LaxPower Back-Up Stick

My top 20 with (much shorter) reasoning:

1. Yale (ugly win over PSU, but a win -- on top of a win over a good Villanova team)
2. Syracuse (undefeated; great second half against a good Army team)
3. UNC (undefeated; convincing win over Hopkins)
4. Notre Dame (convincing win over a good Richmond team)
5. Penn State (down 3 spots after a loss to Yale)
6. UVA (down 5 spots after a loss to Princeton)
7. Princeton (debuts in the top 10 with a 3-0 record and the win over the defending champs)
8. Maryland (down 5 spots; midweek loss to Villanova and a cancellation on Saturday postponed the rebound game)
9. Cornell (Big Red face-off spot has looked good and they are off to a great 3-0 start)
10. UPenn (was able to beat Duke even without injured midfield star Sam Handley)
11. Loyola (closed strong down the stretch to pull out the win against Rutgers)
12. Georgetown (+33 goal differential in first 3 games, still haven't been tested yet by the schedule)
13. Villanova (Wildcats followed up their upset win over Maryland with a good win over a solid Hofstra team)
14. Richmond (can compete with any team; still looking for that signature non-conference win this year)
15. Lehigh (ranking may be a little high; we'll know more when they play Army and Loyola in league play)
16. Denver (3-1 with a big 3-game stretch coming up against UNC, Notre Dame and Ohio State)
17. Army (still a dangerous team, but a bad loss to Marist and a loss to Syracuse drop them in the rankings)
18. Ohio State (road win over Bucknell -- is this a top 20 team? Brutal stretch of the schedule coming up will tell us more)
19. Duke (tough schedule; will they stay a .500 team or can they trend upward?)
20. Marist (bumped Hopkins for the last spot on the strength of a big win over Army)

21 if I went that far: Hopkins (under .500 but has a chance to impress with upcoming games against Princeton and Syracuse)

The FanLax Computer Rankings are all but ready to go. And we fully plan to include the Computer Rankings in the Forum Rankings. But, before we do, I want to make sure that nobody has a brain hemorrhage when they see the rankings. The Computer Rankings currently are based on each team's 1 Best Win and 3 Worst Losses. (As the season progresses, the ranking's will be based on each team's 3 Best Wins and 3 Worst Losses.) As a consequence, some teams that are undeniably good, based on their Best W and Ls, aren't so highly ranked. Personally, I love that the rankings are a pure meritocracy. e.g. JHU doesn't get a pass because they're JHU. Currently, JHU's Best Win is over a win-less Towson team that lost to St. Mary's. JHU needs a better win before we can say they truly earned their ranking. And JHU will do exactly this in their near future. But, until then, no brain hemorrhages.

Also, I want to remind people that we said that all Polls, no matter how gratuitous, would be respected as long as the Poll was relatively rationally explained. Though I'm sure we'll have more explaining to do, this is our preliminary relatively rational explanation.

Biggest changes based on combination of higher ranked teams losing and/or quality wins.
I think that head-to-head is important at this point in the season so Princeton above Virginia and Villanova above Maryland. Probably have Penn too high and Maryland too low, but games this week will help calibrate those teams. Same with North Carolina, Notre Dame, Cornell and Duke.
Penn up to 5 from 8
Princeton up to 6 from not ranked
Syracuse up to 3 from 6
Villanova up to 10 from 17
Marist up to 15 from not ranked
Saint Joseph's up to 23 from not ranked
Virginia down to 8 from 4
Maryland down to 11 from 3
Delaware down to 24 from 12 (edited 2/26)
UMass down to 25
High Point dropped
Air Force dropped

Top games this week
Maryland v Notre Dame
Princeton v Johns Hopkins
Penn v Penn State
Ohio State v Cornell
Denver v North Carolina
Duke v Richmond
Syracuse v Hobart

FanLax’s D1 Men Forum Polls

The FanLax Forum Rankings are an amalgamation of the Rankings of the FanLax Forum Poll-ers (below).

http://fanlax.com/fanlax/2020/02/25/fan ... rum-polls/

My top twenty to date

1) ND- best balanced team until others lift
2) Cornell-maybe best offense in game, improved fogo play
3)Yale- Ierlan, attack but improvements needed
4)UNC- Gray makes a diff, good goalie, improved d
5) UVA- loss is healthy, still be cream of acc by season end
6) PSU- much praise, now beat Yale for once
7) Cuse- until they play 4q's, transition game?
8) Princeton-more than just Sowers
9) Maryland- top tier offense ,d needs to get better
10) Loyola- well coached, always in a game
11) Upenn-admire but Handley loss catches up in competitive Ivy League
12) Georgetown- can only beat up who you play
13) Duke- could be top ten by season end but no chips until next class arrives
14) Denver-young team will improve as season progresses
15) Villanova- makes delbarton proud
16) OSU solid, vanilla,
17) Army- still dont get Marist, good squad
18) Lehigh- have talent , will gain traction
19) Marist- please tell me why not?
20) Hobart- can only beat up who you play,

Richmond is one exclusion that bothers , had Maryland but visiting Marist right there and then Spiders trashed by ND. JHU is JHU , hard to exclude but it is what it is at this stage. They can lift dependent on Epstein health and alumni suggestions.

Villanova beats UMD #8, their only losses are to PSU #3 and Yale #1 and Villanova is #15?! How is that...?

On the other hand having them at #3 reflects a need for some programming adjustment.

I disagree. based on Ws and Ls, they rightfully earned that spot. if i told you that UND or SU or any of the top brand names beat UMD and lost to PSU, you'd gladly slip them between PSU and MD. but because it's Villanova, because it's a team that didn't open the preseason rankings with a top ranking, we say, Okay, let's move them up double digit spots but... Not into the PSU/MD range! They're 'nova! First, they need to beat another MD-like team. It's silly...

calourie! You have 'nova at #20! What the heck!!

Hey ! I watched them play two quarters against PSU ( 9 goal loss), the entire Yale game (6 goal loss), and the last third of the Maryland game (which they made a bit of an effort to give away after going up 12-7. I was impressed enough with their 10-8 followup win over Hofstra to elevate them into my top 20, though I admittedly only watched 2 minutes of the game. I do think they are big and athletic, but thin on depth, and no where close to a top five team yet. Keep winning, and they will keep rising. Win over a good Delaware team on Saturday would likely have me jump them above some of the teams ahead of them regardless of the their results, unless those teams also were to have an impressive win.

Alright, I hear you. You do what you do based on an eye test. I get that. that they lost to #1 and #2 and beat #8 (and thus should be somewhere between #3 and #7 or something like this) is almost irrelevant. What matters is how they look. I hear that...

I'm much more obsessed with the numbers, with the Ws and Ls. But then a Connor Fields goes down for a game so Albany loses to (was it UMBC?) a not-top-ranked-team and... It's an L. It wasn't an L but... It's an L. This Albany game is a bit of an outlier but just giving an example where your eyeballs matter. Different iterations of this happen all the time.

Matnum PI wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 2:05 pm Villanova beats UMD #8, their only losses are to PSU #3 and Yale #1 and Villanova is #15?! How is that...?

Awkward time of the year. Some teams have pretty records vs exclusively "non top 20 teams" (UNC, Cornell, G-town, Hob) others have faced an early season gauntlet and have several "nicks and cuts" on their resumes (Nova, Rich, Duke).

Over the next 10-12 days there will be a lot more data on which to base evaluations . . .

NE, for sure true. And come May, we'll know even more than that. But, since it's February... Let me ask it this way, Yale is a solid #1. Literally every human being has them as #1. If Harvard beat them tomorrow, why wouldn't they become the new #1. They're undefeated and they have the Best Win of any other team in D1 Men's Lacrosse. So why wouldn't they be #1? (I'm assuming most, if not all, people would not make them #1.)

Matnum PI wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 2:05 pm Villanova beats UMD #8, their only losses are to PSU #3 and Yale #1 and Villanova is #15?! How is that...?

So, for me...yeah, a decent body of work so far. I considered putting them higher; I bounced Princeton up significantly, for example, based on the win over UVA.

But Princeton didn't have any losses on their docket, and I think the losses do count for something. The Penn State game wasn't real close; I saw (on and off) the second half of the Yale game, but mostly when Yale was taking control of the game.

There were a few teams I was having trouble placing; Villanova was one of those. I think #3 is too high, though. Time will tell; last year, they started 3-1 with a win over defending champs Yale, and finished 8-7. We'll see...

You make a great hypothetical case for Harvard. That said, there is another, similar "real case" with Princeton beating UVA at Klockner.

I can only answer for my own reasoning. I think it takes more than "one game" to move from outside the Top 10 to #1. So pre-season unranked teams like Harvard (or Princeton), need to climb a few steps on the ladder (for my thinking any way). I think I put Princeton at #11 which is a huge leap from #23 the week before but others had them into the Top 5 (& they aren't wrong).

I am trying to establish a "body of work" vs "known entities" (aka a few games, ideally vs Top 20-30 teams). As I said, hard to do with completely different types of early season (1st 3 games) schedules like UNC vs Villanova.

Nice discussion on early season upsets. I think that it hurts the higher ranked team more than helps the lower ranked teams. Maryland dropped down below Villanova for me because they also barely avoided an upset at Richmond.
If Harvard beat Yale tomorrow, I would move Yale down below unbeaten teams and Harvard up above Yale.
It's a war of attrition until the schedules even out. Top games to watch this week:
Maryland v Notre Dame
Princeton v Johns Hopkins
Penn v Penn State
Ohio State v Cornell
Denver v North Carolina
Duke v Richmond
Syracuse v Hobart

ICGrad wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 3:55 pmThere were a few teams I was having trouble placing; Villanova was one of those. I think #3 is too high, though. Time will tell; last year, they started 3-1 with a win over defending champs Yale, and finished 8-7. We'll see...

Make no mistake, I agree. I just post what the Computer spits out. With this said, based on what the computer is programmed to spit otu, Best Wins and Worst Losses, 'nova earned that spot. But, like you're saying, I wouldn't run to Las Vegas with this information.

NElaxtalent wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 3:57 pm I think it takes more than "one game" to move from outside the Top 10 to #1. So pre-season unranked teams like Harvard (or Princeton), need to climb a few steps on the ladder (for my thinking any way). I think I put Princeton at #11 which is a huge leap from #23 the week before but others had them into the Top 5 (& they aren't wrong).

I think that's part of the issue for me. ASAP, I want to get rid of the preseason poll.

laxpere wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 4:23 pmNice discussion on early season upsets. I think that it hurts the higher ranked team more than helps the lower ranked teams. Maryland dropped down below Villanova for me because they also barely avoided an upset at Richmond.

This is a good example. When Air Force beat Duke very early in the season, in theory, this shouldn't be an upset. We all knew it was and a couple weeks later, this has been proven true. But immediately after the game, in theory, it wasn't an upset because... Maybe Air Force is truly a better team than Duke. That's why I want to get rid of the preseason poll ASAP. Because the Air Forces (bad example)... Because the Villanovas of the world shouldn't have to do more than a Maryland, Notre Dame, or otherwise to get a top spot.

Different example, 3 years ago, maybe 4, UVM was winning games against nothing teams. I think at some point they had a pretty good W but even that w was against a B+ team. But, for some reason, the Lacrosse World was sold on UVM. And... I just did not understand it. It was partly based on their AA attackman but... It just seemed to be based much more on marketing and pr than on reality. Bottomline, that UVM team was great for UVM but... This was no where near the team the Lacrosse world was presenting them as. Which is at the heart of my issue with this stuff. (And it's not just with lacrosse. This is everywhere.) The disparity between image and reality and how the former so often wins.

Matnum PI wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 4:27 pm
I think that's part of the issue for me. ASAP, I want to get rid of the preseason poll.

So . . . in 2021 let's not start until 3/1 or 3/15

https://college.lovetoknow.com/campus-l ... -explained

"Unlike the Coaches Poll and the AP Poll that are published from the very beginning of football season, CFP rankings aren't released until mid-season, when teams have had a few months to establish their track records."