FanLax Forum Poll

[NElaxtalent]

Imho an early season QW > undefeated vs teams exclusively outside the Top 25. I don't see a reason to over-reward Ws vs weak competition.

[Matnum PI]

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[ICGrad]

My poll.

1. Yale - Solid win against a Villanova team that’s given them fits the last couple of years; more than enough for my pre-season #1 to hold onto the top spot. Up next: Penn State, in a game that will decide my #1 next week.

2. Penn St - 3-0 and largely untested. Take a trip through the top of the Ivies over the next 3 weeks with games against Yale - Penn - Cornell.

3. Virginia - 2-0 after a convincing win over Lehigh.

4. Maryland - 3-0 after another impressive comeback win, this time against Penn. Jumps over ND due to strength of schedule and impressiveness of Penn comeback.

5. Notre Dame - 1-0 with convincing win against Cleveland St.

6. Syracuse - 2-0 but largely untested; that’ll change with Army up next.

7. North Carolina - An easy 3-0 with away games against Hopkins and Denver on deck. We’ll know more soon.

8. Cornell - Cornell won 18 of 22 faceoffs in opening a 16-4 3rd quarter lead. If the FO success isn’t a fluke, this could be the best Cornell team in a decade.

9. Army - Impressive win against a Rutgers team I wasn’t all that sold on; still, 3-0 is 3-0 and Marist/Syracuse are on deck this week.

10. Duke - 2-1 with a solid win against a good Denver team; gets the nod over Denver/AF based on the AF loss coming in game #1.

11. Denver - 1-1 with the loss to Duke; made it close late but were outclassed early.

12. Air Force - 2-1 but closer than expected against Utah. 10/11/12 all but interchangeable in my book.

13 Georgetown - 2-0 with a pair of convincing wins, with a handful of winnable games on tap.

14. Delaware - 2-0; the Mount St Mary’s win looks better after this week, but ho-hum on the NJIT win.

15. Loyola - 1-1; rebounds from a big opening loss by beating up on Hopkins.

16. Johns Hopkins - 1-1; Just when I was convinced this might be Hopkins' year...Plenty of opportunity to right the ship with games against Carolina/Princeton/Syracuse up next.

17. Brown - Nice opener against Quinnipiac, solidly winning despite Q’s great goalie play. My Ivy #3 opened strong.

18. Ohio State - Surprising loss to UMass.

19. Navy - I dunno; Bucknell? UMass? Hobart? Had to pick someone, so Navy it is until someone convinces me otherwise.

20. Penn - I’ve been bearish on Penn all preseason, so when they took a 15-9 lead against Maryland with just over 20 minutes to play, I was trying to figure out how far up they’d bounce in my poll. Then they go and get outscored 8-0 to lose 17-15.

[LRoggy]

22-8 and 26-9 isn't convincing? Pretty high standards you have!

[Farfromgeneva]

Weak comp. Let’s see how Bart does against Gate and maybe even with that probably still have to at least put a scare in Cuse this year after being 8-1 (3 goal loss to Cornell and 8 tomato can wins) and lost 17-5

[Wheels]

Finally! All of the teams have played. Those teams I jumped in previous weeks for not playing are now on the move.

1) PSU - Video game offense continues. D showed up this week. We'll know a ton about whether their defense is any good next week against Yale.
2) MD - Moved them up. People see a comeback against Penn and see a negative. Not if you watched that game. Penn is really good. Terps have depth.
3) UVA - Bumped them down a spot. They're doing that "not playing a complete game" thing again. Not really putting teams away.
4) Syracuse - Steady as they go. Next week will be fun.
5) Yale - Nice win at Nova. Seemed like their whole offense had hat tricks. Ierlan makes them go. Going to PSU next week will be...instructive.
6) Notre Dame - D leads to O for them. UR will test them next week.
7) UNC - Not exactly murderer's row of a schedule. Let's see how they travel to...can I say a "reeling" Hopkins team?
8) Penn - Depth is their issue. Their starting 10 is as good as anyone in the country. That offense is big, strong, fast, and skilled.
9) Army - I scored more in HS - literally and figuratively - than anyone has scored against Army. Their UMass win has aged well early in the season.
10) Delaware - Their win over The Mount looks a lot better doesn't it? They're gonna coast the next 2 weeks until they get tested against Nova.
11) Duke - Nice bounce back against Denver.
12) Georgetown - Not exactly murderer's row, either, on that schedule. At least The Mount will test them in a couple of weeks.
13) Cornell - Big offense for the Big Red. Their game next week against Towson should have been a test, but now it looks like a gimme.
14) OSU - Home loss to UMass? Not scoring anything as UMass came from behind to win. Not good, Bob.
15) Loyola - Played UVA tough. Made JHU look non-dimensional. Toomey's got a program.
16) Denver - Up and down. Good offense. Not so good defense.
17) Navy - Where did this offense come from? Midweek tilt against UR will be telling.
18) AFA - Close win against an improved Utah. Not a bad bounce back for them after the DU loss.
19) Richmond - Marist is a good team, so the close score isn't that surprising. The Navy game on Tuesday will be a real test and then the ND game.
20) Hobart - Love the offense. Won't really know much about them until the Cuse game in 2 weeks. But let's enjoy the fun!
21) Princeton - Sowers. Good. Should be good against Gate in the next game, too. Don't you think?
22) Providence - That D. That schedule. Might be a few weeks until Providence gets a real test.
23) Hofstra - Hello!
24) Bucknell - Hello!
25) Lehigh - Hung tough against UVA.

Dropped out - JHU, Rutgers.

Sorry, JHU peeps. That offense looked horrendous against Loyola. Good team in Loyola, no doubt. But only 4 players registered points? Really? Man, sit Epstein until he's 100%. They might lose a couple of games, but if he keeps trying to play on that bum wheel, he'll do lasting damage. Sit him. Take the lumps. Develop some other scoring. Hope that UNC doesn't blow the doors off. Try and gear up for a B1G run.

[Farfromgeneva]

Curious about OSU. Know maybe 3 players on that team and comparative scores never tell one anything but if Rutgers is dropped out for getting blasted and UMass caught the same whoopin the week prior only to turn around and beat OSU wouldn’t that suggest a much larger gap between OSU and Army than 9-14?

[Wheels]

Curious about OSU. Know maybe 3 players on that team and comparative scores never tell one anything but if Rutgers is dropped out for getting blasted and UMass caught the same whoopin the week prior only to turn around and beat OSU wouldn’t that suggest a much larger gap between OSU and Army than 9-14?

Perhaps and a fair point. Maybe I'm pricing in too much of what I know about their roster and system. Their offense should score more than 7 goals against UMass, regardless of how good UMass's defense might be or end up being. Inacio didn't for OSU at the FOGO. He's a big piece of what they do. Leclaire should do more than 1 and 1.

Perhaps I'm also not totally sold on Army, either. If they can knock off Syracuse...

[Wheels]

And here I thought my dropping Hopkins would be more controversial!

[Farfromgeneva]

Thanks for replying just wondering “out loud” on OSU bc I thought the axiom was that they only have good seasons in odd years?

[44WeWantMore]

And here I thought my dropping Hopkins would be more controversial!

Controversial maybe if all you knew was the final score.
No so controversial if you watched the game.

Plus, the Towson win looked less good after Towson lost to MSM.

[ICGrad]

22-8 and 26-9 isn't convincing? Pretty high standards you have!

Meh. Hobart dropped a pair of 20s on two teams that a non-tourney Hobart team dropped a pair of 20s on last year, too. Sure, maybe they should be in my top 20, but I won't lose any sleep over it. (And as an Upstater who has seen Hobart play more than a few times, I consider myself a fan).

[ICGrad]

And here I thought my dropping Hopkins would be more controversial!

I'll be honest: I'm a little surprised you dropped them from #7 on your week 1 poll to off the top 25 altogether on the basis of losing an early-season rivalry game. I mean, the Towson loss didn't help JH, but losing to a perennially-strong Loyola team hardly seems worthy of an 18+ spot drop in the polls, no matter how mediocre JHU looked.

[Farfromgeneva]

22-8 and 26-9 isn't convincing? Pretty high standards you have!

Meh. Hobart dropped a pair of 20s on two teams that a non-tourney Hobart team dropped a pair of 20s on last year, too. Sure, maybe they should be in my top 20, but I won't lose any sleep over it. (And as an Upstater who has seen Hobart play more than a few times, I consider myself a fan).

The big question is what do you do if they run a bit and lose by Cuse but in a 3-6 goal, what people would describe as a very competitive game? Say they beat Gate cleanly, lose to Cuse, beat Bingo and win a few into NEC but before Cornell? What’s that worth? I do believe they have better depth, experience and talent last year despite graduating a criminally underrated Fogo and SSDM, but the schedule doesn’t have any 15-30 level teams except possibly Gate and RoMo. Would’ve been really nice to have a Bucknell, Providence, CAA team, GTown type to see. Instead it’s Gate, Cuse, Bingo, RoMo, MSM, SHU, Cornell, LIU, Bryant,Merrimack & Wagner. Will be hard to place them all year short of an upset of either Cuse or Cornell.

[Antonio114]

Maryland looked fantastic in the Penn game down the stretch, but given how Richmond is looking I feel like its a little to overzealous to put them in the top 3. They were completely on the ropes against Richmond and needed a ton of things to bounce their way to leave with the win. That same Richmond team then goes and barely handles Marist at home? Richmond puts the same amount of goals up on MD as they do on Marist? I know the transitive property isn't everything and for all we know Marist is sneaky good, but it seems a little early to put them in the absolute top tier based on that alone. Offensive fire power is insane and will only improve with a healthy Kyle Long. D might not quite be on par with Marylands standards just yet.

[Wheels]

And here I thought my dropping Hopkins would be more controversial!

I'll be honest: I'm a little surprised you dropped them from #7 on your week 1 poll to off the top 25 altogether on the basis of losing an early-season rivalry game. I mean, the Towson loss didn't help JH, but losing to a perennially-strong Loyola team hardly seems worthy of an 18+ spot drop in the polls, no matter how mediocre JHU looked.

Totally legit perspective. It was the combination of the Towson loss and just how bad Hop looked on offense. Loyola's a scrappy bunch for sure, but to have only 4 players register a point was pretty surprising. I probably had them too high after the Towson win. Maybe I have them too low after the Loyola loss. They don't look like a team that can beat any of their next 3 opponents. Then we'll see how they respond when they get to those final 3 games before B1G play. If their name wasn't Johns Hopkins and coming off of the season they had last year, I wonder how far down in the Top 20 they'd have been to start the year.

[Wheels]

Maryland looked fantastic in the Penn game down the stretch, but given how Richmond is looking I feel like its a little to overzealous to put them in the top 3. They were completely on the ropes against Richmond and needed a ton of things to bounce their way to leave with the win. That same Richmond team then goes and barely handles Marist at home? Richmond puts the same amount of goals up on MD as they do on Marist? I know the transitive property isn't everything and for all we know Marist is sneaky good, but it seems a little early to put them in the absolute top tier based on that alone. Offensive fire power is insane and will only improve with a healthy Kyle Long. D might not quite be on par with Marylands standards just yet.

Getting up for Maryland (missing Long, Rahill, Welding) in your season opener at home isn't a tough thing to do. Marist is pretty good squad, though. Richmond has Navy and @Notre Dame this week. We'll exactly how good they are. But for the Terps - and give Penn some credit for doing what they did in that first half - taking a really good team's best shot and closing like they did is a different thing than what they did @UR. The UR win was definitely an escape job. That's not what Saturday was against Penn. With Welding out and Geppert playing close defense, it's forced the Terps to play guys in positions that they otherwise wouldn't play (SSDM Jake Higgins has been picking LSM runs, too). It's had a domino effect on their rope unit. That's led to a lot of the miscommunication and breakdowns. Yet they're finding ways to win. Next week is going to be really good...Yale and Penn St, Cuse and Army, Penn and Duke...those are some Top 25 clarifying games.

It's likely that Maryland's entire season will come down to Justin Shockey at the FOGO spot. Gallagher was 21-27 last season against the Terps. Shockey battled him to 17-35. Maryland's offense is too good if they're going to equal or more possessions. They're like PSU in that regard.

[ICGrad]

And here I thought my dropping Hopkins would be more controversial!

I'll be honest: I'm a little surprised you dropped them from #7 on your week 1 poll to off the top 25 altogether on the basis of losing an early-season rivalry game. I mean, the Towson loss didn't help JH, but losing to a perennially-strong Loyola team hardly seems worthy of an 18+ spot drop in the polls, no matter how mediocre JHU looked.

... They don't look like a team that can beat any of their next 3 opponents...

We'll see. I'm not 100% bought in on UNC yet, and Princeton? Sure, Hopkins could beat Princeton. It's so early in the season yet that teams are still trying to figure everything out; February is a month filled with head-scratching results (like UMass getting blown out by Army, then beating a seemingly strong OSU squad). Honestly, I would only be mildly surprised if Hopkins was 3-1 heading into the Syracuse showdown.

I had Hopkins in the top 10 after the Towson win and dropped them quite a bit, so I tend to agree with the impulse, just not the severity. But there'll be plenty of time for it all to sort itself out, and JHU certainly has a strong enough schedule that we'll know how good they are pretty quickly.

[The Orfling]

Here's the TOP* (*"The Orfling Poll") rankings for me for me after the 2/15 games:

1 UVA Defending champs have not really had to break a sweat yet despite playing two quality opponents to start the season -- never a worry for the Cavaliers in a win over Lehigh. And it's not all about the offense -- UVA continues to have the most ferocious ride in Division 1, giving Lehigh fits on clears (17 for 24 on clears, 23 total turnovers).

2 Penn St. The offense stays red hot -- Penn State is averaging 18 goals a game so far. Tougher tests may loom.

3 Maryland Depth, hustle and enormous heart helped the Terps power to another big comeback, this time over a dangerous UPenn team. Chris Brandau in the cage once again gives the Terps a goalie who can steal a win against a quality opponent.

4 Syracuse Cuse cruises to another win and will face their first big test of 2020 against a red hot Army squad on Feb. 23.

5 UNC The Tarheels disposed of Lafayette with ease to move to 3-0. It's not a stretch to think they could head into a March 21 matchup with Maryland sitting on a 9-0 record.

6 Army Army positively THROTTLED Rutgers. Great team defense, a budding star in goal in Wyatt Schupler, and expect to see Brendan Nichtern remain a fixture on the Tewaaraton watch list this season. Maybe they'll come down to earth, but for now, they've earned their top 10 spot and could sneak into the top 5 soon.

7 UPenn UPenn didn't quite have the depth to hold on against Maryland and lost a heartbreaker, 17-15. But the Quakers are big, fast and mean and will do even more damage as the season progresses.

8 Yale Although Yale beat Villanova and Penn lost to Maryland during Week 2, I can't see bumping the Elis up over Penn yet -- Yale's offense looks in mid-season form but the defense (especially given the unavailability of the starting goalie and starting close D man and pre-season 3d team AA pick Aidan Hynes) is a still a work in progress. Yale will face a Penn State team next week eager for revenge after a 2019 season in which Yale handed the Nittany Lions their only losses and derailed a legitimate PSU national championship bid.

9 Notre Dame Notre Dame may well deserve a ranking in or near the top 5 as the season goes on, but a blow-out win over Cleveland State doesn't tell us anything. Notre Dame will have to play a non-tomato can before we can see what they've got.

10 Cornell Strong opening game win for Cornell over Albany. Most heartening for Big Red fans? The Cornell three-headed monster at FOGO (senior Tim Rasimowicz, sophomore Aussie product Tim Graham, freshman Angelo Petrakis, the Pride of Massapequa) collectively went 66% at the X on the day.

11 Loyola Decisive win (it was not as close as the score indicated) against Hopkins. Goalie Sam Shafer (15 saves against Hopkins) continues to look very strong; Savio is a good FOGO; and Lindley and Olmstead are generating some points.

12 Duke Good win over Denver with aggressive defense (7 caused turnovers), the edge at the X, and balanced scoring for the Blue Devils. As always, Danowski's teams don't seem thrown by an early loss.

13 Denver Denver lost a close one to Duke. It was a tough day in the cage for the DU netminders, with a 29% save percentage. Bill Tierney pulled the starter at halftime so questions in that department remain for DU. Pios still look like a contender for the Big East this season.

14 Richmond Maybe Richmond was a little gassed after losing a heartbreaker to Maryland but they had trouble putting a frisky Marist squad away; they eventually emerged with a 13-11 win. Next up: a Navy squad coming off an easy 19-3 win over Furman.

15 Georgetown The Hoyas stay undefeated with a win over UMBC on the strength of a 7 point day from Jake Carroway and a dominant 19 for 24 day at the X by FOGO James Reilly. Still hard to tell how good GU is until they face some tougher competition.

16 Lehigh After getting off to a slow start (down 1-6 at the end of 1Q), Lehigh dug in and made a game of it against Virginia. They should be able to improve their clears (17 of 24) and cut down on turnovers (23) against a team other than the National Champs. Conor Gaffney on the face-offs will give them plenty of possessions.

17 UMass After getting shellacked by Army, plenty (including yours truly) wrote off UMass. They bounced back this week with an upset on the road over Ohio State. Great team defense (Ohio State had only 21 shots on goal) and a big day in the goal for Matt Knote helped UMass hold the Buckeyes to an Unlucky 7 goals in the contest.

18 Hopkins The info we got from having another week of games in the books made UMass's loss to Army less of a blemish but also took the polish off of Hopkins's opening win over Towson (Towson struggled with a loss to Mount St. Mary). Hop took it on the chin in a 10-7 loss to Loyola that wasn't as close as the score indicated. Bad news for the Jays: superstar Joey Epstein played, but was nowhere near his 2019 pre-injury form, at least on Saturday. Loyola's a good team, so the Jays stay in the top 20 for now.

19 Ohio State I considered dropping the Buckeyes from my top 20, but not quite ready to pull the trigger on that yet. Ohio State is better than they looked in their loss to UMass, but if they don't get their FOGO star Inacio back from injury this may be a tougher campaign than anticipated.

20 Air Force Academy The Falcons hang on the final spot in the top 20, just barely -- the same way they beat Utah.

[molo]

Just sent mine in with no particularly radical picks. As noted earlier, teams that have not played more than one game, such as the Ivies and ND, are underrated at this point, but I feel a need to recognize teams that are 3-0 even if they are probably not as talented as say, Penn. Next weekend refine things.