HomerCoach wrote: ↑Mon Apr 17, 2023 4:26 pm
Someone has a conference power ranking somewhere...ODAC is getting WAY TOO MUCH LOVE!
Well, as any veteran of this site knows, this is a classic question that can only be answered with a heat map!
- 4-17 conference matrix.png (145.41 KiB) Viewed 1909 times
Long story short, Hacker seems to have more or less nailed it, at least based on average Laxpower rating. I think this can be tiered into:
"High Major" - average ~90s and 5+ teams over 90
-NESCAC
-Liberty
-Centennial
"Mid Major" - average ~80s and 4+ teams over 83
-C2C
-NEWMAC
-MAC-C
-CCC
-ODAC
-NCAC
"Low Major" - average ~low 80s
-MAC-F
-Empire 8
-SAA
-Landmark
-SUNYAC
Obviously fairly arbitrary cut-offs, and I could absolutely see arguments that in the longer-term a couple conferences should be bumped up a category, but I think this aligns fairly well with my gestalt as a long-time D3 fan.
Other takeaways:
- Liberty and Centennial are essentially indistinguishable--only real difference is McDaniel dragging down the average a touch. #1-#8 are remarkably similar
- There's Tufts, Amherst, and then a little extra depth in #4-#8 that puts the NESCAC comfortably ahead of the Liberty/Centennial
- The ODAC top 4 are an appreciable step behind the big dogs, and the bottom of the conference will always keep their average in the "mid-major" range of D3 lacrosse conferences
- I would have to go back and double check, but I believe this is a relatively good showing for the NEWMAC, in terms of overall average and depth compared to the big conferences