Ivy League 2023

[FannOLax]

Ivy Scrimmages

A quick search turned up these preseason scrimmages. Please add more as you learn of them.

Feb 4
Yale at Fairfield

Feb 5
Harvard at St. John's

Feb 12
Brown vs. Tufts & Dartmouth at Dartmouth

Feb 12
RIT and Wesleyan at Yale

[The Orfling]

Lacrosse Bucket released their Ivy season preview today. Full story is here:
https://lacrossebucket.com/2023/01/18/2 ... e-preview/

The Cliff Notes are here:

Top Players

Offensive Player of The Year: Matt Brandau, A, Yale

Defensive Player of The Year: Gavin Adler, D, Cornell

Specialist of The Year: Mitchell Myers, FO, Dartmouth

Projected Final Standings

1. Cornell
2. Princeton
3. Penn
4. Yale
5. Harvard
6. Brown
7. Dartmouth

Predictions of an admitted Yale homer -- putting a lot of stock in the fact that Princeton (Erik Peters, 56%) and Penn (Patrick Burkinshaw, 57%) both graduated excellent goalies, and assuming Yale will (hopefully!) figure out some of their defensive issues.

1. Cornell
2. Yale
3. Princeton
4. Penn
5. Harvard
6. Brown
7. Dartmouth

[bearlaxfan]

The Orfling...
Predictions of an admitted Yale homer -- putting a lot of stock in the fact that Princeton (Erik Peters, 56%) and Penn (Patrick Burkinshaw, 57%) both graduated excellent goalies, and assuming Yale will (hopefully!) figure out some of their defensive issues.

1. Cornell
2. Yale
3. Princeton
4. Penn
5. Harvard
6. Brown
7. Dartmouth

Harvard & Dartmouth lost starting goalies also. Early season games may not be league contests, but shakedown cruises with OOC losses then matter. Too many dings and the odds of getting 2+ teams in the NCAA dance shrink. No one should expect 6, but it's not too long ago the IL had only 1 rep.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Lacrosse Bucket released their Ivy season preview today. Full story is here:
https://lacrossebucket.com/2023/01/18/2 ... e-preview/

The Cliff Notes are here:

Top Players

Offensive Player of The Year: Matt Brandau, A, Yale

Defensive Player of The Year: Gavin Adler, D, Cornell

Specialist of The Year: Mitchell Myers, FO, Dartmouth

Projected Final Standings

1. Cornell
2. Princeton
3. Penn
4. Yale
5. Harvard
6. Brown
7. Dartmouth

Predictions of an admitted Yale homer -- putting a lot of stock in the fact that Princeton (Erik Peters, 56%) and Penn (Patrick Burkinshaw, 57%) both graduated excellent goalies, and assuming Yale will (hopefully!) figure out some of their defensive issues.

1. Cornell
2. Yale
3. Princeton
4. Penn
5. Harvard
6. Brown
7. Dartmouth

My only two predictions are that Yale will be improved this season and Dartmouth will finish ahead of Brown. I just realized how much personnel Brown lost.

[ICGrad]

Ivy Scrimmages

A quick search turned up these preseason scrimmages. Please add more as you learn of them.

Feb 4
Yale at Fairfield

Feb 5
Harvard at St. John's

Feb 12
Brown vs. Tufts & Dartmouth at Dartmouth

I believe the Feb 11th Colgate @ Cornell matchup is a scrimmage; it is clearly listed as a scrimmage on one of two schedules available on the Cornell lax page, but not listed a scrimmage on the other.

However, the IL page for Cornell has their first game as the 2/18 tilt against Albany, so looks like it's a scrimmage?

[Laxman23]

No disrespect to Dartmouth but before they leapfrog any IVY team they will need to record their first IVY win in how many years?

[ICGrad]

No disrespect to Dartmouth but before they leapfrog any IVY team they will need to record their first IVY win in how many years?

Their last Ivy win was against Harvard in March of 2015.

On the plus side, with the pandemic they actually went 2+ years without losing an Ivy game.

[The Orfling]

Lacrosse Bucket released their Ivy season preview today. Full story is here:
https://lacrossebucket.com/2023/01/18/2 ... e-preview/

The Cliff Notes are here:

Top Players

Offensive Player of The Year: Matt Brandau, A, Yale

Defensive Player of The Year: Gavin Adler, D, Cornell

Specialist of The Year: Mitchell Myers, FO, Dartmouth

Projected Final Standings

1. Cornell
2. Princeton
3. Penn
4. Yale
5. Harvard
6. Brown
7. Dartmouth

Predictions of an admitted Yale homer -- putting a lot of stock in the fact that Princeton (Erik Peters, 56%) and Penn (Patrick Burkinshaw, 57%) both graduated excellent goalies, and assuming Yale will (hopefully!) figure out some of their defensive issues.

1. Cornell
2. Yale
3. Princeton
4. Penn
5. Harvard
6. Brown
7. Dartmouth

My only two predictions are that Yale will be improved this season and Dartmouth will finish ahead of Brown. I just realized how much personnel Brown lost.

Nobody should sleep on Dartmouth — but Brown returns the 1st team All-Ivy goalie in Theriault; Honorable mention All-American attack man D. McClane; Honorable mention All-America in Yeboah-Kodie; a proven FOGO in Gunty; and they got some interesting transfers like Corsi from ‘Cuse. A great FOGO for Dartmouth could be the ticket to that elusive Ivy win but a lot will depend on how good Hincks’s successor is in goal.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Lacrosse Bucket released their Ivy season preview today. Full story is here:
https://lacrossebucket.com/2023/01/18/2 ... e-preview/

The Cliff Notes are here:

Top Players

Offensive Player of The Year: Matt Brandau, A, Yale

Defensive Player of The Year: Gavin Adler, D, Cornell

Specialist of The Year: Mitchell Myers, FO, Dartmouth

Projected Final Standings

1. Cornell
2. Princeton
3. Penn
4. Yale
5. Harvard
6. Brown
7. Dartmouth

Predictions of an admitted Yale homer -- putting a lot of stock in the fact that Princeton (Erik Peters, 56%) and Penn (Patrick Burkinshaw, 57%) both graduated excellent goalies, and assuming Yale will (hopefully!) figure out some of their defensive issues.

1. Cornell
2. Yale
3. Princeton
4. Penn
5. Harvard
6. Brown
7. Dartmouth

My only two predictions are that Yale will be improved this season and Dartmouth will finish ahead of Brown. I just realized how much personnel Brown lost.

Nobody should sleep on Dartmouth — but Brown returns the 1st team All-Ivy goalie in Theriault; Honorable mention All-American attack man D. McClane; Honorable mention All-America in Yeboah-Kodie; a proven FOGO in Gunty; and they got some interesting transfers like Corsi from ‘Cuse. A great FOGO for Dartmouth could be the ticket to that elusive Ivy win but a lot will depend on how good Hincks’s successor is in goal.

I know. Brown just may have more unknowns to start the season is all it amounts to. League should be competitive from top to bottom (on paper). More confident in Yale being better than most anything else.

[FannOLax]

.... League should be competitive from top to bottom (on paper). More confident in Yale being better than most anything else.

TLD, please, any thoughts on the 2023 edition of Princeton?

[Laxbuck]

Would think it will be critical to make the IL tourney this year. Doubt the remaining 3 will get an at large bid. Yale/Cornell/Princeton/Penn pretty heavy favorites to finish in the top 4, but that’s why they play the games. Harvard could certainly bump 1 of them out.

[Farfromgeneva]

Harvard was pretty young last year and returns a lot.

[FannOLax]

Would think it will be critical to make the IL tourney this year. Doubt the remaining 3 will get an at large bid. Yale/Cornell/Princeton/Penn pretty heavy favorites to finish in the top 4, but that’s why they play the games. Harvard could certainly bump 1 of them out.

Last year was definitely an anomaly, when Ivy teams did ridiculously well OOC. Princeton beat highly ranked Georgetown and Rutgers, and got into the NCAA dance without making the IL tourney; I can imagine that happening again, but I suspect the NCAA will let in fewer than last year's 6 Ivy teams this go-around.

[MDlaxfan76]

Would think it will be critical to make the IL tourney this year. Doubt the remaining 3 will get an at large bid. Yale/Cornell/Princeton/Penn pretty heavy favorites to finish in the top 4, but that’s why they play the games. Harvard could certainly bump 1 of them out.

Last year was definitely an anomaly, when Ivy teams did ridiculously well OOC. Princeton beat highly ranked Georgetown and Rutgers, and got into the NCAA dance without making the IL tourney; I can imagine that happening again, but I suspect the NCAA will let in fewer than last year's 6 Ivy teams this go-around.

statistically, a safe bet.

[MDlaxfan76]

No disrespect to Dartmouth but before they leapfrog any IVY team they will need to record their first IVY win in how many years?

Their last Ivy win was against Harvard in March of 2015.

On the plus side, with the pandemic they actually went 2+ years without losing an Ivy game.

we'll take the no Ivy losses in 2 years...!

Seriously, we do need to start occasionally knocking off the teams that are in the top tier nationally before we can expect Dartmouth to move up even one spot in the League with any sort of regularity. All of the rest of Ivies have been having that sort of national success (not every year, but at least intermittently) so that's the caliber of play that we will need to achieve.

I've seen very marked improvement in the quality of play, the coaching, the athleticism from the Dartmouth teams over the past 5 years, yet the League as a whole has made just as much overall progress towards elite status, making it incredibly difficult to break through. A couple of bounces differently and there'd be several League wins over those years, but unless we're truly competitive at a national level, can't expect those bounces to go the 'right' way for Dartmouth.

re 2015, Dartmouth won 22 FO's to HU's 5...tremendous game by FO man Phil Hession who scored 2 goals and also caused 4 TO's. 12-11 in double OT.

So, a great FO performance can indeed create the opportunity for an upset.

[FannOLax]

I trecall a 2018 double OT Dartmouth loss to Penn in Hanover. That result got Penn into the ILT, where the Quakers were trounced by Yale. Back to Dartmouth, even before Hincks, the Green had some very good goalies. Do we know anything about Dartmouth's goalie situation now that Hincks has moved on?

[wgdsr]

Would think it will be critical to make the IL tourney this year. Doubt the remaining 3 will get an at large bid. Yale/Cornell/Princeton/Penn pretty heavy favorites to finish in the top 4, but that’s why they play the games. Harvard could certainly bump 1 of them out.

we'll see. princeton definitely has the schedule to do that if they are successful ooc. maybe other teams do, too. 2 semis teams will have losses, and while that may not hurt them if the league's real good, it won't help #s anyway. i could see a team outside the ilt make it, even if one of the qualifiers doesn't.

acc is still dumb enough to have a setup where the worst team plays 2 games against other conference opponents, dinging everything. b1g has good teams, but chance to lose a bid from that conference is probably substantial. patriot (and big east unless denver crushes it) have to have things fall just right to grab a bid.

what we're also adding more to the small sample size is whether teams coming together organically has an edge on those that are pulled together.

[Farfromgeneva]

Would think it will be critical to make the IL tourney this year. Doubt the remaining 3 will get an at large bid. Yale/Cornell/Princeton/Penn pretty heavy favorites to finish in the top 4, but that’s why they play the games. Harvard could certainly bump 1 of them out.

we'll see. princeton definitely has the schedule to do that if they are successful ooc. maybe other teams do, too. 2 semis teams will have losses, and while that may not hurt them if the league's real good, it won't help #s anyway. i could see a team outside the ilt make it, even if one of the qualifiers doesn't.

acc is still dumb enough to have a setup where the worst team plays 2 games against other conference opponents, dinging everything. b1g has good teams, but chance to lose a bid from that conference is probably substantial. patriot (and big east unless denver crushes it) have to have things fall just right to grab a bid.

what we're also adding more to the small sample size is whether teams coming together organically has an edge on those that are pulled together.

There’s an outside chance of a CAA or A10 team grabbing a bid as well from a few programs

[MDlaxfan76]

I trecall a 2018 double OT Dartmouth loss to Penn in Hanover. That result got Penn into the ILT, where the Quakers were trounced by Yale. Back to Dartmouth, even before Hincks, the Green had some very good goalies. Do we know anything about Dartmouth's goalie situation now that Hincks has moved on?

Yes, that 2018 game was a heart breaker. Some controversy as well, if I recall. Great effort.

I don't have much insight or prediction as yet, but I like the look of the freshman from Santa Fe Christian in highlights. That said, I dunno how tough the shots he's faced have been and haven't actually watched him play a full game.

The upperclassmen really haven't seen the field, though they have decent credentials, one from Costa Canyon, the other from Centennial in Georgia...non-traditional hotbeds.

Callahan has had a good eye for tenders and coaches them well, so we have our fingers crossed.

Big shoes to fill.

[The Orfling]

Would think it will be critical to make the IL tourney this year. Doubt the remaining 3 will get an at large bid. Yale/Cornell/Princeton/Penn pretty heavy favorites to finish in the top 4, but that’s why they play the games. Harvard could certainly bump 1 of them out.

Last year was definitely an anomaly, when Ivy teams did ridiculously well OOC. Princeton beat highly ranked Georgetown and Rutgers, and got into the NCAA dance without making the IL tourney; I can imagine that happening again, but I suspect the NCAA will let in fewer than last year's 6 Ivy teams this go-around.

statistically, a safe bet.

MDLaxFan76 may have the best insight on this but last year was as strong a year for goaltending across the Ivies as I can recall at least in recent memory — having such good goaltending across the board played a big part in the league’s out of conference success. It’s telling that two players — Mullin of Harvard and Hincks of Dartmouth — who were not even the 1st team all-Ivy goalie last year — were welcomed as transfers to compete for the starting job at two top 20 programs (Rutgers and Georgetown). As noted previously, the other two graduating goalies, Peters and Burkinshaw, were both at 55% or better. And the three returning primary starting goalies — Theriault at Brown, Ierlan at Cornell, and Paquette at Yale — are all strong performers. Four new starters at that important slot will be a major determinant in league finishing order, out of conference success, and ultimately tournament bids.