NESCAC

[The12lov3]

[/quote]

I defy you to name 1 D3 school that has the budget, resources, size, academic prestige, location, and exposure that Tufts has. Just one. Tufts just flipped a kid from Ohio State, show me 1 D3 school that has the brand capable of doing that.
[/quote]

Child Please - MIT

[InsiderRoll]

I defy you to name 1 D3 school that has the budget, resources, size, academic prestige, location, and exposure that Tufts has. Just one. Tufts just flipped a kid from Ohio State, show me 1 D3 school that has the brand capable of doing that.
[/quote]

Child Please - MIT
[/quote]

MIT gets 0 admissions support and doesn’t even have a single full time assistant. Their budget is likely 1/3 of Tufts budget at best. So location and academics are the only things on par.

Tufts gets in significantly lower academic students than MIT could even suggest apply. Tufts has taken guys with 3.4 GPA and 26 ACTs. MIT has turned down lacrosse players with 36 ACTS. Not even close.

[The12lov3]

I defy you to name 1 D3 school that has the budget, resources, size, academic prestige, location, and exposure that Tufts has. Just one. Tufts just flipped a kid from Ohio State, show me 1 D3 school that has the brand capable of doing that.

Child Please - MIT
[/quote]

MIT gets 0 admissions support and doesn’t even have a single full time assistant. Their budget is likely 1/3 of Tufts budget at best. So location and academics are the only things on par.

Tufts gets in significantly lower academic students than MIT could even suggest apply. Tufts has taken guys with 3.4 GPA and 26 ACTs. MIT has turned down lacrosse players with 36 ACTS. Not even close.
[/quote]

Guess you work in admission at MIT and Tufts. Where else do you work?

[pcowlax]

I count zero wins since Daly left.

So...you count two losses in the national semifinals to the eventual national champion? Geez, Tufts should really move on and find a coach who knows how to win!

Tufts is 90-14 with D'Annolfo as HC. 90-14! If not winning a title means a coach is a failure, then sure. I just don't think that's a very good way to look at this.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that. However it is fair to say that Tufts literally gets better players year after year than everyone in D3. They have a full fledge Nike contract better than most Ivys. More academic, admissions, and financial support than every peer school of theirs by a significant margin. When D’Annolfo took over Tufts had been to 3 out of the last 4 national championships. They haven’t been to one since.

It’s like taking Alabama footballs roster for the last 8 years and never making a national championship. Only imagine if Alabama was one of the only schools spending that amount of money to win. That’s essentially what Tufts is.

Tufts get better players because of the coach and the ability to sell the player and the family on the school. Yes he has not been to NC but it takes time even for new coaches that inherit top programs to make it. The 2020 team was pretty special to have the season cut short. To be honest, most programs go to turd after the coach leaves but that has not been the case with Tufts. He get better athlete because of his ability to spot and DEVELOP talent. Jack Boyten is a great example. He developed him into the player that he is and who is arguable the best player at the division 3 level in the country. Yes I said that. There are plenty of schools that have the resources, academics, and location Tufts has and they are NOT perennial d3 powerhouses year in and year out for the last decade. D'Annolfo took the Tafts team from one of the worst teams to one of the best teams in the country. He is a great coach and will eventually prove it to all you naysayers

Don’t want to get in the middle of this except to say that while Daly and D’A both were/are excellent at Tufts, it is ingenious to say there are plenty of schools with the advantages of Tufts. The NESCAC is a massive draw to top lax recruits and Tufts is the only one in a major city (sorry Hartford), by far the biggest and only one with real graduate programs. There are really no schools in D3 with comparable advantages in terms of academics, location, size and sports emphasis. And as for pre-D’Annolfo Taft being “one of the worst teams”…., that is so crazy as to be hard to respond to. In their worst years they were one of the top 1% of high school lax teams in the country. In their best they had won the national championship (ranking of course). They have been more successful after he left than when he was there. He certainly did well and left them in a good place but a school like Taft moves on from a coach like him very quickly.

[pcowlax]

I count zero wins since Daly left.

So...you count two losses in the national semifinals to the eventual national champion? Geez, Tufts should really move on and find a coach who knows how to win!

Tufts is 90-14 with D'Annolfo as HC. 90-14! If not winning a title means a coach is a failure, then sure. I just don't think that's a very good way to look at this.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that. However it is fair to say that Tufts literally gets better players year after year than everyone in D3. They have a full fledge Nike contract better than most Ivys. More academic, admissions, and financial support than every peer school of theirs by a significant margin. When D’Annolfo took over Tufts had been to 3 out of the last 4 national championships. They haven’t been to one since.

It’s like taking Alabama footballs roster for the last 8 years and never making a national championship. Only imagine if Alabama was one of the only schools spending that amount of money to win. That’s essentially what Tufts is.

Tufts get better players because of the coach and the ability to sell the player and the family on the school. Yes he has not been to NC but it takes time even for new coaches that inherit top programs to make it. The 2020 team was pretty special to have the season cut short. To be honest, most programs go to turd after the coach leaves but that has not been the case with Tufts. He get better athlete because of his ability to spot and DEVELOP talent. Jack Boyten is a great example. He developed him into the player that he is and who is arguable the best player at the division 3 level in the country. Yes I said that. There are plenty of schools that have the resources, academics, and location Tufts has and they are NOT perennial d3 powerhouses year in and year out for the last decade. D'Annolfo took the Tafts team from one of the worst teams to one of the best teams in the country. He is a great coach and will eventually prove it to all you naysayers

Don’t want to get in the middle of this except to say that while Daly and D’A both were/are excellent at Tufts, it is ingenious to say there are plenty of schools with the advantages of Tufts. The NESCAC is a massive draw to top lax recruits and Tufts is the only one in a major city (sorry Hartford), by far the biggest and only one with real graduate programs. There are really no schools in D3 with comparable advantages in terms of academics, location, size and sports emphasis. And as for pre-D’Annolfo Taft being “one of the worst teams”…., that is so crazy as to be hard to respond to. In their worst years they were one of the top 1% of high school lax teams in the country. In their best they had won the national championship (ranking of course). They have been more successful after he left than when he was there. He certainly did well and left them in a good place but a school like Taft moves on from a coach like him very quickly.

[smoova]

I defy you to name 1 D3 school that has the budget, resources, size, academic prestige, location, and exposure that Tufts has. Just one. Tufts just flipped a kid from Ohio State, show me 1 D3 school that has the brand capable of doing that.

Child Please - MIT

MIT gets 0 admissions support and doesn’t even have a single full time assistant. Their budget is likely 1/3 of Tufts budget at best. So location and academics are the only things on par.

Tufts gets in significantly lower academic students than MIT could even suggest apply. Tufts has taken guys with 3.4 GPA and 26 ACTs. MIT has turned down lacrosse players with 36 ACTS. Not even close.

Guess you work in admission at MIT and Tufts. Where else do you work?

It doesn't take employment at the schools to know this information, it just takes a passing familiarity with the respective recruits over the last ~5 years. IME, @InsiderRoll is exactly correct - Tufts is able to admit players that received negative pre-reads from other NESCACs, let alone MIT. Doesn't mean that Tufts has inferior academics/team/coach, just means it has (or chooses to direct) more resources (financial, systemic and otherwise) to support the lacrosse program.

[NNELax]

Being a contemporary of both coaches (played against both club and college) I can say Casey and Tyler do an excellent job at their respective institutions. What Tyler has done has been simply magical tbh...He can teach a master class in doing more with less...Casey has kept the Tufts horde moving along as national contenders and I suspect it will not be long before he adds a trophy or two to his office...

[Unknown Participant]

I defy you to name 1 D3 school that has the budget, resources, size, academic prestige, location, and exposure that Tufts has. Just one. Tufts just flipped a kid from Ohio State, show me 1 D3 school that has the brand capable of doing that.

Child Please - MIT

MIT gets 0 admissions support and doesn’t even have a single full time assistant. Their budget is likely 1/3 of Tufts budget at best. So location and academics are the only things on par.

Tufts gets in significantly lower academic students than MIT could even suggest apply. Tufts has taken guys with 3.4 GPA and 26 ACTs. MIT has turned down lacrosse players with 36 ACTS. Not even close.

Guess you work in admission at MIT and Tufts. Where else do you work?

It doesn't take employment at the schools to know this information, it just takes a passing familiarity with the respective recruits over the last ~5 years. IME, @InsiderRoll is exactly correct - Tufts is able to admit players that received negative pre-reads from other NESCACs, let alone MIT. Doesn't mean that Tufts has inferior academics/team/coach, just means it has (or chooses to direct) more resources (financial, systemic and otherwise) to support the lacrosse program.

I might agree w a couple, e.g., Williams and Amherst, would not agree with most/all others.

[DeepPocket]

I defy you to name 1 D3 school that has the budget, resources, size, academic prestige, location, and exposure that Tufts has. Just one. Tufts just flipped a kid from Ohio State, show me 1 D3 school that has the brand capable of doing that.

Child Please - MIT

MIT gets 0 admissions support and doesn’t even have a single full time assistant. Their budget is likely 1/3 of Tufts budget at best. So location and academics are the only things on par.

Tufts gets in significantly lower academic students than MIT could even suggest apply. Tufts has taken guys with 3.4 GPA and 26 ACTs. MIT has turned down lacrosse players with 36 ACTS. Not even close.

Guess you work in admission at MIT and Tufts. Where else do you work?

It doesn't take employment at the schools to know this information, it just takes a passing familiarity with the respective recruits over the last ~5 years. IME, @InsiderRoll is exactly correct - Tufts is able to admit players that received negative pre-reads from other NESCACs, let alone MIT. Doesn't mean that Tufts has inferior academics/team/coach, just means it has (or chooses to direct) more resources (financial, systemic and otherwise) to support the lacrosse program.

True. InsideRoll typically knows his “inner-working” stuff, but true to form he also typically attacks other successful lacrosse programs’ academics after a W&L loss...

[UpperCorner22]

Sorry to interrupt the Tufts Chat Room, but...

Chris Newport 14 - Williams 8
Amherst 17 - WNE 9
Trinity 9 - Coast Guard 8

Thoughts?

[InsiderRoll]

You don’t have to look much further than the AD tufts hired to see their commitment to winning. Most NESCAC ADs are former coaches with D3 backgrounds. Tufts went out and hired a D1 interim AD, with experience at multiple power 5 schools including as a senior associate AD in the pac-12. They’re playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.

[ergit]

You don’t have to look much further than the AD tufts hired to see their commitment to winning. Most NESCAC ADs are former coaches with D3 backgrounds. Tufts went out and hired a D1 interim AD, with experience at multiple power 5 schools including as a senior associate AD in the pac-12. They’re playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.

lol…

[JumboFan4]

You don’t have to look much further than the AD tufts hired to see their commitment to winning. Most NESCAC ADs are former coaches with D3 backgrounds. Tufts went out and hired a D1 interim AD, with experience at multiple power 5 schools including as a senior associate AD in the pac-12. They’re playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.

Enough with the sour grapes, dude. The decision by Tufts to ramp up their athletics program is a relatively new phenomena. When I attended Tufts the facilities were among the worst in the league. And yes, the school is on the doorstep of Boston with the new Green Line, but Medford/Somerville isn't particularly picturesque (think Departed rather than Good Will Hunting). Historically, the area was a more blue collar and it's only recently become a yuppie hotspot of sorts. The university has also seemingly taken a more deliberate approach by buying real estate around campus and rehabbing the area, but the school has largely benefitted from the rising economic tide of the greater Boston area. Furthermore, I don't think you're fairly characterizing the schools in the rest of the league, as Amherst and Williams, for example, have large endowments that prioritize athletics (see Director's Cup wins) massively and probably spend more per student than any other school in D3. If the state of athletics and lacrosse at Tufts is better than it's ever been, then good. It's about damn time.

[InsiderRoll]

It’s not really sour grapes. I admire a lot of what they do. But to not acknowledge their university wide commitment to winning and combined resources unlike what most have is foolish. The results they are getting are exactly aligned with the resources they put into it. All I did was present facts and everyone seems extremely upset about my acknowledgment of those facts.

[InsiderRoll]

It’s not really sour grapes. I admire a lot of what they do. But to not acknowledge their university wide commitment to winning and combined resources unlike what most have is foolish. The results they are getting are exactly aligned with the resources they put into it. All I did was present facts and everyone seems extremely upset about my acknowledgment of those facts.

Amherst is a great example of the inverse. Yes they have all the same resources except location of Tufts. However in the last 4 years they’ve scaled back on much of their admissions support. JT was aggressive and had admissions in his back pocket. While he was there every minority and legacy didn’t count against any bands. Now they all do. And his influence in admissions got the university to try and blackball him of false racial claims. Their basketball program and football programs has fallen off the shelf as a result as well.

Mike Murphy had admissions at Haverford wrapped around his fingers to the point where after he left for Penn they re did the structure for all athletic support.

Tufts keeps their admin and faculty in line with with the athletics mission better than any school in D3. It’s run from a D1 point of view and vision. It’s refreshing to see, but it’s simply not the case from their peer schools.

I believe I’m acknowledging with much admiration the unity and direction their school has taken to intercollegiate athletics. Not complaining. This was a commitment they made in the early to mid 2000s and it’s paid dividends now. Their ability not to be sheep in the NESCAC is paying dividends 20 years later.

[Laxxal22]

Most impressive thing Tufts has done in my opinion is somehow having cool looking uniforms despite having to incorporate the color brown. The turnaround of that school, its athletics, and that area of greater Boston over the past 25 years is pretty amazing. They also play a really fun brand of lacrosse.

Amherst was brought up as an inverse, and I'd toss Midd in there as well. They still care about women's athletics but tough sledding for the men's sports, especially the more traditional "prep school" sports. They won 8 national titles (5 hockey, 3 lacrosse) in an eight year span, but those two programs combined have only finished over .500 maybe four times in the past decade. Kind of a bummer.

[smoova]

It doesn't take employment at the schools to know this information, it just takes a passing familiarity with the respective recruits over the last ~5 years. IME, @InsiderRoll is exactly correct - Tufts is able to admit players that received negative pre-reads from other NESCACs, let alone MIT. Doesn't mean that Tufts has inferior academics/team/coach, just means it has (or chooses to direct) more resources (financial, systemic and otherwise) to support the lacrosse program.

I might agree w a couple, e.g., Williams and Amherst, would not agree with most/all others.

I have direct knowledge of this situation existing with respect to two additional NESCACs during the 2021 and 2022 recruiting classes, but you're absolutely correct that I should have specified that (IME) the admissions advantage only exists with respect to ~4 other NESCACs.

[JaxsonGrey68]

Most impressive thing Tufts has done in my opinion is somehow having cool looking uniforms despite having to incorporate the color brown. The turnaround of that school, its athletics, and that area of greater Boston over the past 25 years is pretty amazing. They also play a really fun brand of lacrosse.

Amherst was brought up as an inverse, and I'd toss Midd in there as well. They still care about women's athletics but tough sledding for the men's sports, especially the more traditional "prep school" sports. They won 8 national titles (5 hockey, 3 lacrosse) in an eight year span, but those two programs combined have only finished over .500 maybe four times in the past decade. Kind of a bummer.

Williams and Amherst with their respective endowments of $4.3 and $3.7b could have James Cameron directing and James Earl Jones doing the voice overs of their hype videos if these so choose. They obviously make different decisions and you cannot blame Tufts, as much as you might want to, for going in that direction.

That being said, I do find it interesting that they are in the league just based on the size of the school and their academic offerings which are totally different than the other schools in the league, and at some level give them a bit of an advantage.

[Dinah]

Most impressive thing Tufts has done in my opinion is somehow having cool looking uniforms despite having to incorporate the color brown. The turnaround of that school, its athletics, and that area of greater Boston over the past 25 years is pretty amazing. They also play a really fun brand of lacrosse.

Amherst was brought up as an inverse, and I'd toss Midd in there as well. They still care about women's athletics but tough sledding for the men's sports, especially the more traditional "prep school" sports. They won 8 national titles (5 hockey, 3 lacrosse) in an eight year span, but those two programs combined have only finished over .500 maybe four times in the past decade. Kind of a bummer.

Hockey is a bad comp IMO. Would think about a lot of the talent a school like RIT gets in lacrosse that couldn't sniff a NESCAC academically (not meant to be an RIT knock here); DIII hockey to my understanding is that ratcheted up to a significantly higher degree. If you look at the precipitous decline of Middlebury hockey, the only NESCAC school that's been able to replace that presence on the national scene in a meaningful way is Trinity, and that presence over the last ~5 years is significantly below the impact that the NESCAC conference overall has on most DIII sports.

Take a spin through the Hobart hockey roster (2023 nat'l champs) and then take a look at Trinity's... one of these things is not like the other.

That said, this isn't a hockey forum (and I'm admittedly not a DIII hockey expert), so apologies for the off-topic tangent.

[pcowlax]

Sorry to interrupt the Tufts Chat Room, but...

Chris Newport 14 - Williams 8
Amherst 17 - WNE 9
Trinity 9 - Coast Guard 8

Thoughts?

About what expected with the Amherst score. Coast Guard isn't very good this year, nice for Trinity to get a close win, most of the games they do manage to win this year will probably not be competitive (though Colby should be a good game). Williams was within 1 at the end of the 3rd before CNU put a few in in the 4th. Much more competitive than last year on an extremely long road trip. Good for them for scheduling that game. Tufts-Midd, Bowdoin-Amherst looks like great games on Saturday and will go a long way towards determining tourney seeding.