourney

Not enough D1 teams to expand tournament. At-Large can’t be more than AQ. (All NCAA sports)
More teams = more conferences = more AQ = more At-large

Blame Title IX

[Hawkeye]

Not enough D1 teams to expand tournament. At-Large can’t be more than AQ. (All NCAA sports)
More teams = more conferences = more AQ = more At-large

Blame Title IX

You have that backwards. It's that At-larges must be greater than or equal to AQs. (Losers of "play in" games do not count as AQs for this equation). I bolded the relevant parts below. The competition committee sets the size of the field for each sport. The 2 bolded statements from 31.3.4.7 taken together means that at-larges must be greater than or equal to AQs (Special emphasis on the italicized clauses. They relate to why play-in games exist.)

NCAA Division 1 manual: http://www.ncaapublications.com/product ... s/D119.pdf

31.3.1 Size of Championships Fields.
The size of all NCAA championships fields shall be established by the applicable sport oversight committee or the Competition Oversight Committee to provide for efficient management of the events, adequate NCAA championship opportunities relative to the nationwide quality of competition and sound economic administration of the financial resources of the Association and its championships.


31.3.4.7 Limitations on Automatic-Qualifying Positions.

31.3.4.7.1 Team Sports Other Than Men’s Basketball.
In team sports, per Bylaw 31.3.4.6-(a), excluding football and any team sport in which automatic qualification is not offered, the sport committee must award, if a sufficient number of applications for automatic qualification exist, at least 50 percent of the championship field to conferences that meet automatic-qualification criteria and provide play-in criteria.

In sports other than men’s volleyball, men’s water polo and women’s water polo, the remaining 50 percent of the championship field shall be reserved for at-large teams. It will be the responsibility of the applicable sport oversight committee or the Competition Oversight Committee to determine if a conference play-in to a championship field is to be administered by the NCAA championships staff or by the member conference.

[Gobigred]

Not enough D1 teams to expand tournament. At-Large can’t be more than AQ. (All NCAA sports)
More teams = more conferences = more AQ = more At-large

Blame Title IX

You have that backwards. It's that At-larges must be greater than or equal to AQs. (Losers of "play in" games do not count as AQs for this equation)

I am so sick of whiners complaining about Title IX.

[Hawkeye]

I'll stick with my answer... you aren't in the field until play-in games are over.

(^paraphrased)

Replying to the post you just deleted.

2018 NCAA Baseball: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_NCAA ... Tournament
31 AQs
33 At-larges

At-larges >= AQs

Currently, 31/33
If another conference became eligible for an AQ, an at-large bid would be lost. 32/32.
If two more conferences became eligible for an AQ, there would be a play-in game. 33/32... but play-in game makes it 32/32.
And this would continue for field sizes of 64 until we came to a point where 64 no longer made sense. This would probably be around 36-38 AQs

If the competition oversight committee wanted to expand the tournament to say 96 teams, it would be 31/65. The competition oversight committee makes the final call on field size, but the quoted parameters above apply to their decision.

[LaxOverBaseball]

Is it whining if it’s true.

Let there be no doubt that Title IX has limited the growth of D1 Men’s Lacrosse. Adding a large number of male scholarships has been near impossible especially for universities with football teams. Dropping men’s sports has been one method (Richmond dropped Soccer. BU dropped Wrestling.) Another method is to add more Women’s sports. Both of these “answers” were needed because of Title IX.

You can not like the whining, but can’t deny the facts.

[Hawkeye]

Is it whining if it’s true.

Let there be no doubt that Title IX has limited the growth of D1 Men’s Lacrosse. Adding a large number of male scholarships has been near impossible especially for universities with football teams. Dropping men’s sports has been one method (Richmond dropped Soccer. BU dropped Wrestling.) Another method is to add more Women’s sports. Both of these “answers” were needed because of Title IX.

You can not like the whining, but can’t deny the facts.

I agree with you 100% on this one. Football is the core of the problem. I'm all for equal access among genders... but only when comparing equivalent sports. There's no female equivalent of football and male athletes in other sports suffer at its expense. Painting with a wide brush, Title IX has been detrimental to male athletes (in sports other than football) rather than beneficial to female athletes.

[LaxOverBaseball]

Hawkeye - at a loss on your bolded rules (which I knew)

“at least 50 percent of the championship field to conferences that meet automatic-qualification criteria and provide play-in criteria.“

Can equate to more At-Large than AQ in the actual tournament? It flat out says that AQ must be at least 50%.
I don’t know about the NCAA baseball tourney. Are there “play-in” games?

NCAA BBall
32 AQ and 36 At-large, but the tourney is 64, so AQ is 50%.

NCAA Lacrosse (2018 tournament)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_NC ... ampionship
9 AQ
8 At-Large
AQ > At-Large

I don’t get how the Selection Committee can just pick a number when the above guidance exists.

[Hawkeye]

Hawkeye - at a loss on your bolded rules (which I knew)

“at least 50 percent of the championship field to conferences that meet automatic-qualification criteria and provide play-in criteria.“

Can equate to more At-Large than AQ in the actual tournament? It flat out says that AQ must be at least 50%.
I don’t know about the NCAA baseball tourney. Are there “play-in” games?

NCAA BBall
32 AQ and 36 At-large, but the tourney is 64, so AQ is 50%.

NCAA Lacrosse (2018 tournament)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_NC ... ampionship
9 AQ
8 At-Large
AQ > At-Large

I don’t get how the Selection Committee can just pick a number when the above guidance exists.

I think the answer your first question hinges around the statement that you quoted, but particularly the italicized part: "the sport committee must award, if a sufficient number of applications for automatic qualification exist, at least 50 percent of the championship field to conferences that meet automatic-qualification criteria and provide play-in criteria."

I take that to mean that AQs are guaranteed this access if and only if there are a sufficient number of AQ-qualifying conferences. If the competition oversight committee sets the field for lacrosse at some outrageously large number... let's say 32, and there are only 9 AQ conferences, there is then an insufficient number of AQ schools to meet the 50% criterion and the rest are filled by at-larges.

No play-in games in baseball. 64 selected, 64 dance.

Basketball tournament selection is governed by a different bylaw than other sports ($$$$). I posted it below.

31.3.4.7.2 Men’s Basketball.
In men’s basketball, subject to the championships-access guarantee afforded to the subdivisions as set forth in Constitution 4.01.2.3.1 (e.g., all contests that are part of the championship shall be administered and funded by the NCAA and broadcast on television and any team that participates in the championship shall be awarded at least one financial unit), there shall be a minimum of 34 at-large selections and the remainder of the championship field automatic-qualifying positions. All competition in the championship is to be administered by the NCAA championships staff.

-

For lacrosse, I believe/suspect the official tournament field size set by the competition oversight committee is 16, not 17 (hence the play-in loser doesn't officially make the tournament in the NCAA's eyes). 8=8. I will see if I can confirm this somewhere.

[Hawkeye]

NCAA Lacrosse (2018 tournament)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_NC ... ampionship
9 AQ
8 At-Large
AQ > At-Large

Follow up on this. The official tournament size for lacrosse is indeed 16, confirmed by the below language from this document. I added the emphasis to the end of the quote.
https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/champi ... Manual.pdf

"AUTOMATIC QUALIFICATION ELIGIBLE CONFERENCES
The Division I Competition Oversight Committee determined that the following 9 conferences shall be eligible for automatic
qualification consideration this season, based on the Men’s Lacrosse Committee’s recommendation:America East Conference,
Big East Conference, Big Ten Conference, Colonial Athletic Association, The Ivy League, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference,
Northeast Conference, Patriot League and Southern Conference.
The two lowest-ranked, automatic qualifying teams as determined by the committee, regardless of conference RPI, will
compete in one preliminary game to determine the final AQ spot in the championship bracket."