Lax Swami's anti-Big Red bias continues

The Lax Swami, most important prognosticator in lacrosse (would you settle for mostself-important?) devotes 1225 words to this week's games. The Cornell-Penn game merits four: "The Swami likes Cornell." (See also the Yale-Princeton game where TLS opines that Princeton may have a better team than Cornell. Does the Swami's rankings relate to the school's distance from Fort Sumter?) I would say he's safe in saying that a loss to Princeton puts Yale in a position of likely not being able to win the Ivy League.

LaxSwami
Saturday, March 31, 1:00 PM, Multi-Sport Field, Washington, DC

TV broadcast: 4:30 PM (delayed), Middle Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), DirecTV channel 626.
Radio: WNAV AM 1430 (Annapolis) with webcast; WFED AM 1050 (Washington) with webcast. WFED also offers cellular phone reception.

(Game times are approximate and subject to adjustment, so check schedules for changes. College radio is often hit or miss, and the Swami's media links may not always work).

1. Navy (#5) at Georgetown (#10)--(Saturday, March 31, 1:00 PM, Washington, DC)--DELAYED TV GAME--With North Carolina once again falling off the radar screens, and with Maryland struggling, Navy must win at Georgetown or beat Hopkins at Homewood Field if it wants an at-large invitation and/or respectable seeding in the NCAA Tournament. The easier of those options presents itself next Saturday in Washington. With their only notable win over schizophrenic North Carolina, the 2007 Mids are largely an unknown quantity. Georgetown will not wait to test Navy. The Hoya defense held an attack led by Matt Danowski and Zack Greer to a total of six goals. But the Mids' defense leads Division I. The key to this game is which Navy offense will show up? The one that scored 19 against North Carolina, or the one that scored six goals against Bucknell? The Swami likes Navy, but if the offense doesn't show up, the defense will have to play its best game of its 2007 campaign.

2. Delaware (#11) at Duke (#6)--(Friday, March 30, 3:00 PM, Durham, NC)--Just how far apart are Duke and Delaware? Maybe not as far as most fans think. In games with two common opponents, Georgetown and St. Joseph's, the Blue Men don't look bad by comparison. Georgetown eked out a single goal win in Newark two weeks ago, then hosted Duke and lost 6-4. Both teams were big winners over St. Joe's: Duke by 18-4, and Delaware by 23-6. After giving up 11 goals in its first game, Duke has held all opponents to single digits. Delaware has only broken into double digits against Manhattan, St. Joe's, and Mount St. Mary's. So this game may boil down to whether Delaware can generate some offense. The Swami likes Duke, but Delaware should surprise no one this season, and two key players who missed the Hofstra game may be back in the lineup for the Blue Men.

3. Penn State (unranked) at UMass (unranked)--(Saturday, March 31, 12 Noon, Amherst, MA)--UMass, last season's #2 team, has fallen upon hard times. The Minutemen, now with five losses, have beaten just two teams--which, collectively, had a single victory among them (at the time of the games)--and that was a win over winless Wagner. The problem? Scoring. The Minutemen are averaging about eight goals a game--a far cry from their average in 2006. The Swami likes Penn State.

4. Princeton (#3) at Yale (unranked)--(Saturday, March 31, 1:00 PM, New Haven, CT)--Is this outcome foretold? Yale was skunked by Cornell (19-8), and the Swami thinks that Princeton has a better team than the Big Red. Cornell won its tryst with the Bulldogs by pulling off a 13 goal run. When was the last time that happened? Despite the sick looking stats (Cornell took 48 shots in the game while Yale managed only 4 in the vital third quarter), the Swami is not giving up on the Eli. Yale has a good young team, and should comport itself better this weekend. But, if Yale has any pretensions as a playoff team in 2007, they had better be unleashed this weekend. With only Princeton, Albany, and (maybe) Maryland as competitive teams left on its schedule, its a cinch that a loss to Princeton puts Yale in the position of not being able to win the Ivy League and having to defeat probably both its remaining top opponents to have life in May. The Swami, nonetheless, likes Princeton.

5. Syracuse (#9) at Loyola (#14)--(Saturday, March 31, 1:00 PM, Baltimore, MD)--TV GAME--This should be a better game than many think. Loyola is improving after a puzzling start this year. The Greyhounds seemed to be coalescing late last season, and only lost 2.5% of their 2006 scoring. Nevertheless, Loyola managed to lose to Towson at home and Notre Dame on the road. Significantly, though, no team has broken into double digit figures on the Greyhounds this season. The Swami senses an upset here and likes the Greyhounds.

6. Johns Hopkins (#2) at North Carolina (#16)--(Saturday, March 31, 2:00 PM, Chapel Hill, NC)--The Swami refuses to be drawn into the "what's going on with North Carolina?" debate. With a school that is highly attractive to prospective students, gets top-notch recruits, and offers a program that has a National Championship history, why can't this team at least be consistent? Against Navy, the Tarheels looked clueless; against Maryland, incompetent. The Tarheels have 229 shots on goal so far this season, against 179 by their opponents. But they also have only 88 saves against 135 by their opponents. Yes, UNC gets good recruits, but, many times, they seem to be the wrong players in the wrong positions. Unless the Tarheel offense can hold on to the ball, this game will be over in the first quarter. The Swami likes Hopkins.

7. Maryland (#12) at Virginia (#1)--(Saturday, March 31, 3:00 PM, Charlottesville, VA)--It's often said that, in the ACC, any team can beat any other team regardless of past performance. Will that hold true with the Terps and Cavaliers this weekend? Naw. Virginia sails.

8. Penn (unranked) at Cornell (#4)--(Saturday, March 31, 3:00 PM, Ithaca, NY)--The Swami likes Cornell.

9. Army (#8) at Colgate (unranked)--(Saturday, March 31, 3:00 PM, Hamilton, NY)--This is oing to be a tough game. It's tempting to take Colgate. But Army has been defying the experts all season. The Black Knights are adept at finding different ways to win each game. The Swami will go with the visitors.
10. Fairfield (unranked) at Hobart (unranked)--(Saturday, March 31, 3:30 PM, Saturday, March 31, Geneva, NY)--Hobart is halfway into a losing season (3-4). But the Statesmen are only six goals away from being undefeated. They lost to both Bucknell and Rutgers by a single goal, and to Syracuse and Georgetown by two goals. Fairfield was undefeated until it met Penn State last week. Even though the Stags are stepping into the belly of the beast in hostile Geneva, NY, the Swami likes Fairfield--but only narrowly. This will be one of the best games of the week.


11. Harvard (unranked) at Denver (unranked)--(Saturday, March 31, 9:30 PM [EDT], Denver, CO)--TV GAME--The Swami's intuition warns that this might be the tightest contest of the week. These two teams share only one common opponent: Stony Brook. Harvard lost to Stony Brook by a score of 13-8 on the road. Denver lost to the Seawolves at home, 11-8. Both of these squads are rebuilding from playoff years. Everyone was high on Harvard this season because, as the Swami predicted, the Crimson made the playoffs in 2006. After going 0-4, then narrowly defeating Penn (7-6), everyone then got down on (1-5) Harvard. Well, the pendulum has swung too far in both directions. Harvard will win this contest. This is a TV game. Watch it.

[www.laxswami.com] <-- set your speakers to mute, or least get the dog out of the room, before clicking. He created the music to repel wood-boring insects.

billhoward
The Lax Swami, most important prognosticator in lacrosse (would you settle for mostself-important?) devotes 1225 words to this week's games. The Cornell-Penn game merits four: "The Swami likes Cornell."

It is clear that the Swami thinks that Cornell is overrated - hardly a crime, though a view that has him stuck in last place in his own competition. I don't know that the terse review is much evidence of bias. He not only picked Cornell, he made it his 10 point game. I think the paucity of analysis is because he thinks the game isn't going to be close.

At the same time, his Princeton support is explained a little more at the bottom of the page. (All rankings Laxswami's) #3 Princeton has two losses: to #1 Virginia and #2 JHU. And he's got Cornell at #4 now. He, like probably everyone, thinks the JHU loss to Albany was an abberation. If the scrimmage against Cornell is to be believed, he's probably right.

Scrimmages mean nothing. We didn't have Siebald and the coaches are playing around with different matchups, etc. Okay, well, they mean *something*, but it is has very little to do with the final score.

I do agree, ugarte, that his paucity of analysis is not an indication of bias really, and is much more likely because he doesn't feel it will be close.

Still, Swami this season has been southern bias personified. Check his own personal top 16 (?) list. In Cornell's case, he ignored the quantity of wins and comments on us only having one 'good' win. Of course, apparently two good loses (Princeton) is better than a good win? Oh, speaking of good wins, what about Albany? In that case he ignores good wins when it doesn't suit him.

Is Cornell overrated at #1? Distinctly possible, or even probable. Right now we're playing like one of the best and very few others have stepped up. Only UVa may has a very legitimate claim to #1. Maybe Albany. Fact is, if I were (so self-important as) to do my own top 10 list, I probably wouldn't put Cornell #1, but its his reasoning and contradiction in reasoning.

Put it this way, if Cornell had lost to both UVa and JHU, even by just one goal, would he actually comment on that as a positive? I highly doubt it. Only Princeton is southern enough for that to be a good thing.

ugarte
If the scrimmage against Cornell is to be believed, he's probably right.

If last year's Cornell scrimmage against Hopkins were to be believed, we'd be defending national champions now.

Until we win the title, or at least get to the championship game and give a good showing, self-proclaimed pundits will discount our regular season accomplishments. When was the last time we won the title? Almost 30 years ago. Princeton has won a number of titles since we last won, so it is not surprising that they get the benefit of the doubt. Virginia and Hopkins have had recent successes, as well. Just as with hockey, we have to produce the ultimate result before we earn the respect we feel we deserve.

Swami stands for a half-century of southern disbelief that the sport of lacrosse can be played competently north of Baltimore. When it came time for an NCAA playoff at last -- rather than a poll deciding whether this year to annoint Maryland, Hopkins, Navy or perhaps Virginia -- the first NCAA title was won by Cornell and the north final (Cornell 17, Army 16) made for an anti-climactic final win over a much weaker Maryland team. Had the late 1960s Harkness/Moran era allowed for playoffs, it's likely Cornell and not the South's old school network would have won a couple of them, too. When Cornell went through a rough stretch, Princeton and Syracuse more than picked up the slack.

To give Johnny Reb credit: They do pack the stands right well in and around Maryland.

I'm waiting for the Cornell-Princeton-Syracuse-UMass (or Army or Hofstra) Final Four. Gotta happen one of these times.

For cryin' out loud, if there's any sports-related Web site that screams out "THIS IS ENTERTAINMENT, DO NOT TAKE ME SERIOUSLY," it's Swami's. Besides, it's not exactly a Southern bias. It's more like an I-Love-the-Naval-Academy-and-Mock-Everything-Else bias. For example, I dig the way he pees on all things Hopkins. That's such a rare and beautiful thing for someone who's based in Baltimore -- I have no problem putting up with his dismissal of Cornell in exchange for that. I remember times when those in the Suthrin lax aristocracy loathed Swami because he was vaguely pro-Syracuse, or at least teased Hopkins and Maryland more than Syracuse.

Edit: Also, it's worth remembering how important he has been as source of lacrosse information and entertainment, particularly in the 1990s, before there was a reasonably wide range of lax resources online. He would post game stories and invaluable tips about recruiting at a time when it was almost impossible to find info anywhere else.

Okay Hillel, you're right, it shouldn't be taken too seriously.

But that doesn't mean putting Princeton over Conell for now still isn't ludicrous at this point (note: that doesn't mean they can't beat us, or that they won't go further in the end, or anything else - all it means it that based on current evidence, there's no way you can say that here and now).

And he's at it again.

In the "Big Boys" competition (if your not familiar with it, it's several lax "pundits" that pick the outcome of a select group of each weekend's games as a season long contest). For this week, everyone picked Cornell over Harvard. All but two put their confidence on that outcome at 11 (the highest possible); the other two had there confidence set at 10 and 2. Swami was the 2. Of course, if Harvard does beat an over confident Cornell, he'll be able to say he had a feeling this game was a trap (insert "It's a trap!!!" graphic here) and almost look like the lax genius he thinks he is.

DeltaOne81
...all it means it that based on current evidence, there's no way you can say that here and now.

If you restrict yourself to considering only game results as evidence you're right. But if you include other things like recent history, how teams played, opponents, it's possible you could come up with another conclusions. Now, these other factors may have less relevance than record and some may be subjective but they're still evidence of a sort.

KeithK

DeltaOne81
...all it means it that based on current evidence, there's no way you can say that here and now.

If you restrict yourself to considering only game results as evidence you're right.

Forgive me if this made me chuckle. Oh no, restrict it to only game results. How unfair

But if you include other things like recent history, how teams played, opponents, it's possible you could come up with another conclusions. Now, these other factors may have less relevance than record and some may be subjective but they're still evidence of a sort.

Isn't 'recent history' called bias? They played well for several years a few years back, so therefore we give them more credit now? What does history have anything to do with this season? I'm not saying that this doesn't creep up in all polls - absolutely it does - I'm saying that the make it outweigh numerous other factors is completely indefensible.

How are 'how teams played' and 'opponents' not game results? That's completely fair. And I don't see how you can put Princeton ahead using either of those to date.

Let me quickly cover the comparisons:
- Cornell has the better record (for starters)
- Cornell has the higher RPI (#1 vs. #14) (not from lax power, see below - from lax power is #1 vs. #16)
- Cornell has the higher SoS! (#5 vs. #7 on what formula laxpower uses)
- using the RPI SoS fomula, Cornell is #3 to Princeton's #23!
- Cornell has the higher modified SOS, using only top 10 opponents, as used by the selection committee - although right now that's same as SoS as no one has played more than 10 games
- Cornell has more quality wins against top 15 RPI teams - 1 against 1-5, 1 against 6-10, versus Princeton's zero.
- Cornell has the higher computer ranking on lax power (however that is computed), #1 vs #2
- Finally, in the one common opponent, Cornell scores 19 goals and won by 11 (was up by 14(?) before the scrubs came in). Princeton won by 2 and scored only 5.

Again, none of this means that it will continue. That we haven't been playing over our head or Princeton under. That we won't stumble and they excel. Who knows about the future. All I'm saying is to date, is there is no reasonable rationale.

FYI, here is the site I used for statistics that were not from laxpower:
[lacrosse.homelinux.net]

Its good because they actually explain the equations and they match typically known numbers, unlike the lax power one.

JasonN95
And he's at it again.

In the "Big Boys" competition (if your not familiar with it, it's several lax "pundits" that pick the outcome of a select group of each weekend's games as a season long contest). For this week, everyone picked Cornell over Harvard. All but two put their confidence on that outcome at 11 (the highest possible); the other two had there confidence set at 10 and 2. Swami was the 2. Of course, if Harvard does beat an over confident Cornell, he'll be able to say he had a feeling this game was a trap (insert "It's a trap!!!" graphic here) and almost look like the lax genius he thinks he is.

I'm not sure why, but I think he is trying to make up ground by being an iconoclast. He "knows" that Cornell will win but he's hoping to make up ground by getting big points from games that others don't have and taking chances on the sure things. If he were in first, Cornell would be a 10 or 11.

I wasn't trying to say that only using game results is unfair. I'm just saying that it's not unreasonable to use other factors when making predictions about the future. It's not necessarily bias. If a team has great paper talent, good coaching and a long term record of winning over many seasons it's not unreasonable to expect them to be very successful going forward even if they started 3-2.

Example: If Minnesota starts next hockey season with losses in 3 of 4 games I will still expect them to finish with a 20 win season, because they have proved to be an excellent team under Don Lucia. I don't think this is bias because lord knows I don't want the Gophers to be successful. It's just expectation.

BTW - I'm not saying that Swami is right. I'm just saying that expecting success out of successful programs isn't necessarily bias. It might be, but doesn't have to be.

Keith

P.S. for the record I meant win-loss when I said "game results". I didn't mean the details of the game.

DeltaOne81
Isn't 'recent history' called bias?

No, it's called evidence. There wasn't so much turnover on Princeton's team that using last year's results as evidence of how they did in 2006 provides no information about how good they are in 2007. You might be wrong, but you also might be wrong if you think that the score in the Cornell-Duke game accurately represents the relative strengths of the teams.

They played well for several years a few years back, so therefore we give them more credit now? What does history have anything to do with this season? I'm not saying that this doesn't creep up in all polls - absolutely it does - I'm saying that the make it outweigh numerous other factors is completely indefensible.

Polls during a season should reasonably reflect a combination of how teams have done and how you think they will do. Because they are actually meaningless, the word "indefensible" is more than a little strong. The only time that looking to 2006 or finding excuses ("starting goalie was injured" for wins/losses so they get deemphasized is indefensible is during tournament selection. I don't even mind if the latter factor is used in tournament seeding.

Let me quickly cover the comparisons:

All of your comparisons were interesting but they don't inexorably lead to the conclusion that Cornell is better or that placing Princeton ahead of Cornell is evidence of bias. With all of your stats, there are still two things to consider: First, Cornell had stronger opponents in all of it's wins than Princeton did in all of its wins - but Princeton's two losses were, at the time, against the top two teams in Swami's estimation. Second, the Swami's rankings are forward-looking; he isn't arguing about who has played the best so far. He is trying to predict who will be on top when the season ends. Princeton is ahead of Cornell because he fully expects Princeton to beat Cornell when they play and when they do, if nothing changes between now and then, he will pick Princeton.

Given the amount of lax that I am sure that he watches, if he has seen the teams (or their opponents) play, his ranking is anything but "indefensible".

That said, the comment that "Cornell's best win is over Duke, by a single goal" is sort of stupid when Swami has Duke as the #4 team in the country. Neither of the teams above Cornell has a stronger win than that, score be damned - especially because everyone knows that a standout game by the Duke goalie kept Cornell's one-goal win from being a blowout. It would be more honest to just write "They have played very well but I just don't think that they are as good as their record and Princeton - or someone else - will prove it in the next couple of weeks" instead of coming up with a silly bit of datum to justify his ranking.

All of your comparisons were interesting but they don't inexorably lead to the conclusion that Cornell is better or that placing Princeton ahead of Cornell is evidence of bias.

For the record, I don't know or care whether its bias or just stupid. My point is only that it flies in the face of this season thus far.

Princeton's losses, *at the time* may have been against the top 2 teams, but the Blue Jays have since proven to be less than the top team that everyone though they'd be. Sans that, they only have a 1 goal loss to UVa. If the weight of that alone is enough to get you #2, then Drexel should be #-1.

No, it's called evidence. There wasn't so much turnover on Princeton's team that using last year's results as evidence of how they did in 2006 provides no information about how good they are in 2007. You might be wrong, but you also might be wrong if you think that the score in the Cornell-Duke game accurately represents the relative strengths of the teams.

And last year's Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup < cough, choke, gag >. Teams can easily drop off while keeping much of the same staff, if they lose a missing ingredient or two, or were a bit extra lucky last year. I can't think of a single instance in sport where last season's result impact your ranking or seeding this year. Its that way for a reason, IMHO. I'm not saying you have to ignore history entirely (although I think you probably should), but at some point, it doesn't overcome numerous different facts about this team, this year.

That said, the comment that "Cornell's best win is over Duke, by a single goal" is sort of stupid when Swami has Duke as the #4 team in the country. Neither of the teams above Cornell has a stronger win than that, score be damned - especially because everyone knows that a standout game by the Duke goalie kept Cornell's one-goal win from being a blowout. It would be more honest to just write "They have played very well but I just don't think that they are as good as their record and Princeton - or someone else - will prove it in the next couple of weeks" instead of coming up with a silly bit of datum to justify his ranking.

Exactly. He's giving more credit to Princeton for losing twice than to Cornell for winning once. And exactly who were we supposed to beat that's better than Duke? The teams we didn't schedule?

If he said that it was based on a hunch or Princeton's team on paper, that could at least be respected. But his own argument, as you said, is 'stupid'.

Btw, the only reason this bugs me is not because I expect us to go undefeated - if I did, I'd just sit back and let him keep being wrong. I still figure we'll lose a game or two this year. Maybe Princeton, or Cuse at the dome, or Hobart, or a 'bad' loss somewhere in Ivy play. And if we don't get credit for playing very very well thusfar, when are we going to get credit for it? Oh yeah, maybe next year he can let our play thusfar this year boost our ranking

DeltaOne81
For the record, I don't know or care whether its bias or just stupid. My point is only that it flies in the face of this season thus far.

Well, you should care a little. Obviously anti-Cornellism isn't a particularly insidious form of bias but claiming that someone is biased is a pretty fraught accusation; the difference between bias and stupidity is an important one - even if it this claim of bias will have zero repurcussions. As for whether the rankings are valid in light of "the season thus far," we'll have to agree to disagree about whether "the season thus far" is the proper parameter of evidence for a dude's rankings on his own website. If you are going to complain about anything on the Swami's website, start with the stupid intro and the earsplitting douche-rock that blares when you fire up the page.

Princeton's losses, *at the time* may have been against the top 2 teams, but the Blue Jays have since proven to be less than the top team that everyone though they'd be. Sans that, they only have a 1 goal loss to UVa. If the weight of that alone is enough to get you #2, then Drexel should be #-1.

You don't think I disagree with this, do you? JHU's loss dropped Hopkins to 10, dropped Albany to 7 (I think?) and moved Princeton up a slot???? Yeah, nonsensical. But still somewhere short of "indefensible."

And last year's Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup < cough, choke, gag >.

As the what seed? I'm not sure this is an example with a lot of heft to it. Sure, teams can vary wildly from year to year but all of the prognosticators picking Florida to repeat were basing their evaluation much more on the win over UCLA in last year's final than on the loss to Vanderbilt (among others) this year.

Btw, the only reason this bugs me is not because I expect us to go undefeated - if I did, I'd just sit back and let him keep being wrong. I still figure we'll lose a game or two this year. Maybe Princeton, or Cuse at the dome, or Hobart, or a 'bad' loss somewhere in Ivy play. And if we don't get credit for playing very very well thusfar, when are we going to get credit for it? Oh yeah, maybe next year he can let our play thusfar this year boost our ranking

If you think we should be ranked higher it is because you think we should go undefeated (even though we probably won't). I think that is a reasonable response to the available information. If one expects us to lose - and one can conclude that Swami expects us to lose - I think he's got us ranked where we should be. BFD if we don't get credit from Swami right now!

Of course, if we lose to Princeton and he drops us to #7 I'm going to leave a flaming bag of poo on his doorstep.

For a comedian, you're sure taking me very seriously

If you think we should be ranked higher it is because you think we should go undefeated (even though we probably won't). I think that is a reasonable response to the available information. If one expects us to lose - and one can conclude that Swami expects us to lose - I think he's got us ranked where we should be. BFD if we don't get credit from Swami right now!

I actually don't think we should be ranked higher. I'm perfectly fine with 2-3. I just think Princeton should be ranked lower. I haven't yet complained about UVa being ahead of us and I won't until they lose at least one more, if we're still undefeated. I find it somewhat insulting that he's putting a team ahead of us on the strength of loses, while at the same time discrediting our major win.

Of course, if we lose to Princeton and he drops us to #7 I'm going to leave a flaming bag of poo on his doorstep.

That's basically all I'm saying - I guess I'm a couple weeks ahead of you on the poo-dropping wishes.

That and that while watching the Cuse/Princeton game tomorrow, I'm pretty sure I'm going to find myself pulling for the Orange (so long as we didn't have a letdown against Sucks), even though I'd usually go Ivy.

DeltaOne81
For a comedian, you're sure taking me very seriously

In reply to [elf.elynah.com]

DeltaOne81
For a comedian, you're sure taking me very seriously

Am I not human? If you provoke me, do I not respond? If you engage me, do I not think? If you fail to pay your rent do I and my lansmaner throw you and your family out onto the stoop? (I may have gotten off track here.)

ugarte

DeltaOne81
For a comedian, you're sure taking me very seriously

Am I not human? If you provoke me, do I not respond? If you engage me, do I not think? If you fail to pay your rent do I and my lansmaner throw you and your family out onto the stoop? (I may have gotten off track here.)

OK, that was funny.

I can't think of a single instance in sport where last season's result impact your ranking or seeding this year.

I can think of many, many instances where a team's standing is based to a significant extent on that team's recent or long term history. For example, first half polls in every college sport that I can think of. While this can be annoying when it leaves your team out in the cold it's not entirely unreasonable. While I agree that actual standings and seedings aren't history based (any more) and shouldn't be, Lax Swami's rankings are essentially a poll where they only ask one guy. So the standards for polls should apply.

You might want steer clear of the Swami this week. He has Cornell at #3, but you'd never guess it from what he has to say. Oh, Swami, why do you torment us so?

JasonN95
You might want steer clear of the Swami this week. He has Cornell at #3, but you'd never guess it from what he has to say. Oh, Swami, why do you torment us so?

LaxSwami (once you scroll past reams of Army-Navy material)
Cornell (#3) at Dartmouth (unranked)--(Saturday, April 14, 1:00 PM, Hanover, NH)--When Duke attacker Matt Danowski blew a shot off the pipe in the waning seconds of the Blue Devils' game with Cornell earlier this season, who knew that would form the main reason for ranking the Big Red as the single best team in Division I? But what else can it be? Cornell has only played one Top Ten team, and will probably play only one other for the remainder of the season. Yes, things may be a little convoluted at the top these days, what with one team beating another, but the Swami does not generally subscribe to the notion that a one goal victory over a sole (presently #4) Top Ten opponent is reason enough, by itself, to enshrine any team as #1. The two best defenses that Cornell has seen this year have been Duke and Army, both of which held the Big Red to seven goals. The Swami thinks Dartmouth does not have the defensive capability of accomplishing this and likes Cornell to win.

... Nit: The Swami is counting opponent rankings where they stand now. I believe when we played them, Duke was at 5, Notre Dame was at 8, Army at 9, if Cornell's press notes are accurate. Swami thinks Princeton is the best team because it has lost to two top ten teams. (By a goal each.)

JasonN95
You might want steer clear of the Swami this week. He has Cornell at #3, but you'd never guess it from what he has to say. Oh, Swami, why do you torment us so?

And makes Cornell his 8 point game because he is determined to finish in last place.

His logic is no different this week than last week. He thinks Cornell is overrated because the teams that they beat, who were believed to be top-10 caliber at the time of the game, aren't as good as people thought. Ergo, Cornell's wins over them aren't as impressive as we'd like to believe. It is uncharitable - losing to us is part of why he thinks that - but so be it. He hasn't been right about anything else this year, so it is encouraging that he thinks we are overrated.

From the Baltimore Sun. What northern team is missing ... ?

>>> It's different at Albany, and a lot of times coaches from up north don't get enough credit. It's much easier to recruit players to the South on campuses at Virginia, Duke and North Carolina than it is places like Albany, Massachusetts and even Syracuse. A lot of northern teams seldom get outside to practice until midway in the season, putting them at a big disadvantage.

... Syracuse? Winter? Outdoor practice disadvantage?


... to be fair, this is a southern paper saying the coach of the year is not Duke's John Danowski but Albany's Scott Farr.

I came across this a while ago but I don't think it's been posted here:
Caught in His Web - a Feature on The Swami

This piece was by a Princeton assistant sports information director, Jerry Price, same guy who did this awesome piece on Doug Moe a couple years back. This is so unfair - if PR guys all wrote this well, there'd be no work at all for journalists, other than creating blogs that don't pay much anyhow.


>>> Andy Moe, Where Did You Go?

After scoring the game-winning goal in the 1992 NCAA championship game, Andy Moe disappeared for 14 years. Suddenly, he's back.

Relax. He's not dead. Turns out that was just a rumor. So was the one about how he was living in the Himalayas. Ever hear that one?

Nope. After all that, he's in New York City of all places. Fourteen years without a sound, and he just turns up one night at an alumni function 50 miles from the Princeton campus.

"I walked in," says Princeton men's lacrosse coach Bill Tierney, "and it was like a spotlight was on him. It was a very small, very crowded room, and he was the first person I saw. I turned to Metzy [associate head coach David Metzbower] and said ‘look, Andy Moe is here.'"

Andy Moe, who scored the biggest goal in Princeton University history and then quite literally vanished, stepped out of his nomadic 14-year walkabout and was there, just like that.

"I guess I dropped out of the loop," Moe says simply.

* * *

Legend has it that when the men's lacrosse team returned to the Princeton campus after winning the 1992 NCAA championship in Philadelphia, Andy Moe went to the bridge on Washington Road and threw all of his lacrosse equipment into Lake Carnegie. Hours earlier, it was Moe who scored a goal 10 seconds into the second overtime to give Princeton a 9-8 win over Syracuse, and legend suggests that throwing the equipment into the water was his statement that he could never top that moment in the game, so why bother trying?

"I have no comment about that," Moe says now with a laugh.

If the legend is true, then gone was his equipment. Days later, Moe was gone too.

And no one knew where. Not his coaches. Not his teammates. Not Mike Kinney, a reporter from the Star-Ledger who set out a few years ago to write a "where-are-they-now" story on Moe and never figured out the answer to that simplest of questions.

In this age of being able to find almost anyone through Google or on an expanded e-mail list or through some other database, Andy Moe spent 14 anonymous years living and working in the North, the South, and the West.

"I felt a certain degree of wanting to strike out on my own and explore worlds that I had not inhabited before," Moe says.

Moe began his post-college life in Colorado writing a novel that he abandoned when "I realized that my desire to write greatly outweighed my capacity for saying anything meaningful at the time."

After a year, Moe traveled with his girlfriend at the time to Alabama, where he worked as a feature writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. From there it was on to Boston, where he worked as a furniture maker before attending the Massachusetts College of Art to study sculpture for two years.

Next was a return to Colorado as a sculptor. While there, to supplement his income, Moe began to teach Argentine tango for the first time.

"I found that I loved to teach, and I got more and more into that," Moe says. "I was invited to teach in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and from there, I got invited to teach at Triangulo, the only tango studio in New York City. I was there for another year, and then I met someone who would become a spiritual advisor for me, and I devoted myself to my own spiritual development. Then, about two years ago, I started writing screenplays and began to make my own furniture."

Today he has his own furniture design business, Moe Design Studio, located in Manhattan, and his web site of www.studiomoe.com. His specialty is making custom furniture from reclaimed lumber.

"I just finished making a table," Moe says. "I acquired some red oak beams that had help up a tobacco warehouse in Tennessee, and I converted them to a large, communal dining table for a café in Soho. I love the furniture business. I love to work with my hands. I love that I can work with wood while living in the middle of New York City."

New York City? Who would have thought to look for him there?

Through the years, while Moe was criss-crossing the country, his name has come up on numerous occasions among those associated with Princeton lacrosse. Not once did anyone know where he was.

It only added to the mystique that has always been Andy Moe.

He was recruited to Princeton by Jerry Schmidt, but he never played a game for the man who recruited him. Instead, when he arrived in the fall of 1988 from St. Albans in Washington, D.C., he found himself part of Bill Tierney's first Princeton team.

"Andy's always been his own spirit," says Tierney. "I really didn't know much about him. I'm not sure who he hung around with, but he wasn't a loner. Everyone liked Andy. I never worried about him."

And?

"And he was fast. Very, very fast."

Tierney's first two teams went 2-13 and 6-8, but Moe began to buy into what his new coach was preaching.

"Some of my most vivid memories are of my first two years, especially in the locker room after we'd lose" Moe says. "Tierney would come in and give a speech, a new spontaneous speech every week, just talking about the importance of staying with something, instilling within us what he believed to be the attributes of a winner. For him to do that in the face of continuous losing was an amazing thing. I would say he's easily one of the most inspiring people I've ever had the pleasure of being associated with."

Moe decided to take the 1990 school year off, and the program was in a much different state when he returned. The Tigers made the NCAA tournament for the first time in 1990, and, upon Moe's return, Princeton lost a heartbreaking 14-13 triple-overtime quarterfinal game to Towson at Palmer Stadium. That set the stage for the 1992 season.

"I had the feeling that when he left, lacrosse was very important to him," says Tierney. "We were 2-13 and then 6-8, and I felt that I was responsible for his being discouraged about lacrosse. When we started to win, he was really enthusiastic when he came back. For me, he bought into what we were doing. He got us through a lot of games."

Moe was more than just a player who happened to score a huge goal. He scored 68 goals in his career, 19 as a senior to earn third-team All-America honors. Four of his goals came in the championship game against Syracuse.

"Every experience was new for us," says Moe. "Even getting to the Final Four was a novel experience. I remember very clearly that when I first arrived in Philadelphia, I was just happy to be there. Then T sent Metz out to scout the other semifinal game, and I said to myself that he was focused on winning the whole thing. I was really struck by that. This was someone who was thinking in large terms, and we went along."

Princeton defeated North Carolina 16-14 on a broiling hot day at Franklin Field in the semifinals, earning a spot opposite Syracuse in the final. Moe scored one of the Princeton goals against the Tar Heels, and, though the temperature dropped nearly 40 degrees for the championship game, Moe was just heating up.

Moe scored 32 seconds into the championship game to give Princeton the early lead, which grew to 6-0 when he scored his second midway through the second quarter. Even after Syracuse scored, Moe answered 41 seconds before intermission.

Syracuse came charging back in the second half, tying the score at 8-8 with 8:24 to go before Greg Waller scored with 2:37 go play to make it 9-8 Princeton. It looked like that would be the final score when Syracuse was called for a penalty with 1:30 to go, but the Orange were able to get possession and take advantage of a crazy hop off the turf to get Tom Marechek an uncontested goal with just 42 seconds to play to tie it at 9-9.

Justin Tortolani hit the pipe in the final 10 seconds of regulation, and the game went to a first overtime, where Kevin Lowe of Princeton and Dom Fin of Syracuse both had chances to end it. After four scoreless minutes, it was off to a second overtime.

Waller then won the face-off in Moe's direction, and Moe picked it up and started to sprint to the goal.

"It was a normal 4 on 3 fast break," Tierney says. "Taylor [Simmers], for some reason, cut through, and the Syracuse guy went with him. That left Andy alone. He was going too fast to pass, so he had to shoot it."

Shoot it he did, skipping it into the Syracuse goal for the first of the six NCAA championships Tierney has won at Princeton.

"It happened very quickly," Moe remembers. "I remember after the ball went in that it was like being in a state of shock. I knew so clearly how it felt to lose, but I never really had experienced what it was like to win on a level like that.

"I had developed a shot where I would look down as if shooting to a lower corner of the goal and then shoot into the upper corner when the goalie would drop his stick. When I ran down, I did that move. I looked down with the intention of shooting in the upper corner. The ball ended up in a lower corner anyway, right where I was looking. The goalie kept his stick high. If the ball went where I had intended, we may not have won. Because the goal ended up going in a place I hadn't intended, I really felt that I couldn't claim credit fully for what happened. I've always had a curious relationship with that goal."

Except for a few very isolated games of catch a long time ago, Andy Moe has never played lacrosse again.

* * *

The recent event in New York City was the first real connection that Moe has had with his Princeton past since attending Justin Tortolani's wedding 12 years ago.

Out of sight, but as it turns out, hardly out of mind. At least not Andy Moe's mind.

"It was great to see everyone, to see T," Moe says. "It brought me back to all the times I heard him speak as a player. I was struck again by the integrity of the man. I've thought a lot about him since I've graduated. I feel like I carry with me a whole education in itself, a Tierney education, which is all about character. It has served me well since my graduation."

The coach himself was not unmoved by the reunion with the player who had done so much for him so many years earlier.

"It was awesome to see him," Tierney says. "People were walking up to him, shaking his hand. It was like he was a rock star. Everything about him is unique. Throwing the equipment off the bridge. You hope you never lose stuff like that.

"Lacrosse needs its legends."

Lacrosse needs legends like Andy Moe.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jerry Price is Associate Director of Athletics and Athletic Communications at Princeton University

billhoward
From the Baltimore Sun.>>> It's different at Albany, and a lot of times coaches from up north don't get enough credit. It's much easier to recruit players to the South on campuses at Virginia, Duke and North Carolina than it is places like Albany, Massachusetts and even Syracuse. A lot of northern teams seldom get outside to practice until midway in the season, putting them at a big disadvantage.

... Syracuse? Winter? Outdoor practice disadvantage?

Indeed it's true. You forget that b'ball is played up here and it's king. SU does practice outdoors in the spring/ winter. Yes they get to get into the dome, but only half field when the court is down. That's like CU being in the fieldhouse, not the best way to practice transition.

As for your other post, you've outdone yourself again.