Schadenfreude - Duke vs. Hopkins NCAA lax title game

Watching Duke get blown out by Johns Hopkins in the first half of the NCAA 2007 lacrosse title game provides some small sense of satisfaction for those annoyed by the Duke, Duke, Duke story. Duke had its troubles in 2006 and the three players who were falsely accused got screwed. But it wasn't like the "Duke Lacrosse Innocent" baseball cap proclaimed (on a woman standing next to ex coach Mike Pressler Monday). Three guys were innocent of trumped up charges but the team as a whole was a bit out of control with the partying, all the arrests (ignoring underage drinking, which doesn't count). As others noted here, the media kind of wanted to rectify the piling-on stories of last year. The publicity this year about Duke and its Cinderella story and resurrection was enough to make you gag. So, fair enuogh if Hopkins takes down Duke.

With a Hopkins win: another title for a Cornell coaching alum. Shuts Duke up. Either way, the voters are going to think of Cornell as finishing third this year. Only if Duke blew out Hopkins by a half-dozen goals would we likely be considered #2.

Could the same letdown have happened to Cornell if we advanced? We all *knew* Saturday was the title game, and maybe that annoyed Hopkins just a bit, too. Not to denigrate future Cornell teams in the least, but Duke is going to have lots of chances at title games down the road, probably more than Cornell and Princeton combined.

Of course, a six-goal lead is never safe these days. [Edit add:] Though a one-goal lead works once the final horn sounds. 12-11 Hopkins is a very fitting ending. It's going to provide a cheap lead paragraph for writers everywhere if nothing else inspires them.

Phillip Hersch in the Chicago Tribune recognises the Duke men's lacrosse team as a bunch of scumbags. [www.chicagotribune.com]

[q]
...
The rush to judgment about the three players charged with assault also was an error.

As he dropped the charges in April, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said, "... we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges."

But it would be a bigger mistake to believe that means Duke's lacrosse team was innocent of assault against common decency.[/q]

This game is a bit reminiscent of saturday.

David Harding
Phillip Hersch in the Chicago Tribune recognises the Duke men's lacrosse team as a bunch of scumbags. [www.chicagotribune.com]

[q]
...
The rush to judgment about the three players charged with assault also was an error.

As he dropped the charges in April, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said, "... we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges."

But it would be a bigger mistake to believe that means Duke's lacrosse team was innocent of assault against common decency.[/q]

I missed it, but my wife said one of the TV announcers (Quint?) gave it to Pressler during halftime. I've heard enough whining about him being "forced to resign" and how unfairly he was treated. His team was out of control, and he did nothing to fix it, as far as I can tell.

Way to jump to conclusions, Bill

Frankly I'm rooting for Duke (despite the media) because Hopkins is example A of a team given too much credit for playing everyone and beating few of them. Also, they have 8 freakin' national titles and Duke has none.

DeltaOne81
Way to jump to conclusions, Bill

Frankly I'm rooting for Duke (despite the media) because Hopkins is example A of a team given too much credit for playing everyone and beating few of them. Also, they have 8 freakin' national titles and Duke has none.

I, too. But if there were a way both could lose (the winner having to vacate the title?), I'd be in favor.

Cornell 12, Albany 11
Duke 12, Cornell 11
JHU 12, Duke 11

DeltaOne81
Way to jump to conclusions, Bill

Frankly I'm rooting for Duke (despite the media) because Hopkins is example A of a team given too much credit for playing everyone and beating few of them. Also, they have 8 freakin' national titles and Duke has none.

The literature was unclear on the effects of third-party woofing. But I don't believe woofing penalties carry over to the following season.

Al DeFlorio

David Harding
Phillip Hersch in the Chicago Tribune recognises the Duke men's lacrosse team as a bunch of scumbags. [www.chicagotribune.com]

[q]
...
The rush to judgment about the three players charged with assault also was an error.

As he dropped the charges in April, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said, "... we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges."

But it would be a bigger mistake to believe that means Duke's lacrosse team was innocent of assault against common decency.[/q]

I missed it, but my wife said one of the TV announcers (Quint?) gave it to Pressler during halftime. I've heard enough whining about him being "forced to resign" and how unfairly he was treated. His team was out of control, and he did nothing to fix it, as far as I can tell.

The only part that got overplayed was the drinking-underage component. Disorderly conduct, urinating in public, racial slurs (sorry, alleged racial slurs about the nice cotton shirt and who picked the cotton for it) are problematic. But making drinking unlawful at ages 18, 19, and 20 is a reaction to the concern over drunken driving even if that's a problem that doesn't start to decline until people are in their mid-20s. A 21-year-drinking age doesn't cut 24-year-old DUI fatals. The point has been made elsewhere that the biggest difference isn't between the conduct of Duke and some other D1 lacrosse team but between Duke lacrosse and Duke basketball. Coach K, hothead or not (the man chewed out the Duke student-run paper for not being supportive), runs a squeaky clean basketball program.

I was routing for JHU in this game. I too got frustrated and sick of all of the "poor Duke" stories. Yes, they did get screwed by the legal system. However, not once did I hear anything the Duke team acknowledging how they put themselves in a bad position that night. You have a party, have underage drinking, hire strippers. The chances of something bad happening are increased.

I know parties and underage drinking happens on campus. Heck, when I was a freshman in college the campus security guards would help you move kegs up the dorm stairs (the college would rather have you drinking on-campus rather than going off campus). However, it just would have been nice to see some sort of a"personal accountability" from the Duke team.

Okay, back to my fantasy world.

Rita
I was routing for JHU in this game. I too got frustrated and sick of all of the "poor Duke" stories. Yes, they did get screwed by the legal system. However, not once did I hear anything the Duke team acknowledging how they put themselves in a bad position that night. You have a party, have underage drinking, hire strippers. The chances of something bad happening are increased. ...

The Hopkins server was down?

I, too, was rooting for Hopkins, mainly because like everyone else, I'm sick of these stories about the redemption of the Duke program. And the ESPN announced lauded Duke's All-America defenseman for the hit he put on Seibald at the beginning of Saturday's game,but neglected to mention that it was an illegal hit which resulted in a rare 2-minute penalty. When the game ended, I consoled myself by the fact that Duke now knows how Cornell felt, coming back from a big deficit to tie the game only to lose it in the final seconds. Serves them right!

billhoward

DeltaOne81
Way to jump to conclusions, Bill

Frankly I'm rooting for Duke (despite the media) because Hopkins is example A of a team given too much credit for playing everyone and beating few of them. Also, they have 8 freakin' national titles and Duke has none.

The literature was unclear on the effects of third-party woofing. But I don't believe woofing penalties carry over to the following season.

I believe that should be considered that woofing at all. Note that I wasn't saying that Hopkins wouldn't or couldn't win. I was saying that what they did in the regular season did not earn the 3 seed, due to the flawed system which way-overemphasizes schedule in lieu of actual results. It had absolutely nothing to do with predicting the results of today's game

Another reason to like Hopkins (if it can't be us): The idea of a small school doing well in one sport seems to annoy the NCAA no end. And that is 1,000 times more enjoyable than annoying RichS, who is probably a nice guy deep down. To the NCAA, excellence in major sports should only come from institutions with 5,000 or preferably 25,000 undergraduates. Thus, Florida basketball or Nebraska football. Hopkins doing well in NCAA DIII swimming is fine by the NCAA, but gasp - lacrosse in DI not DIII - now that lax is an official big time sport? This is how the British nobility feels upon hearing commoners are attending university.

Similarly Clarkson, RPI, St. Lawrence, and Union in hockey.

It was the small minds of the NCAA, I suspect, not Princeton's athletic director, that at the NCAA quarterfinals had fans from all four schools forced to sit cheek by jowl on the side opposite the TV cameras so the 8,500 people in the 30,000 seat stadium made it look like a nearly full house. Screw the real fans, make it look good for the TV fans. The NCAA probably felt it was for the good of the game.

We lost to Duke on Saturday. We beat them on Monday. Alas, JHU gets to carry the trophy of our win.

Sorry, but unlike most I'm going to say I'd rather have seen Duke win. Johns Hopkins winning reinforces everything that's wrong with the lax establishment and their rating systems. While Duke was rated number 1, there was some justification for them having a high rating. There was no justification for Hopkins to be so highly rated other than pure southern bias.

While I dislike the media darlings that Duke have become, they at least earned their on-field status. While the Duke players aren't the angels that the media are now portraying them as, I'm willing to give them credit for their skill.

Jeff Hopkins '82
Sorry, but unlike most I'm going to say I'd rather have seen Duke win. Johns Hopkins winning reinforces everything that's wrong with the lax establishment and their rating systems. While Duke was rated number 1, there was some justification for them having a high rating. There was no justification for Hopkins to be so highly rated other than pure southern bias.

While I dislike the media darlings that Duke have become, they at least earned their on-field status. While the Duke players aren't the angels that the media are now portraying them as, I'm willing to give them credit for their skill.

I agree, Jeff. I'm not sure I'd call it "southern bias"--just a deeply-flawed selection/seeding criteria. Fred's nailed it succinctly time and again over on laxpower. The question now is: Will anyone step up to changing it?

Al DeFlorio

Jeff Hopkins '82
Sorry, but unlike most I'm going to say I'd rather have seen Duke win. Johns Hopkins winning reinforces everything that's wrong with the lax establishment and their rating systems. While Duke was rated number 1, there was some justification for them having a high rating. There was no justification for Hopkins to be so highly rated other than pure southern bias.

While I dislike the media darlings that Duke have become, they at least earned their on-field status. While the Duke players aren't the angels that the media are now portraying them as, I'm willing to give them credit for their skill.

I agree, Jeff. I'm not sure I'd call it "southern bias"--just a deeply-flawed selection/seeding criteria. Fred's nailed it succinctly time and again over on laxpower. The question now is: Will anyone step up to changing it?

That's what I'm afraid of. Hopkins winning the final can easily be used to justify that "the system worked."

That's what I'm afraid of. Hopkins winning the final can easily be used to justify that "the system worked."

In that case Tambroni should do everything he can to upgrade the strength of schedule. Why can't we replace the likes of Binghamton, Colgate, Army, and Notre Dame with Hopkins, Virginia, or Maryland? Georgetown, Navy, or North Carolina would also be a significant upgrade. If we scheduled two or three strong Southern teams (even if we had to play them on the road or a neutral site like the Carrier Dome) and Syracuse every year, and the Ivies don't stink the way they did this season, we would have the opportunity to get a fair seed. As a fan I would much rather see these games than another 19-4 blowout of Binghamton. Tougher competition in my opinion would also leave us better prepared for the tournament.

Jeff Hopkins '82
That's what I'm afraid of. Hopkins winning the final can easily be used to justify that "the system worked."

I don't think anyone who takes the game seriously thinks that. JHU beat Duke by the same score and margin of Duke's victory over us after playing the early game on Saturday against a semifinal opponent that couldn't score in the proverbial whorehouse. I don't think there is any doubt in anyone's mind that - at worst - there are three teams that could win or lose based on how their breakfasts agreed with them on gameday.

After the final I am more convinced that ever that we had the best team in the country this year.

*sigh*

Al DeFlorio
I missed it, but my wife said one of the TV announcers (Quint?) gave it to Pressler during halftime. I've heard enough whining about him being "forced to resign" and how unfairly he was treated. His team was out of control, and he did nothing to fix it, as far as I can tell.

I was so happy to have caught this part of the halftime broadcast. They had a lengthy taped interview with Pressler in which he just came off as the poor coach who unfairly lost his job and is now trying to tell the truth so his players will have their honor restored. (He has a book coming out in June.) They sent it back to Quint Kessenich (?), and one of the anchors asked Quint if he thought Pressler was the "fall guy," and Quint (shockingly) said as part of his answer that he thought action should have been taken against some of the players by benching them for either the Virginia (?) or Cornell games. He made the point that there had to be something in the underage drinking/strippers mix that violated team rules. The anchor did a sort of "Okay, Quint" and it ended.

ESPN's coverage of all this just sickened me. As much as Hopkins was seeded too highly, I loved seeing them win today. If it couldn't be us, it shouldn't be Duke.

Jeff Hopkins '82
That's what I'm afraid of. Hopkins winning the final can easily be used to justify that "the system worked."

I agree, but how can a guy named J. Hopkins root against his almost-namesake?

Let's discuss this at our 25th reunion.

BillCharlton

That's what I'm afraid of. Hopkins winning the final can easily be used to justify that "the system worked."

In that case Tambroni should do everything he can to upgrade the strength of schedule. Why can't we replace the likes of Binghamton, Colgate, Army, and Notre Dame with Hopkins, Virginia, or Maryland? Georgetown, Navy, or North Carolina would also be a significant upgrade. If we scheduled two or three strong Southern teams (even if we had to play them on the road or a neutral site like the Carrier Dome) and Syracuse every year, and the Ivies don't stink the way they did this season, we would have the opportunity to get a fair seed. As a fan I would much rather see these games than another 19-4 blowout of Binghamton. Tougher competition in my opinion would also leave us better prepared for the tournament.

There should be a postseason tournament pitting the two top-five RPI teams with the worst strength of schedule. They can play two games and agree to each win one, which will improve both teams' NCAA seeding.

Roy 82

Jeff Hopkins '82
That's what I'm afraid of. Hopkins winning the final can easily be used to justify that "the system worked."

I agree, but how can a guy named J. Hopkins root against his almost-namesake?

Let's discuss this at our 25th reunion.

I can root against them. It's just difficult cheering "Hopkins sucks!"