[Lax] *LINKS*

"LAX-LINK USER's GUIDE"

There are various lacrosse-related links scattered around this (eLF) forum. I thought I'd offer a convenient location where folks could post links and access sites.


Here's what I've come up with:


R.I.P., CLUSA!

The closest thing lacrosse had to an USCHO-quality site was the old "College Lacrosse U.S.A." (CLUSA) site. That was a great overall site for lax info. Alas, CLUSA morphed into the current 360Lacrosse.com. It's a big site, with lots of... well... "stuff", but it's a pain in the ass to use. It's complicated, overloaded with gimmicks (gives my computer indigestion), not very well updated, and -- a major gripe with me -- it mingles men's, women's, and non-NCAA information together. AAAARRRGGH!!! I don't like reading a headline and getting all excited about a monumental upset, only to find out that it was a women's score...

So, for what it's worth (and I think it's more trouble than it's worth)... there's 360Lacrosse.com:

----> 360Lacrosse.com: [www.360lacrosse.com]


For an easy-to-use source of scores & stats (including team stats), I like lax.com:

----> lax.com: [www.lax.com]


(You want some serious in-depth analysis of a game? Check out the post (on the page at the link above) from a lax.com contributor describing, virtually play-by-play, the Cornell-Hahvahd game. Wow. I dare you to try to read the whole thing! (They only have stories on a few games per week -- we "made the cut" this week.) The article also comes with a bunch of cool pictures from the game!)

Direct link to the full C.U.-Hahvahd story: [www.lax.com]


For a listing of scores (Division I men ONLY, no distractions!), with links to box scores, lax.com has this page:

----> SCORES @ lax.com: [www.lax.com]


[*] Another source of scores is InsideLacrosse (they also have a message board):

----> SCORES @ InsideLacrosse: [www.insidelacrosse.com]


For up-to-date national statistical rankings of teams and players in various major stat-categories (at lax.com):

----> STATS @ lax.com: [www.lax.com]

(I'm not sure about this "Goalie Ratings" system that they use -- the rating is the product of "(save %) x (# of saves)". That may be interesting, but only as a supplement to listings of pure save% & goals-against. Also, I'd like to see rankings based on goals/assists/points PER GAME -- better than just totals. And how 'bout face-offs? And...)


[*] The place to go for truly comprehensive stat-lists is the NCAA site:

----> STATS @ NCAA: [www.ncaa.org]

All the usual goodies are there for both teams and individuals: goals, assists, points, face-offs, save%, goals-against, team offense & defense, special teams, winning%, ground-balls, etc., etc....

My main gripe about this site: There are arbitrary cut-offs for each of the rankings. This doesn't give one a very good overall picture of each stat. category (I'd rather see "collegehockeystats.com-style" exhaustive rankings than these often-absurdly-brief lists).

Anyway, this is as good as it gets for lacrosse stats., so... oh, well...

(This site didn't work for me earlier in the season, then I did a little "cookie-manipulaton" and -- BING! -- now it works fine!)


The best (comprehensive & easy-to-use) page that I've seen for Cornell lacrosse info. (roster with scoring, schedule with results, league standings, team-stats, links to past C.U.-related stories, links to previous years' stats, etc. -- all on one page) is also at lax.com:

----> CORNELL STATS @ lax.com: [www.lax.com]


There is, of course, the official Cornell site (main advantages: pre- and post-game articles, team news, player/coach bios, and game audio netcast links):

----> OFFICIAL CORNELL SITE:
[cornellbigred.fansonly.com]


[*] Ivy League Lacrosse (a page at the Ivy League Sports site) is surprisingly good now:

----> OFFICIAL IVY SITE:
[www.ivyleaguesports.com]


I'd say that the best overall lax site (particularly with the demise of CLUSA) is good ol' LaxPower:

----> LaxPower: [www.laxpower.com]

This site's main advantages are its forum and its plethora of national team ranking systems (although, as has been mentioned before, these systems can be a little, uhh, screwy...). Here's the main page for all the ranking systems at LaxPower:

----> RANKINGS @ LaxPower:
[www.laxpower.com]

The "featured" ranking system on this page is the "Coaches-Computer Rating" (CCR), which is apparently a modified form of college football's "BCS" system. A cool thing about this page is that you can click on the various column headings to get rankings based on different criteria (poll, power rating, strength-of-schedule, etc.). Also -- and this may be the coolest thing of all -- you can click on any of the teams in the ranking to get an analysis of the team's own schedule.

----> CORNELL @ LaxPower:
[www.laxpower.com]

It's (somewhat) interesting to see how the differential between "predicted result" and actual result changes (retroactively) for each game over the course of the season.

And, if you want to predict the outcome of an upcoming game, just take the difference between, say, Cornell's power rating ("PR" (currently 96.06) and that of an upcoming opponent (Syracuse: 99.9), adjust for home-field advantage ("Adv." (currently 1.35), and you get the "computer-predicted" result of the upcoming game.

[S.U.'s 99.9 - C.U.'s 96.06 = 3.84; subtract 1.35 (C.U. = home team), and you get a predicted 2.49, or 2-goal, Syracuse victory (for what it's worth...).]
(Clubber Lange's prediction for the game: "PAIN!!!")


LaxPower is also the place to go for a general college lacrosse forum:

----> LaxPower FORUM: [forums.laxpower.com]


Syracuse lacrosse has a forum of its own. It's an , uhh, interesting(?) place to drop in on and experience the banter of a spoiled-rotten, trash-talking fan-base which demands that heads roll every time the Orangemen fail to pulverize an opponent (or slip from their "rightful" #1 spot in the polls) and proclaims their 19-consecutive-final-four darlings to be the invincible gods of lacrosse every time they blow someone away. (It definitely makes you appreciate eLF!)

----> SYRACUSE FORUM: [www.syracuse.com]


For the "official" USILA Coaches Poll, straight from the source:

----> USILA COACHES POLL: [www.usila.org]


[*] Another commonly-referred-to poll is the InsideLacrosse Media Poll. Also available at this site is the InsideLacrosse Power Poll, which combines the rankings from the media poll with team-by-team commentary. Both polls can be found at:

----> MEDIA POLL, etc.: [www.insidelacrosse.com]


[*] Yet another popular poll is the LaxPower Forum Poll. It can be found on this page, which also conveniently gives you links to USILA (men's) & IWLCA (women's) polls for all 3 NCAA divisions:

----> LaxPower FORUM POLL: [www.laxpower.com]


NCAA tournament-history-related links on this page:

[www.ncaachampionships.com]


For a simple listing of all NCAA tournament scores:

[www.ncaalacrosse.com]


NCAA Tournament Champions (Bonus: Click on the YEAR and you get detailed information for that year's tourney, including championship highlights and box-scores for each tournament game!):

[www.ncaalacrosse.com]


And, of course, for the ultimate experience in lacrosse prognostication, we offer...

The Swami... enjoy the ride... (WARNING: Turn your volume down first!) (The site is apparently updated each Wed. or Thu.)

----> SWAMI: [www.laxswami.com]



This has just been one man's opinion on the world of lax-links. I don't consider myself to be an expert by any means, so I welcome any additional links anyone might have. Also, I'm curious about others' opinions on the links (and their descriptions) that I've provided.


[EDIT: Additions & changes to this post are marked by "[*]".]

Don't forget

[www.insidelacrosse.com]

This one has a message board! I'll go back to my lurking now....

Based on the drivel posted there during and after the CU-SU game, the SU forum is a complete waste of time. Whine, whine, whine. Pass the camembert.

Here's the link to the composite schedule (repeated here for organizational purposes):

[www.laxpower.com]

Article on Cornell Lax:
[www.newsday.com]

I'd rather have the home field Saturday than the "inside track."

(Bump) I've done a little updating to my original *LINKS* post. All additions and major changes within that post are marked by a "[*]". I suppose that a list of lax-links should be on its own website ("zg88's lax links", but I'm not enough of a techie to have a website... thus...

(I've been tweaking that post all along, and will continue to do so as I get new info., but don't worry, I won't "bump" unless there's major action.)