[OT] Lax - it's a whole new ballgame...

Cornell crushed Brown 14-4 in Providence today, and thus finishes 5-1 in conference. This gives the Big Red its first share of an Ivy title since 1987, thanks to Princeton's 13-6 home loss to Dartmouth today.

Princeton and Dartmouth each have their Ivy finales next weekend, and both are at home (Princeton hosts Brown, while Dartmouth takes on Harvard). Here are the scenarios:

P/B H/D   Champ                AQ
 P   D    Cor, Pri, Drt        ???
 P   H    Cor, Pri             Princeton
 B   D    Cor, Drt             Cornell
 B   H    Cor                  Cornell

If both Princeton and Dartmouth win Saturday, the automatic qualifier is determined by random draw among the three tied teams.



Post Edited (04-26-03 15:52)

Forgive the ignorance, but I suppose I have to learn at some point...

How many teams go to the NCAA tourney for lacrosse? And if we don't get the AQ, can we get an at-large bid?



Post Edited (04-26-03 16:08)

As in hockey, the lacrosse championship expands to 16 this year, up from 12. Nine of the 16 bids go to at-large teams.

As for whether we can get an at-large bid, that's a murkier question, especially because the lacrosse selection criteria are much more subjective than those for hockey. The dossier on the 9-4 Big Red:

Wins: Colgate, Canisius, Penn State, @ Yale, Penn, Harvard, @ Dartmouth, @ Brown, Hobart

Losses: vs. Georgetown, @ Hofstra, @ Syracuse, Princeton

I don't think this bodes well for our at-large chances, because the big thing seems to be wins against quality teams. The win at Dartmouth seems to be the only one that really fits that bill. Combine that with the four losses (none of which was particularly close), and it doesn't look very encouraging.



Post Edited (05-03-03 13:47)

Random draw? That sounds fair.

Apparently Hartofilis didn't play for Princeton--suspended for some kind of team rule violation. Two other Princeton starters were injured as was their face-off guy, but this still doesn't explain the incredible Dartmouth romp.

Best to hope for a Dartmouth win next week. I don't think Brown can contain what will be a really ticked Princeton team.

The draw does seem like a bad way to break a tie, but it only comes into play because a number of other tiebreakers are exhausted. As "Retired03" explained on the LaxPower forum:

[Q]...there are tie breakers in the Ivy League for NCAA AQ (but not for the league title).

However, the first NCAA tie breaker is head to head which will not yield a winner here because each team has beaten one of the others. The second breaker is the record against the remaining teams in the Ivy league in descending order in the final standings which, assumining (as I did) that Princeton and Dartmouth win next week, will not yield a winner, because all three teams have beaten each of the remaining teams. After that the tie is broken by a drawing conducted by the Executive Director of the Ivy League.[/Q]

The three games between Cornell, Princeton, and Dartmouth were remarkably similar. All were won by the road team - two of them by eight doals, the other by seven.

Looks like I may have to attend my first lacrosse game ever on Friday. Any game versus Harvard with a title on the line in any sport merits attention in my books...

Key stats: Princeton goalie stops 3 of 16 shots; Dartmouth goalie stops 17 of 23.

In Cornell's win over Dartmouth: Cornell goalie stops 13 of 18; Dartmouth goalie stops 5 of 18.

Same Dartmouth goalie.

i wonder if instead of 'random draw', the conference would select the team that hasn't been in the lax ncaa tourney the longest as the AQ . isn't this the way pac-10 and big-10 used to select their teams for the rose bowl (before BCS)?
in any case, the question may be moot after all. we just have to wait and see.
go brown! beat princeton!

Al wrote: "Apparently Hartofilis didn't play for Princeton--suspended for some kind of team rule violation. Two other Princeton starters were injured as was their face-off guy."

All true, but it's also worth noting that Dartmouth played without its leading scorer, attackman Jamie Coffin (Greenwich, CT), one of the nation's best freshmen -- and source of about a fifth of Dartmouth's point production.

It has been a dreadful year for the league, and Dartmouth is the only team that can claim that the 2003 season exceeded expectations.

I think Matt's right about Cornell chances of getting an at-large bid. Doesn't look good. It seems that the Committee's first criterion is wins over teams that finish the season in the top 15 slots of the RPI rankings. I gather they'll be clustered into three groups, 1-5, 6-10, and 10-15, with different (and unspecified?) rewards for each level. Cornell has two wins over teams that have prayers of finishing the season in those slots: Penn State and Dartmouth, and they're both currently occupying low-reward 10-15 slots in the RPI. I think there might've been a chance that Penn State could've sneaked into a 1-5 position in the RPI, but that's out the window now -- they might even finish the season with a losing record. It's AQ or die, I reckon.

Cornell's performance in its four biggest games of the season -- Georgetown, Hofstra, Syracuse, and Princeton -- was beyond disappointing. I don' know if this team deserves the Ivy AQ. At any rate, I'm not getting my hopes up for no damned 33% shot.

So let's talk next year. 2004 will be a freaky transitional season for the league. This year's Princeton team had the most senior-laden roster I've ever seen in any college sport ever (which, by the way, makes the poor recent performances against Dartmouth and Loyola all the more mysterious). Yes, they get Boyle and Donegar back, but they lose almost everything else. That doesn't mean they'll suck. They're too well-coached. But the door is open. Problem is, can Cornell -- or anybody else in the Ivies other than up-and-comers Dartmouth -- step into it?

Next year, Cornell loses (in order of impact) McClay, Schalk, Sands, Haswell the elder, Viola, and a few others (am I forgetting someone?). It's hard to assess Cornell's recruiting class, because it's continuing the recent trend of more and more private school kids -- a source that I just don't know well. But I think it's safe to say that the two most important recruits are goalies: Matt McMonagle of Episcopal Academy in the Philadelphia area and Ethan Vedder of downstate powerhouse Yorktown. Washington & Lee transfer Brandon Ross was heroic in a few games this year, and he kept improving. But the goalie situation was, to put it as nicely as possible, problematic. I wish some of the young close defenders had showed a little more this year. Then I'd feel that we had a shot. We'll see if guys like Pisco will step up. But I'm not gonna count on it.

I was at Schoellkopf last night for CU's 15-6 win vs. Hobart. 9-1 at the half, and was never really close.

Dartmouth beat Harvard 5-4 last night, to clinch the share of their first Ivy title since 1965.

The Brown-Princeton game should be happening right now, but Princeton's broadcast is a subscription service. A Princeton loss gives Cornell the AQ. A Princeton win forces a random draw between Cornell, Dartmouth, and Princeton for the AQ at 7 pm tonight.

Princeton has not lost back-to-back Ivy games since 1989. Last week's loss was their 4th Ivy loss since 1991. The other 3 times, they won the following Ivy game by an average of 12 goals.

Edit: According to the LaxPower forum, the score is 6-1 Princeton at halftime.



Post Edited (05-03-03 13:08)

Rich Hovorka '96 wrote:
Edit: According to the LaxPower forum, the score is 6-1 Princeton at halftime.
Post Edited (05-03-03 13:08)

Surprised it isn't worse. Brown's got some real problems.

I think the "drawing" is our only hope for the tournament.

In case you're wondering about lax's selection process, I found the 2003 handbook, it's essentially the following:

Select and seed teams based on won-lost record, strength of schedule, and eligibility of student athletes.

When evaluating W-L record and SoS, the committee can use the following primary factors as determined by RPI (in priority order):
1) results against teams in decending order, as determined by the column "normal RPI rank" (eg. teams 1-5, teams 6-10, teams 11-15, etc)
2) SoS based on opponent's rankings in RPI.
3) "Normal RPI rank", as determined by the whole D-I schedule (essentially, RPI)

If that doesn't yield a decision, the committee can use the following criteria (in priority order):
1) Head to head
2) Results against common opponents

Source ("page" 12): [www.ncaa.org]

So, essential, since the criteria are in priority order, and the first one is essentially record against the best teams ("Quality Win Factor". The best team we have a win over is #17 Dartmouth, with loses to #6 and #7 (Princeton and Syracuse) (as of right now), it doesn't look particularly good.

We're #10 in RPI, so if we happen to survive primary criteria #1, we have a shot, but the committee seems to love that one, so it ain't a great shot. Someone who has following this for longer than 15 minutes, feel free to let me know if I'm off somewhere

Edit: those rankings are actually the overall "Coaches-Computer Ranking". Can't find RPI on lax power

Edit #2: Found it here - [www.vaporia.com] . But it's about the same picture. 0-2 agains top 5 (Princeton #3, Georgetown #5). 0-2 against 6-10 (Hofstra #7, Syracuse #8), and 1-0 against 11-15 (Dartmouth #11). At least we have that #11 win, but we still gotta survive two 0-2s to get to it.



Post Edited (05-03-03 14:40)

Princeton 11 Brown 3

1 in 3 chance of the AQ. I don't have much hope for an at-large selection.

Rich Hovorka '96 wrote:

Princeton 11 Brown 3

1 in 3 chance of the AQ. I don't have much hope for an at-large selection.

Let's go RANDOM CHANCE!!!

So do you think Princeton wants the AQ, or do you think that they want an Ivy colleague to join them?

Dartmouth wins the men's draw and gets the automatic bid.

[www.ivyleaguesports.com]



Post Edited (05-03-03 19:40)

The worst possible outcome for CU's chances.

Ah well. I guess we should be glad it wasn't wasted on Princeton, although Dartmouth probably had a shot at getting an at-large bid in the wacky world of NCAA lacrosse, where their "quality win" over Princeton would have mattered more than their #11 RPI ranking.

Oh, well...not unexpected, but still disappointing:

[www.ncaasports.com]

< rant >Alright, I've been trying not to do this, but I just can't. Is it me, or does the lax selection criteria make NO SENSE. As with hockey, it's objective, so it's fair in as far as everyone knows what they're dealing with from the start of the year, but it's really messed up.

Making quality wins pretty much the sole selection factor just doesn't make sense to me. First of all, it totally screws over teams who aren't able to schedule the upper teams on a given year. Secondly, it just doesn't make any sense. We were #10 in RPI. We lost to everyone we played who was higher than 10, and we beat everyone we played who was less than 10. That seems pretty good proof to me that we *are* a #10 team, and, as such, would deserve to be in a 16 team tournament (unless there are more than 6 autobids that were below the 16 team mark). However, since we never "won up", we don't get picked. Well, in theory, a true #10 team never should win up.

Imagine if we had beaten Princeton, Syracuse, Hofstra, and Georgetown, but lost to Yale, Brown, Hobart, and Harvard. We'd have the same exact record, which plenty questionable losses, but we'd be a LOCK for the tournament.

It also makes no sense whatsoever to use RPI as a way to pick teams 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, yet completely ignore RPI as far as selection which teams get in. If RPI is good enough to show who the top 10 teams are as far as "quality wins" go, then why isn't it good enough to pick the top 16ish teams for the tournament?

Man these guys are screwed up. < / rant >

Kinda makes you thankful you're a hockey fan, doesn't it?

They certainly are screwed up. The selection show was scheduled for 8:00 - it didn't go off until 8:45. Not only that, a bracket was posted on the NCAA website at 7:30 - and it was the wrong bracket.

As for the ratings. For those interested, the RPI is available at [www.vaporia.com] . CU finished #12 in the final RPI, and in fact beat one team ranked above it (Penn State at #11), while not losing to anyone ranked below. Using the RPI alone to pick the nine at-large teams, Cornell is the last team out (the nine teams selected are the ones that did in fact get in).

I've also been calculating KRACH-style ratings for this season. I call them the Z-Ratings (after Zermelo), because "KRACH" specifically implies hockey. They are at [www.people.cornell.edu] . Cornell finished #12 in these ratings as well. If the nine at-large teams had been picked solely on those rankings, Cornell is the last team in (instead of Penn State - the other eight selections match the actual picks). In fact, the top four teams in the Z's match the four seeds.

And were the criteria followed? [forums.laxpower.com] gives a table of the quality wins of teams in the at-large pool (scroll down to see it). "jhu72" put it well:

[q]This table presents one glaring problem for the committee, if they consider a top 5 win, better than any number of top 10 wins, then Princeton or UMASS won't go to the tournament. This is not likely. 0-3-1 UMASS and Princeton will likely be placed ahead of all teams that are 1-0-0.[/q]

That was exactly what happened.

The big problem with the lacrosse criteria is the valuation of specific games over others as a primary criterion, as Fred alluded to. The hockey PWR does contain a sort of "quality win" criterion (the record against TUCs, as well as the new bonus points), but they are not the overriding factor in the consideration of teams for selection. Even the people in charge of hoops selection allude to evaluating the "body of work" of a team.

Hockey may not have a perfect system, or even a really great one, but the one we do have isn't that bad.

[Q]As for the ratings. For those interested, the RPI is available at [www.vaporia.com]... . CU finished #12 in the final RPI, and in fact beat one team ranked above it (Penn State at #11), while not losing to anyone ranked below. Using the RPI alone to pick the nine at-large teams, Cornell is the last team out (the nine teams selected are the ones that did in fact get in).[/Q]
There are 16 teams in the tournament, there are 7 auto-bids. That's implying that *every* auto-bid went to a team below #9, is that accurate?
Edit: Actually, it's implying that 7 of the 9 did.

[Q]The big problem with the lacrosse criteria is the valuation of specific games over others as a primary criterion, as Fred alluded to. The hockey PWR does contain a sort of "quality win" criterion (the record against TUCs, as well as the new bonus points), but they are not the overriding factor in the consideration of teams for selection. Even the people in charge of hoops selection allude to evaluating the "body of work" of a team.

Hockey may not have a perfect system, or even a really great one, but the one we do have isn't that bad.[/Q]
Exactly. I think hockey's is very good, but lacrosse makes it look awesome. Hell, it even makes bouncy ball's look good. Lax looks at one thing and one thing only. I would say their system is okay if the top three "primary criteria" were given equal weight. Instead, by giving a "priority order", and having criteria which have enough variation to be high unlikely to be tied, you never get past the first one.

This is a scenario I realized last night, and was very close to actually happening this year. Say we have 0-0-2 quality wins (0 against 1-5, 0 against 6-10, 2 against 11-15) and we're competeing for a bid against a team that's 0-0-3 . Now, we're ranked 10 (which we were through Friday), and we beat #11 (Dartmouth through Friday). This means, had we LOST one more non-quality win game, we'd probably flip places with 11, and we'd have a better record of 0-1-1 , which will likely beat 0-0-3. So you can actually improve your chances by losing! I know any objective system with hard cutoffs is going to have some oddities, but by solely relying on one criteria, and such a imperfect one as this, leads to some seriously messed up possibilities.



Post Edited (05-05-03 11:40)

The participants, with RPI rankings:

Automatic qualifiers:
6 - Georgetown (ECAC)
8 - Towson (Colonial)
13 - Dartmouth (Ivy League)
21 - Ohio State (Great Western)
22 - Albany (America East)
26 - Army (Patriot)
37 - Mount St. Mary's (Metro Atlantic)

At-large berths:
1 - Virginia
2 - Johns Hopkins
3 - Maryland
4 - Princeton
5 - Massachusetts
7 - Syracuse
9 - Hofstra
10 - Rutgers
11 - Penn State



Post Edited (05-05-03 12:14)

The field is 1 through 11 plus autobids, right? If this is true, then there is no cause for complaint (other than the generic opposition to RPI-as-oracle).

[Q]The field is 1 through 11 plus autobids, right? If this is true, then there is no cause for complaint (other than the generic opposition to RPI-as-oracle).[/Q]
There is no cause for saying we got screwed. Note I've never said we got screwed, merely that the system sucks and has plenty of potential for screwing people over. I think this year is an example of "even a broken clock is right twice a day."