Ivy League 2023

[bearlaxfan]

Columbia &Penn also have no varsity hockey. Ivies, being as in-demand as they are, don't need to sweeten incentives for already well-represented demographics, while nationwide in general males are becoming more underrepresented in higher ed. The growth in lacrosse may be an attempt offset this at other institutions, division-whatever.

[notentitled]

I had not been to the Baker Field /Wein stadium in over 25 years. But in the 80's and 90's, one could drive in by the stadium and park down by the river. It was a fun day.

[notentitled]

I had not been to the Baker Field /Wein stadium in over 25 years. But in the 80's and 90's, one could drive in by the stadium and park down by the river. It was a fun day.

[MDlaxfan76]

Columbia &Penn also have no varsity hockey. Ivies, being as in-demand as they are, don't need to sweeten incentives for already well-represented demographics, while nationwide in general males are becoming more underrepresented in higher ed. The growth in lacrosse may be an attempt offset this at other institutions, division-whatever.

Interesting theory, I guess.

I agree that Columbia doesn't need to add more sports, men's or women's, in order to attract their demographic profile applicant.

However, not sure about "growth in lacrosse" having anything to do with male underrepresentation elsewhere...I do think you're perhaps 'on the money' about elsewhere attracting a "demographic" by adding lacrosse, both women and men...it's definitely a demographic more likely to be willing to do full pay to have Johnny or Sally get in to a solid school and have a lax experience if they choose to do so...

Given smaller college age population trends, a whole lot of smaller schools are struggling to have enough students come who are full pay...thus, for instance, the reliance on full-pay foreign students.

But Columbia isn't concerned about attracting more "full pay" given endowment and high demand as is..

It's too bad that Columbia hasn't done men's lax and ice hockey, but you're right that they don't have the same incentives.

The harder question seems to me to be keeping the rest of the Ivies supporting sports...

[Can Opener]

For some reason it looks as if the Ivy League website took down the tiebreaker link that was live 10 days ago. Nerd alert, I had copied those rules before the page disappeared and they appear at the bottom of this post. Who knows if they were taken down to be tweaked???

The tournament picture is still murky, but we do have more clarity than a week ago on ILT scenarios. Let’s start with the relatively easy ones – Penn, Cornell and Princeton are in good shape and Dartmouth is probably out:
* Penn should beat Dartmouth in their only remaining Ivy game, which means the Quakers are safely in with a 4-2 record.
* Princeton should win when they host Harvard which will give them at worst a 4-2 record and an ILT bid. (That makes the Cornell game’s outcome only matter for seeding.)
* If Cornell wins either @Brown or home vs Princeton, they are in with a 4-2 record (or 5-1 if they win both).
* Dartmouth is projected to lose to Penn and Brown which means they would be out with a 1-5 record.

That likely leaves Harvard, Yale and (longshot) Brown fighting for the fourth spot.
* Harvard will be an underdog @Princeton and hosting Yale, which would suggest a 2-4 record and missing the ILT. That last game of the season is in Cambridge, however, against a somewhat erratic Yale team. If Harvard wins The Game, they are in at 3-3 thanks to head-to-head wins over Brown and Yale.
* Yale’s only remaining game is that Harvard matchup. If they win that, they are in at 3-3 since they would have the head-to-head over Brown and Harvard, EXCEPT in Brown’s inside straight scenario below.
* Brown needs to win its remaining games at home against Cornell and @Dartmouth to have any chance. That would give them a 3-3 record, potentially tied for the fourth ILT spot with Yale and/or Harvard. The problem is that Brown lost to both teams, so they would not prevail in those tiebreakers. I think the only realistic scenario that works for Brown is that they beat Cornell at home and then hold serve up in Hanover. They would then need Cornell to lose at home against Princeton which is probably at least a 40% scenario, so a real possibility. Then you would have Cornell, Brown and Yale tied at 3-3. The first tiebreaker is that the team with the best record in that three-team round robin would advance. In this case, however, each team is 1-1 among those games so you go to the next tiebreaker which is the team/s with the best win outside the three tied teams. In that case, Cornell and Brown both hold a Penn win which would trump Yale’s Harvard win. Brown would then hold the head-to-head over Cornell, giving Bruno the third seed and the Big Red the fourth seed.

The only other Brown scenario involves Penn losing Saturday at home against Dartmouth, dropping the Quakers to 3-3 and Brown holding a head-to-head win over them. So while Bruno is rooting for the Big Green, it’s probably not worth diving too deep into that scenario.

Here is what was posted on the Ivy website as of 10 days ago:

Men's Lacrosse Tournament Tiebreakers
In the case of a two-way tie between teams in the final standings, the higher seed will be determined on the basis of head-to-head competition.

In the case of a multiple tie (more than two teams with the same record), the following procedure will be used:
The highest seed will go to the team with the best cumulative records against all other teams tied at that spot.
Once a highest seed team (among the tied teams) is determined, the tie between the remaining two teams will be determined on the basis of head-to-head competition. This procedure will be completed until all ties are broken.

In the case of a multiple tie that cannot be broken on the basis on review of cumulative record against all other teams tied at that spot:
The higher seed will go to the team that has beaten the highest seeded team outside of the tie.
Once a highest seed (amongst the tied teams) is determined, the tie between the remaining seeds shall be determined on the basis on head-to-head competition. This procedure will be completed until all ties are broken.

[faircornell]

Excellent analysis! ... thank you.

[Can Opener]

Excellent analysis! ... thank you.

I am 90% confident this is right, but feel free to stress test my analysis!

[ctbagataway]

I would only add that there’s a lot of “should wins” in that analysis in a year that has been anything but predictable. We will know a lot more after Saturday.

[The Orfling]

Excellent analysis! ... thank you.

I am 90% confident this is right, but feel free to stress test my analysis!

Can Opener, this is great. Two things:

1. Princeton has announced that it was told by the league that they have an ILT spot because there's no scenario in which they are out on the basis of tiebreakers: https://goprincetontigers.com/news/2023 ... -dartmouth

2. A follow-up query on tiebreakers: the language makes it seem like for each of the tiebreakers one team must emerge or you go to the next tiebreaker? It says "The higher seed will go to the team" (singular) "that has beaten the highest seeded team outside of the tie." The "singular team must emerge from a tiebreaker" is the interpretation that Chris Jastrzembski (good lax journalist) took last year when analyzing tiebreaker scenarios for 3 or more teams: https://www.collegelacrosse.net/post/me ... c-nec-2022. He talked about another tiebreaker, goal differential, coming after the "highest seed beaten" test. Was that on the website or maybe that's the tweak? If goal differential is still in play, and you play out the "singular team must emerge" scenario with Cornell/Yale/Brown, is it possible it would go:

• First look at cumulative record -- in this case each of the teams would be 1-1, go to next tiebreaker;

• Highest seed beaten outside of the tie: both Brown and Cornell have beaten Penn, but no singular team emerges so go to goal differential in games amongst the three;

• If Cornell has the best goal differential in the games amongst the tied teams -- beat Yale by the max of 6 or more, and loses a close one to Brown -- then Cornell gets the #3 seed and it's between Yale and Brown;

• Tiebreakers re-start between remaining two teams: Yale has beaten Brown head to head so Yale gets the #4 seed in the ILT.

Maybe the league went away from the "singular team from a tiebreaker" requirement? Or away from goal differential?

I guess we'll wait and see.

[CU77]

• Highest seed beaten outside of the tie: both Brown and Cornell have beaten Penn, but no singular team emerges so go to goal differential in games amongst the three;

I believe that this is correct (that is, this is how the League interprets the rule), but it's also a massively stupid way to do things.

[Can Opener]

• Highest seed beaten outside of the tie: both Brown and Cornell have beaten Penn, but no singular team emerges so go to goal differential in games amongst the three;

I believe that this is correct (that is, this is how the League interprets the rule), but it's also a massively stupid way to do things.

Thanks, Orfling and CU. The Chris Yaz piece makes it sound as if you have to go to goal differential, but that wouldn’t flow logically from the original text of the rules. If the league values wins over higher ranked teams, then that should decide it. I don’t know why you would skip over that and go to goal differential. My guess is that the league has realized their tiebreaker rules are unclear, so they took down that post. Yaz’s links to the rules now leads to a 404 error page. It is important for coaches to have clarity going into these final two weeks because it can change game strategy on goal differential.

[bearlaxfan]

Score-differential should be at best a last-last tiebreak resort anytime, but in-conference especially. Rivalry is good. Bad blood isn't. Better to go coinflip. I assume the "6 at best(worst)" is the way to go if it's used at all.

[The Orfling]

• Highest seed beaten outside of the tie: both Brown and Cornell have beaten Penn, but no singular team emerges so go to goal differential in games amongst the three;

I believe that this is correct (that is, this is how the League interprets the rule), but it's also a massively stupid way to do things.

Thanks, Orfling and CU. The Chris Yaz piece makes it sound as if you have to go to goal differential, but that wouldn’t flow logically from the original text of the rules. If the league values wins over higher ranked teams, then that should decide it. I don’t know why you would skip over that and go to goal differential. My guess is that the league has realized their tiebreaker rules are unclear, so they took down that post. Yaz’s links to the rules now leads to a 404 error page. It is important for coaches to have clarity going into these final two weeks because it can change game strategy on goal differential.

Yes, the operation of all of this seemed counterintuitive to me also. Certainly could be why they took the rules down. The goal differential point is very important -- it's always been capped at 6 I think (so Yale gets a minus -6 for its 10 goal drubbing by Cornell). Now I think back to Yale's recent game -- they were up by 6 and just passed it around for the last couple of minutes. Would they have tried to push for one more if they were up by 5? One would think maybe -- but they'd need to know that it will matter to get to 6. It seems odd to me that the coaches wouldn't know -- maybe they do but the league hasn't posted publicly?

[Can Opener]

New ILT tiebreaker rules are posted:
https://ivyleague.com/sports/2018/4/17/ ... 80748.aspx

It appears they corrected the goofy scenario of the old rules described by Chris Yaz. The new rule reads:

3. In the case of a multiple team tie that cannot be broken on the basis of review of cumulative record against all other teams tied at that spot:
a. The highest seed will go to the team that has beaten the highest seeded team outside of the tie and continuing through the full league standings (If multiple teams have beaten the highest seeded team outside of the tie, the tie between those teams will be broken on the basis of cumulative record against each other).
b. Once a highest seed(s) (amongst the tied teams) is determined, the initial tie is broken. The tie between the remaining teams shall be determined on the basis of cumulative record against all other remaining teams tied at that spot.
c. This procedure will be completed until all possible ties are broken. (If there remaining unbroken ties within the group, the remaining tied teams move on to step 4.)

[CU77]

Very good! I'm glad they cleaned those up.

Note 3a: "The highest seed will go to the team that has beaten the highest seeded team outside of the tie and continuing through the full league standings". I interpret this to mean that if the tied teams also all have the same record against the highest seed team outside the tie, we then move on to their record against the second-highest seeded team outside the tie, and continue through all teams outside the tie, unitl the tie is broken. Only if this never produces a tiebreaker do we move on to goal differential.

[Can Opener]

Very good! I'm glad they cleaned those up.

Note 3a: "The highest seed will go to the team that has beaten the highest seeded team outside of the tie and continuing through the full league standings". I interpret this to mean that if the tied teams also all have the same record against the highest seed team outside the tie, we then move on to their record against the second-highest seeded team outside the tie, and continue through all teams outside the tie, unitl the tie is broken. Only if this never produces a tiebreaker do we move on to goal differential.

I think that’s right. Much clearer language in this version.

[DocBarrister]

Isn’t it just simpler to force Columbia to field a Division I men’s lacrosse team and then have an Ivy League tournament in which all 8 teams compete?

I mean, when you need an Ivy League degree to understand the tie breakers, then maybe y’all should have a little talk with Columbia and straighten them out.

DocBarrister

[nms]

Isn’t it just simpler to force Columbia to field a Division I men’s lacrosse team and then have an Ivy League tournament in which all 8 teams compete?

I mean, when you need an Ivy League degree to understand the tie breakers, then maybe y’all should have a little talk with Columbia and straighten them out.

DocBarrister

That would mean 1 more team competing for the AQ.
The ACC is the league that desperately needs another team.
Have them talk to BC, NCst etc.

[joewillie78]

Isn’t it just simpler to force Columbia to field a Division I men’s lacrosse team and then have an Ivy League tournament in which all 8 teams compete?

I mean, when you need an Ivy League degree to understand the tie breakers, then maybe y’all should have a little talk with Columbia and straighten them out.

DocBarrister

That would mean 1 more team competing for the AQ.
The ACC is the league that desperately needs another team.
Have them talk to BC, NCst etc.

Can Hopkins join the Ivy League?

Gobigred
Joewillie78

[wgdsr]

Isn’t it just simpler to force Columbia to field a Division I men’s lacrosse team and then have an Ivy League tournament in which all 8 teams compete?

I mean, when you need an Ivy League degree to understand the tie breakers, then maybe y’all should have a little talk with Columbia and straighten them out.

DocBarrister

That would mean 1 more team competing for the AQ.
The ACC is the league that desperately needs another team.
Have them talk to BC, NCst etc.

the acc does not desperately need another team.

columbia club folks guys are pushing it now. not sure why in their case, & who knows if it'll ever have legs. probably checkbook size oriented.