2023 FanLax Forum Poll

[FanLax Computer]

I understand your process. I just think the inability to recognize/weight recent head-to-head results is a limitation that (occasionally) causes mis-rankings.

As I understand yours. I'm of the belief (more accurately, my programmer is of the belief) that giving recent head-to-head results a higher weight than other games is a limitation that causes mis-rankings. Just two different perspectives...

[smoova]

As I understand yours. I'm of the belief (more accurately, my programmer is of the belief) that giving recent head-to-head results a higher weight than other games is a limitation that causes mis-rankings. Just two different perspectives...

I'm just grateful the NCAA employs a playoff system that values head-to-head results.

[FanLax Computer]

I'm just grateful the NCAA employs a playoff system that values head-to-head results.

Just because they value it doesn't mean it's valuable. Or, for that matter, fair and reasonable.

[smoova]

I'm just grateful the NCAA employs a playoff system that values head-to-head results.

Just because they value it doesn't mean it's valuable. Or, for that matter, fair and reasonable.

I love Computer humor!

[Notgoodatlax]

Seems like rankings are starting to tighten up. Over the past 3 weeks we went from 47 teams to 39 teams to 33 teams in the rankings.

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[Notgoodatlax]

I'm interested in the general agreement amongst pollsters to not have Swarthmore outrank Gettysburg despite the win.

Also, Charlie curious what caused you to rank Wooster at 10 this week since nothing has changed since your last ranking? Is it possible BIGDAWG submitted your ranking for you?

[Laxattackjack]

I'm interested in the general agreement amongst pollsters to not have Swarthmore outrank Gettysburg despite the win.

Also, Charlie curious what caused you to rank Wooster at 10 this week since nothing has changed since your last ranking? Is it possible BIGDAWG submitted your ranking for you?

I would not rank swarthmore above
Gettysburg because if you take out the best and worst game for each team, swarthmore does not have any impressive wins. 0-0 vs top 20 teams. Gettysburgh still has two other top 20 mins. The polls are irrelevant in this case. If swarthmore is really better than Gettysburg, they will win the conference and get the AQ.

[smoova]

I'm interested in the general agreement amongst pollsters to not have Swarthmore outrank Gettysburg despite the win.

Also, Charlie curious what caused you to rank Wooster at 10 this week since nothing has changed since your last ranking? Is it possible BIGDAWG submitted your ranking for you?

I would not rank swarthmore above
Gettysburg because if you take out the best and worst game for each team, swarthmore does not have any impressive wins. 0-0 vs top 20 teams. Gettysburgh still has two other top 20 mins. The polls are irrelevant in this case. If swarthmore is really better than Gettysburg, they will win the conference and get the AQ.

It is remarkable how much effort folks put into finding a way to ignore the results of head-to-head games. It's not just here - one of the USILA coaches voted CNU as #1 in today's poll.

[Leonard Washington]

I'm interested in the general agreement amongst pollsters to not have Swarthmore outrank Gettysburg despite the win.

I guess it all depends on where you had them (both) ranked previously.

[Laxattackjack]

I'm interested in the general agreement amongst pollsters to not have Swarthmore outrank Gettysburg despite the win.

Also, Charlie curious what caused you to rank Wooster at 10 this week since nothing has changed since your last ranking? Is it possible BIGDAWG submitted your ranking for you?

I would not rank swarthmore above
Gettysburg because if you take out the best and worst game for each team, swarthmore does not have any impressive wins. 0-0 vs top 20 teams. Gettysburgh still has two other top 20 mins. The polls are irrelevant in this case. If swarthmore is really better than Gettysburg, they will win the conference and get the AQ.

It is remarkable how much effort folks put into finding a way to ignore the results of head-to-head games.

Are you suggesting if bates beats tufts this week, you would rank them ahead of tufts next week? Wait. I just checked out your ranking this week. You have union (6-4) ranked several spots ahead of clarkson (9-2). And clarkson beat union. You basically did, what you find remarkable.

[DeepPocket]

I'm interested in the general agreement amongst pollsters to not have Swarthmore outrank Gettysburg despite the win.

Also, Charlie curious what caused you to rank Wooster at 10 this week since nothing has changed since your last ranking? Is it possible BIGDAWG submitted your ranking for you?

I would not rank swarthmore above
Gettysburg because if you take out the best and worst game for each team, swarthmore does not have any impressive wins. 0-0 vs top 20 teams. Gettysburgh still has two other top 20 mins. The polls are irrelevant in this case. If swarthmore is really better than Gettysburg, they will win the conference and get the AQ.

It is remarkable how much effort folks put into finding a way to ignore the results of head-to-head games.

Are you suggesting if bates beats tufts this week, you would rank them ahead of tufts next week? Wait. I just checked out your ranking this week. You have union (6-4) ranked several spots ahead of clarkson (9-2). And clarkson beat union. You basically did, what you find remarkable.

Way to pick an extreme.
What about two teams that calculations place adjacent to one another in rankings like people have suggested (such as CNU/Salisbury or York/Denison). Shouldn’t common sense apply?

(Not so much a “tie-breaker”, but an “adjacent breaker” of sorts)

[rasheed]

Sorry I meant to put Tufts 1move down accordingly

Doesn't change 1-19. Does change 20-25 and more. 20-25+ was:

20 Denison
21 Wooster
22 Ithaca
23 Hampden-Sydney
24 Babson
25 Muhlenberg
Kenyon
Clarkson
Geneseo
Roanoke
Stevenson
Pfeiffer
RPI
Hamilton

Now it is:

20 Ithaca
21 Wooster
22 Denison
23 Kenyon
24 Babson
25 Hampden-Sydney
Muhlenberg
Clarkson
Geneseo
Roanoke
Stevenson
Pfeiffer
RPI
Hamilton

How is Hampden-Sydney ranked so low? They just knocked of W&L?

[Laxattackjack]

Sorry I meant to put Tufts 1move down accordingly

Doesn't change 1-19. Does change 20-25 and more. 20-25+ was:

20 Denison
21 Wooster
22 Ithaca
23 Hampden-Sydney
24 Babson
25 Muhlenberg
Kenyon
Clarkson
Geneseo
Roanoke
Stevenson
Pfeiffer
RPI
Hamilton

Now it is:

20 Ithaca
21 Wooster
22 Denison
23 Kenyon
24 Babson
25 Hampden-Sydney
Muhlenberg
Clarkson
Geneseo
Roanoke
Stevenson
Pfeiffer
RPI
Hamilton

How is Hampden-Sydney ranked so low? They just knocked of W&L?

Computer deducted points for being all male school

[BallHunt]

Seems like rankings are starting to tighten up. Over the past 3 weeks we went from 47 teams to 39 teams to 33 teams in the rankings.

laxratings_wow.png

laxratings_4_10_23.png

That's a good line.

[D3LaxFan2]

I have Wooster at #19. Based on their Losses, they're, for obvious reasons, ranked #1 (along with others). Including Tufts and Christopher Newport ahead of them and Farmingdale, Pfeiffer, Trine, Johnson & Wales, and Hartford behind them. In terms of wins, Wooster is ranked #30. Their three best wins are against Elizabethtown, Colorado College, and Oberlin. Which is good. Better than Farmingdale's, Pfeiffer's, etc.'s wins. But for sure not better than Tufts and CNU's wins (whose Win Rankings are #1 and #2) with Ws vs. Middlebury, Amherst, Lynchburg and RIT, Lynchburg, W&L. Tufts currently has the #1 W and #1 L Rankings. That's tough to beat...

Albion was a better win than Oberlin https://masseyratings.com/clax/ncaa-d3/ratings but I digress, we (Albion) got smoked by RIT in the playoffs last year and I fully expect that to happen again this year. That is not to say Midwest lacrosse does not get overlooked due to East coast bias, because I think it does. But there is reality and I like to live there. Wooster was a good team, I thought we could of beat them had we been fully healthy. They would get destroyed by Tufts though, sorry that is just fact. Still though, very nice season and they should be proud.

Obvious trolling aside, I don't understand all the animosity towards Wooster. Why do supporters of the "old guard" get so defensive at the thought that different teams may be getting better? This is a team who went 6-10 last year after their coach got fired, and is hugely improved with a new coach and young roster of mainly freshmen and sophomores, with a handful of juniors and seniors mixed in. They don't have the strength of schedule to truly garner national respect, but why would they? You think a bunch of ranked teams were lining up to play them after the past few years? Compare their scores against their same schedule from this year and last, and see the improvement for yourselves. Shouldn't a new contender maybe stepping up in the Midwest be exciting for D3 lacrosse? Maybe they'll be the next St. John Fisher or Muhlenberg? Maybe they won't. But just ignore the obvious troll and look at who they are, and give them the credit they deserve.

And, since when does "getting destroyed by Tufts" disqualify a team from top-20 consideration? Hasn't seemed to diminish Lynchburg, Cabrini, or Stevens one bit this year. Not sure why that hypothetical being thrown around would mean that Wooster couldn't compete with the other teams in the 15-30 range. Just food for thought.

[smoova]

I'm interested in the general agreement amongst pollsters to not have Swarthmore outrank Gettysburg despite the win.

Also, Charlie curious what caused you to rank Wooster at 10 this week since nothing has changed since your last ranking? Is it possible BIGDAWG submitted your ranking for you?

I would not rank swarthmore above
Gettysburg because if you take out the best and worst game for each team, swarthmore does not have any impressive wins. 0-0 vs top 20 teams. Gettysburgh still has two other top 20 mins. The polls are irrelevant in this case. If swarthmore is really better than Gettysburg, they will win the conference and get the AQ.

It is remarkable how much effort folks put into finding a way to ignore the results of head-to-head games.

Are you suggesting if bates beats tufts this week, you would rank them ahead of tufts next week? Wait. I just checked out your ranking this week. You have union (6-4) ranked several spots ahead of clarkson (9-2). And clarkson beat union. You basically did, what you find remarkable.

No - Bates is not remotely close to Tufts in the rankings, so an upset of that magnitude at this point in the season would not warrant a huge jump/drop. However, Swat was already in the top 20 when they beat Gettysburg, so it is entirely reasonable for the Garnet to jump the Bullets. This odd business about dropping best/worst games, games with goal differentials greater than 12 or games played on the Tuesday before a full moon in order to avoid recent head-to-head results is just goofy.

All that said, you did a fine job ferreting out my own hypocrisy and I have absolutely no excuse - I made a mistake with where I put Union vis a vis Clarkson.

[smoova]

Obvious trolling aside, I don't understand all the animosity towards Wooster. Why do supporters of the "old guard" get so defensive at the thought that different teams may be getting better? This is a team who went 6-10 last year after their coach got fired, and is hugely improved with a new coach and young roster of mainly freshmen and sophomores, with a handful of juniors and seniors mixed in. They don't have the strength of schedule to truly garner national respect, but why would they? You think a bunch of ranked teams were lining up to play them after the past few years? Compare their scores against their same schedule from this year and last, and see the improvement for yourselves. Shouldn't a new contender maybe stepping up in the Midwest be exciting for D3 lacrosse? Maybe they'll be the next St. John Fisher or Muhlenberg? Maybe they won't. But just ignore the obvious troll and look at who they are, and give them the credit they deserve.

And, since when does "getting destroyed by Tufts" disqualify a team from top-20 consideration? Hasn't seemed to diminish Lynchburg, Cabrini, or Stevens one bit this year. Not sure why that hypothetical being thrown around would mean that Wooster couldn't compete with the other teams in the 15-30 range. Just food for thought.

Yes, yes, a thousand times YES! I have a very personal interest in seeing the Fighting Scots succeed, and BD's trolling can be grating, but Wooster's ascendance is exactly what I want in D3: more and more teams outside of the traditional powerhouse teams/conferences playing at a very high level. Wouldn't it be fantastic if every NCAA tournament game was competitive?

[Laxattackjack]

I have Wooster at #19. Based on their Losses, they're, for obvious reasons, ranked #1 (along with others). Including Tufts and Christopher Newport ahead of them and Farmingdale, Pfeiffer, Trine, Johnson & Wales, and Hartford behind them. In terms of wins, Wooster is ranked #30. Their three best wins are against Elizabethtown, Colorado College, and Oberlin. Which is good. Better than Farmingdale's, Pfeiffer's, etc.'s wins. But for sure not better than Tufts and CNU's wins (whose Win Rankings are #1 and #2) with Ws vs. Middlebury, Amherst, Lynchburg and RIT, Lynchburg, W&L. Tufts currently has the #1 W and #1 L Rankings. That's tough to beat...

Albion was a better win than Oberlin https://masseyratings.com/clax/ncaa-d3/ratings but I digress, we (Albion) got smoked by RIT in the playoffs last year and I fully expect that to happen again this year. That is not to say Midwest lacrosse does not get overlooked due to East coast bias, because I think it does. But there is reality and I like to live there. Wooster was a good team, I thought we could of beat them had we been fully healthy. They would get destroyed by Tufts though, sorry that is just fact. Still though, very nice season and they should be proud.

Obvious trolling aside, I don't understand all the animosity towards Wooster. Why do supporters of the "old guard" get so defensive at the thought that different teams may be getting better? This is a team who went 6-10 last year after their coach got fired, and is hugely improved with a new coach and young roster of mainly freshmen and sophomores, with a handful of juniors and seniors mixed in. They don't have the strength of schedule to truly garner national respect, but why would they? You think a bunch of ranked teams were lining up to play them after the past few years? Compare their scores against their same schedule from this year and last, and see the improvement for yourselves. Shouldn't a new contender maybe stepping up in the Midwest be exciting for D3 lacrosse? Maybe they'll be the next St. John Fisher or Muhlenberg? Maybe they won't. But just ignore the obvious troll and look at who they are, and give them the credit they deserve.

And, since when does "getting destroyed by Tufts" disqualify a team from top-20 consideration? Hasn't seemed to diminish Lynchburg, Cabrini, or Stevens one bit this year. Not sure why that hypothetical being thrown around would mean that Wooster couldn't compete with the other teams in the 15-30 range. Just food for thought.

The great thing about d3 lax is if Wooster is really a top 15 team, they should not have any problem winning the conference and getting an AQ. The polls won’t matter.

[D3LaxFan2]

I have Wooster at #19. Based on their Losses, they're, for obvious reasons, ranked #1 (along with others). Including Tufts and Christopher Newport ahead of them and Farmingdale, Pfeiffer, Trine, Johnson & Wales, and Hartford behind them. In terms of wins, Wooster is ranked #30. Their three best wins are against Elizabethtown, Colorado College, and Oberlin. Which is good. Better than Farmingdale's, Pfeiffer's, etc.'s wins. But for sure not better than Tufts and CNU's wins (whose Win Rankings are #1 and #2) with Ws vs. Middlebury, Amherst, Lynchburg and RIT, Lynchburg, W&L. Tufts currently has the #1 W and #1 L Rankings. That's tough to beat...

Albion was a better win than Oberlin https://masseyratings.com/clax/ncaa-d3/ratings but I digress, we (Albion) got smoked by RIT in the playoffs last year and I fully expect that to happen again this year. That is not to say Midwest lacrosse does not get overlooked due to East coast bias, because I think it does. But there is reality and I like to live there. Wooster was a good team, I thought we could of beat them had we been fully healthy. They would get destroyed by Tufts though, sorry that is just fact. Still though, very nice season and they should be proud.

Obvious trolling aside, I don't understand all the animosity towards Wooster. Why do supporters of the "old guard" get so defensive at the thought that different teams may be getting better? This is a team who went 6-10 last year after their coach got fired, and is hugely improved with a new coach and young roster of mainly freshmen and sophomores, with a handful of juniors and seniors mixed in. They don't have the strength of schedule to truly garner national respect, but why would they? You think a bunch of ranked teams were lining up to play them after the past few years? Compare their scores against their same schedule from this year and last, and see the improvement for yourselves. Shouldn't a new contender maybe stepping up in the Midwest be exciting for D3 lacrosse? Maybe they'll be the next St. John Fisher or Muhlenberg? Maybe they won't. But just ignore the obvious troll and look at who they are, and give them the credit they deserve.

And, since when does "getting destroyed by Tufts" disqualify a team from top-20 consideration? Hasn't seemed to diminish Lynchburg, Cabrini, or Stevens one bit this year. Not sure why that hypothetical being thrown around would mean that Wooster couldn't compete with the other teams in the 15-30 range. Just food for thought.

The great thing about d3 lax is if Wooster is really a top 15 team, they should not have any problem winning the conference and getting an AQ. The polls won’t matter.

But that argument doesn't make sense, as Denison and Kenyon are also both 15-30 range, and OWU beat Kenyon too, so there is plenty of competition for that AQ. Anyways, it isn't literal poll ranking that I am talking about, just the need of fans of the more traditional teams to diminish non-traditional power teams. You know, like you are doing right now?

[Laxattackjack]

Because these up and coming teams are not knocking of the traditional power house teams.

I just looked at Woosters schedule. 11-0. But not a single tough game. Compare that to Denison that has played several top 20 teams.