Lacrosse April 2012

Enough for a separate April thread on lacrosse? The Feb-March discussion is getting lengthy.

Against Syracuse (4/10), Cornell doubles the Orange 12-6 for its 700th win and (did I hear this right) now the nation's longest (longest home?) winning streak.

The Cornell-Hobart game is still listed as Postponed not Cancelled but when can it be played? Cornell has Saturday free but probably doesn't want to insert a Tuesday or Wednesday game in advance of Brown(home) or Princeton (away) and then it's Ivy Tournament weekend. If no game, Hobart should have tried to harder (like make a phone call?) to use the Carrier Dome the weekend of the postponement.

Let's hope Rob Pannell is healing.

billhoward
If no game, Hobart should have tried to harder (like make a phone call?) to use the Carrier Dome the weekend of the postponement.

It's a shame the game almost certainly won't be played. It's also a shame that the NCAA system is designed to that the cancellation will work to Cornell's benefit given that a win vs. (two win) Hobart is worse than not playing them at all at selection time.

Chris '03

billhoward
If no game, Hobart should have tried to harder (like make a phone call?) to use the Carrier Dome the weekend of the postponement.

It's a shame the game almost certainly won't be played. It's also a shame that the NCAA system is designed to that the cancellation will work to Cornell's benefit given that a win vs. (two win) Hobart is worse than not playing them at all at selection time.

Cornell plays many of its non-league games against NYS teams to the benefit of NYS lacrosse: Hobart, SUNY Binghamton, Syracuse, Hobart, Canisius ... and I think in some years past other NYS schools. With Bucknell and Lehigh looking good, I could see interest in dropping a lesser NYS team to pick up another top ten school such as Hopkins or a near top ten school such as Bucknell or Lehigh.

Hobart dropped D1 lacrosse a couple years ago, the alumni and lax alumni revolted, and Hobart reinstated D1. Big loser seasons such as this one, repeated, might make Hobart think again about where it wants to play. This is probably an uncharacteristically off season. The crusher was Saturday's OT loss to visiting Ohio State.

billhoward

Cornell plays many of its non-league games against NYS teams to the benefit of NYS lacrosse: Hobart, SUNY Binghamton, Syracuse, Hobart, Canisius

Cornell plays Hobart twice in some seasons? Or are there two schools named Hobart?

jtn27

billhoward

Cornell plays many of its non-league games against NYS teams to the benefit of NYS lacrosse: Hobart, SUNY Binghamton, Syracuse, Hobart, Canisius

Cornell plays Hobart twice in some seasons? Or are there two schools named Hobart?

"You said Hobart twice."
"I like Hobart."

jtn27

billhoward

Cornell plays many of its non-league games against NYS teams to the benefit of NYS lacrosse: Hobart, SUNY Binghamton, Syracuse, Hobart, Canisius

Cornell plays Hobart twice in some seasons? Or are there two schools named Hobart?

One is Hobart. The other is William Smith.

Jeff Hopkins '82

jtn27

billhoward

Cornell plays many of its non-league games against NYS teams to the benefit of NYS lacrosse: Hobart, SUNY Binghamton, Syracuse, Hobart, Canisius

Cornell plays Hobart twice in some seasons? Or are there two schools named Hobart?

"You said Hobart twice."
"I like Hobart."

Article in the Syracuse Post-Standard on Kyle Dake and the Olympics.

Jim Hyla
Article in the Syracuse Post-Standard on Kyle Dake and the Olympics.

Nice quote:
“Some guys say they are going to win. They don’t believe it. I believe it,”

Jim Hyla
Article in the Syracuse Post-Standard on Kyle Dake and the Olympics.

After reading the article, I wonder how he's able to sit through his classes!

dbilmes

Jim Hyla
Article in the Syracuse Post-Standard on Kyle Dake and the Olympics.

After reading the article, I wonder how he's able to sit through his classes!

I had a class with him freshman year before he won any national championships. As far as I could tell, he was just like any other student. I didn't even know he was on the wrestling team until my roommate who was also on the team mentioned him. Unless those three titles went to his head, I bet that hasn't changed.

dbilmes

Jim Hyla
Article in the Syracuse Post-Standard on Kyle Dake and the Olympics.

After reading the article, I wonder how he's able to sit through his classes!

And I'm wondering what position he plays on the lacrosse team.

Swampy

dbilmes

Jim Hyla
Article in the Syracuse Post-Standard on Kyle Dake and the Olympics.

After reading the article, I wonder how he's able to sit through his classes!

And I'm wondering what position he plays on the lacrosse team.

Another thread jumped from Cornell lax to article about Cornell lax by the Post Standard, so the Post Standard is the one degree of separation between a three with both Cornell lax and wrestling. Took me a moment to figure out.

billhoward

Swampy

dbilmes

Jim Hyla
Article in the Syracuse Post-Standard on Kyle Dake and the Olympics.

After reading the article, I wonder how he's able to sit through his classes!

And I'm wondering what position he plays on the lacrosse team.

Another thread jumped from Cornell lax to article about Cornell lax by the Post Standard, so the Post Standard is the one degree of separation between a three-way with both Cornell lax and wrestling. Took me a moment to figure out.

FYP

Swampy

dbilmes

Jim Hyla
Article in the Syracuse Post-Standard on Kyle Dake and the Olympics.

After reading the article, I wonder how he's able to sit through his classes!

And I'm wondering what position he plays on the lacrosse team.

My bad.

From the Post-Standard, an article about CU and title hopes. Yes, this time it's not about wrestling. For those OCC (Onondaga Community College) fans, they just beat number 2 ranked Nassau CC 17-6.

A Lax Power forum user did a little bit of bracketology, and had this to say:

Ivy – Cornell (#9 RPI, #37 SOS, QWs – Denver (15); Syracuse (16)) - Higher RPI gets the Big Red the AQ slot in this projection over Princeton. A #9 RPI with their best win being #15 Denver means no seed for the Big Red. In fact, if they aren't careful, their resume is starting to look a good deal like Georgetown's in 2010, when they had the #9 RPI but did not get in.

The obvious caveat is that this is a forum poster, so biases yada yada.

The new Coaches' Poll has us at #3 behind the two unbeaten co-number 1s after Duke beat UVA.

RichH
A Lax Power forum user did a little bit of bracketology, and had this to say:

Ivy – Cornell (#9 RPI, #37 SOS, QWs – Denver (15); Syracuse (16)) - Higher RPI gets the Big Red the AQ slot in this projection over Princeton. A #9 RPI with their best win being #15 Denver means no seed for the Big Red. In fact, if they aren't careful, their resume is starting to look a good deal like Georgetown's in 2010, when they had the #9 RPI but did not get in.

The obvious caveat is that this is a forum poster, so biases yada yada.

The new Coaches' Poll has us at #3 behind the two unbeaten co-number 1s after Duke beat UVA.

Media poll also has Cornell #3. Neither poll selects or seeds the NCAAs. The issue is Cornell has no top ten wins. That laxpower poster has an excellent track record in bracketology.

Al DeFlorio

RichH
A Lax Power forum user did a little bit of bracketology, and had this to say:

Ivy – Cornell (#9 RPI, #37 SOS, QWs – Denver (15); Syracuse (16)) - Higher RPI gets the Big Red the AQ slot in this projection over Princeton. A #9 RPI with their best win being #15 Denver means no seed for the Big Red. In fact, if they aren't careful, their resume is starting to look a good deal like Georgetown's in 2010, when they had the #9 RPI but did not get in.

The obvious caveat is that this is a forum poster, so biases yada yada.

The new Coaches' Poll has us at #3 behind the two unbeaten co-number 1s after Duke beat UVA.

Media poll also has Cornell #3. Neither poll selects or seeds the NCAAs. The issue is Cornell has no top ten wins. That laxpower poster has an excellent track record in bracketology.

Of course, of course. We also won't remain so high with the pollsters if we fail to win the AQ anyway. Plus I was assuming the poster is well-regarded as Lax Power wouldn't have brought that content outside the forum otherwise. As encouraging as that OT loss to UVA was at the time, not pulling that out might cost us at least a seeded spot. (Not that seeds mattered in the 2011 bloodbath QF round)

RichH

Al DeFlorio

RichH
A Lax Power forum user did a little bit of bracketology, and had this to say:

Ivy – Cornell (#9 RPI, #37 SOS, QWs – Denver (15); Syracuse (16)) - Higher RPI gets the Big Red the AQ slot in this projection over Princeton. A #9 RPI with their best win being #15 Denver means no seed for the Big Red. In fact, if they aren't careful, their resume is starting to look a good deal like Georgetown's in 2010, when they had the #9 RPI but did not get in.

The obvious caveat is that this is a forum poster, so biases yada yada.

The new Coaches' Poll has us at #3 behind the two unbeaten co-number 1s after Duke beat UVA.

Media poll also has Cornell #3. Neither poll selects or seeds the NCAAs. The issue is Cornell has no top ten wins. That laxpower poster has an excellent track record in bracketology.

Of course, of course. We also won't remain so high with the pollsters if we fail to win the AQ anyway. Plus I was assuming the poster is well-regarded as Lax Power wouldn't have brought that content outside the forum otherwise. As encouraging as that OT loss to UVA was at the time, not pulling that out might cost us at least a seeded spot. (Not that seeds mattered in the 2011 bloodbath QF round)

But unlike the QF, seeded teams do get to play at home.

RichH

Al DeFlorio

RichH
A Lax Power forum user did a little bit of bracketology, and had this to say:

Ivy – Cornell (#9 RPI, #37 SOS, QWs – Denver (15); Syracuse (16)) - Higher RPI gets the Big Red the AQ slot in this projection over Princeton. A #9 RPI with their best win being #15 Denver means no seed for the Big Red. In fact, if they aren't careful, their resume is starting to look a good deal like Georgetown's in 2010, when they had the #9 RPI but did not get in.

The obvious caveat is that this is a forum poster, so biases yada yada.

The new Coaches' Poll has us at #3 behind the two unbeaten co-number 1s after Duke beat UVA.

Media poll also has Cornell #3. Neither poll selects or seeds the NCAAs. The issue is Cornell has no top ten wins. That laxpower poster has an excellent track record in bracketology.

Of course, of course. We also won't remain so high with the pollsters if we fail to win the AQ anyway. Plus I was assuming the poster is well-regarded as Lax Power wouldn't have brought that content outside the forum otherwise. As encouraging as that OT loss to UVA was at the time, not pulling that out might cost us at least a seeded spot. (Not that seeds mattered in the 2011 bloodbath QF round)

Quite frankly, this is even stupider than with hockey, IMHO. "Higher RPI gets the Big Red the AQ slot in this projection over Princeton." Yeah who cares, we've yet to play them. When we do, maybe twice, it won't matter that the higher RPI gets the slot. The winner is likely to get the slot. There are so few games in lax that none of this matters until the regular season is over, and even then the Ivy tourney could turn it all upside down.

And this year the polls are almost upside down, yeah I know not completely. But Loyola and UMass on top. You'd not always schedule them for a quality win attempt. Princeton, and to a much lesser extent SU, are probably much better than the polls suggest. But if we beat Princeton, it's almost for sure that will no longer even be a possible quality, top ten, win. So we really have no good chance for that type of win. Just that type of year.

Jim Hyla

RichH

Al DeFlorio

RichH
A Lax Power forum user did a little bit of bracketology, and had this to say:

Ivy – Cornell (#9 RPI, #37 SOS, QWs – Denver (15); Syracuse (16)) - Higher RPI gets the Big Red the AQ slot in this projection over Princeton. A #9 RPI with their best win being #15 Denver means no seed for the Big Red. In fact, if they aren't careful, their resume is starting to look a good deal like Georgetown's in 2010, when they had the #9 RPI but did not get in.

The obvious caveat is that this is a forum poster, so biases yada yada.

The new Coaches' Poll has us at #3 behind the two unbeaten co-number 1s after Duke beat UVA.

Media poll also has Cornell #3. Neither poll selects or seeds the NCAAs. The issue is Cornell has no top ten wins. That laxpower poster has an excellent track record in bracketology.

Of course, of course. We also won't remain so high with the pollsters if we fail to win the AQ anyway. Plus I was assuming the poster is well-regarded as Lax Power wouldn't have brought that content outside the forum otherwise. As encouraging as that OT loss to UVA was at the time, not pulling that out might cost us at least a seeded spot. (Not that seeds mattered in the 2011 bloodbath QF round)

Quite frankly, this is even stupider than with hockey, IMHO. "Higher RPI gets the Big Red the AQ slot in this projection over Princeton." Yeah who cares, we've yet to play them. When we do, maybe twice, it won't matter that the higher RPI gets the slot. The winner is likely to get the slot. There are so few games in lax that none of this matters until the regular season is over, and even then the Ivy tourney could turn it all upside down.

And this year the polls are almost upside down, yeah I know not completely. But Loyola and UMass on top. You'd not always schedule them for a quality win attempt. Princeton, and to a much lesser extent SU, are probably much better than the polls suggest. But if we beat Princeton, it's almost for sure that will no longer even be a possible quality, top ten, win. So we really have no good chance for that type of win. Just that type of year.

Yeah, just win the games.

Win and in. Agreed, but to be even talking about possibly not making the tournament when the team has only one loss, in OT to UVA I think is the frustrating part of the conversation. The same is often true for Cornell hockey - if you look, this year we may not have had a ton of wins, but we sure didn't have too many losses either.

The knock for years on NCAA lacrosse seeding is that it's too heavily influenced by "quality losses" as reflected in SOS. What's really hurt Cornell this year more than any other factor is how badly other Ivies have done out of conference. Pair that with some surprising teams ending up in the top 10 and you've got a recipe for disaster. Who would have thought Lehigh was a quality win and Syracuse is not?

From here on out, I'll be rooting for those upstarts to lose and (I cannot believe I'm saying this) for Syracuse to win out.

That Laxpower forum user, who goes by "humb le" on that forum, I believe, has been doing lacrosse "bracketology" for many years and, with respect to the teams that make the tournament, has a very strong track record of predictions. Though no one but the committee knows the exact basis, in any given year, for picking the field, there are criteria in the rules and humb le has, over the years, been able to refine his analysis so that his predictions are very, very close to the end results if not dead on. What he and no one else has been able to do is reliably seed the teams.

I, for one, would put a lot of faith in what he says.

CUontheslopes
Win and in. Agreed, but to be even talking about possibly not making the tournament when the team has only one loss, in OT to UVA I think is the frustrating part of the conversation. The same is often true for Cornell hockey - if you look, this year we may not have had a ton of wins, but we sure didn't have too many losses either.

The knock for years on NCAA lacrosse seeding is that it's too heavily influenced by "quality losses" as reflected in SOS. What's really hurt Cornell this year more than any other factor is how badly other Ivies have done out of conference. Pair that with some surprising teams ending up in the top 10 and you've got a recipe for disaster. Who would have thought Lehigh was a quality win and Syracuse is not?

From here on out, I'll be rooting for those upstarts to lose and (I cannot believe I'm saying this) for Syracuse to win out.

Cuse struggling to beat Hobart, 11-9 after three.

Al DeFlorio

CUontheslopes
Win and in. Agreed, but to be even talking about possibly not making the tournament when the team has only one loss, in OT to UVA I think is the frustrating part of the conversation. The same is often true for Cornell hockey - if you look, this year we may not have had a ton of wins, but we sure didn't have too many losses either.

The knock for years on NCAA lacrosse seeding is that it's too heavily influenced by "quality losses" as reflected in SOS. What's really hurt Cornell this year more than any other factor is how badly other Ivies have done out of conference. Pair that with some surprising teams ending up in the top 10 and you've got a recipe for disaster. Who would have thought Lehigh was a quality win and Syracuse is not?

From here on out, I'll be rooting for those upstarts to lose and (I cannot believe I'm saying this) for Syracuse to win out.

Cuse struggling to beat Hobart, 11-9 after three.

13-11 SU with 1:30 left.

13-12 final, Syracuse

Al DeFlorio
13-12 final, Syracuse

It's worth noting that Hobart's Bobby Dattilo is the best faceoff guy in the NCAA (by winning percentage) and, not surprisingly, gave Syracuse a lot of trouble, winning 18 of 28. Take that out of the equation and Syracuse probably wins the game handily. Another reason it's too bad it looks like we won't get to play Hobart - facing off against Dattilo would be good experience for Tesoriero before the tournament. (Denver's guy is almost as good and he gave us fits back in March, winning 13 of 19 including 6 of 7 against Tesoriero.)

Brown sticking it to Cornell at the half: 5-3

Brown wins it 10-9 with a goal in last five seconds. Now it all depends on winning the Ivy tournament.

Unbelievable! What a way to mess things up.

Al DeFlorio
Brown wins it 10-9 with a goal in last five seconds. Now it all depends on winning the Ivy tournament.

Cornell is out if they don't win the Ivy Tourney?

I'm no expert but I would guess so. Another bad outcome for us today when Georgetown beat Syracuse. UVA losing yesterday also sucked for us. If I was the committee, I couldn't point to a single impressive win on Cornell's resume and I could make the case that we lost to the only decent team we played, and that team is no longer the world beater they looked like a couple of weeks ago. Despite all that, it felt well and good as long as our only loss was to a pretty good UVA team, but UVA's back to back losses hurt, and our record got beat up very badly today. I think we are still a damn good team and so lets just get the AQ. Go Red!!! He says weakly..

Redscore
I'm no expert but I would guess so. Another bad outcome for us today when Georgetown beat Syracuse. UVA losing yesterday also sucked for us. If I was the committee, I couldn't point to a single impressive win on Cornell's resume and I could make the case that we lost to the only decent team we played, and that team is no longer the world beater they looked like a couple of weeks ago. Despite all that, it felt well and good as long as our only loss was to a pretty good UVA team, but UVA's back to back losses hurt, and our record got beat up very badly today. I think we are still a damn good team and so lets just get the AQ. Go Red!!! He says weakly..

Everyone needs to pray to the Lax Gods that #3 feels really healthy next weekend!

Winner of next Saturday's Cornell at Princeton game (7 pm) hosts the tournament, no other possibilities per Cornell or the standings (below): [www.cornellbigred.com] Cornell must win to share Ivy title else it's Princeton's. Either way, no Cornell-Princeton first-round matchup in the Ivy tournament.

Ivy standings going into final week [www.ivyleaguesports.com]

1. Princeton .... 5-0
2. Cornell ...... 4-1
3. Yale ......... 3-2 
4. Brown ........ 2-3 
5. Harvard ...... 2-3 
6. Dartmouth .... 1-4
7. Penn ......... 1-5 (Ivy season finished)

Next week Harvard at Yale (pick 'em) 2 pm and Dartmouth at Brown (Brown) 3pm. Harvard and Yale have beaten Brown in OT. Princeton has won every Ivy game by 7 or more except a 5OT 10-9 OT win at Yale.

billhoward
Winner of next Saturday's Cornell at Princeton game (7 pm) hosts the tournament, no other possibilities per Cornell or the standings (below): [www.cornellbigred.com] Cornell must win to share Ivy title else it's Princeton's. Either way, no Cornell-Princeton first-round matchup in the Ivy tournament.

Ivy standings going into final week [www.ivyleaguesports.com]

1. Princeton .... 5-0
2. Cornell ...... 4-1
3. Yale ......... 3-2 
4. Brown ........ 2-3 
5. Harvard ...... 2-3 
6. Dartmouth .... 1-4
7. Penn ......... 1-5 (Ivy season finished)

Next week Harvard at Yale (pick 'em) 2 pm and Dartmouth at Brown (Brown) 3pm. Harvard and Yale have beaten Brown in OT. Princeton has won every Ivy game by 7 or more except a 5OT 10-9 OT win at Yale.

Possibilities for the two lower seeds in the tournament:
If Harvard wins, they're the 3 seed and Yale is the 4.
Yale and Dartmouth win, Yale is the 3 and Harvard is the 4.
If Yale and Brown win, Yale is the 3 and Brown is the 4.

Pannell is not the only thing missing from college lacrosse this season. No Lax Swami either [www.laxswami.com]. Note on site says to check back April 14. Probably unrelated to Navy being 6-6 and not even able to make the top four for the Patriot League playoffs.

I think that date has been up since last Spring actually

Ivy standings going into Saturday night
1. Princeton .... 5-0
2. Cornell ...... 4-1
3. Yale ......... 4-2 def. Harvard 10-8
4. Brown ........ 2-3 leading Dartmouth 8-5 at the half
5. Harvard ...... 2-4 
6. Dartmouth .... 1-4 
7. Penn ......... 1-5 lost Friday to Virginia 10-8

Princeton or Cornell hosts the Ivy tournament, Yale is the 3-seed, Brown is the 4-seed if it beats Dartmouth, else it's Harvard. (Edit add: Brown wins 10-8.)

Loyola #1 and previously unbeaten, loses 10-9 to Hopkins in OT. UMass #2 clobbered Delaware 17-6.

12-7 PU after 3. Not looking very good right now.

Very good job by Princeton against Cornell. I still like Cornell's chances next week in the tournament. (Cornell-Yale 5 pm, Brown-Princeton 8 pm Friday; title game Sunday 12 noon.) Freshman Matt Donovan launched a cannon from outside that cut it to 11-7 and then, IIRC, Cornell twice turned the ball over, then Princeton scored, and the game swung from what could have been a manageable 3-goal deficit to 5. Another game where we have trouble scoring from the inside without Pannell feeding.

You're right, C95. Swami may be back next spring, when he may get a "Good Behavior" release from his unfortunate....detention. And if Wombat can be pried away from his defense dept duties and his monkey. You still can get access to the classic prose and great insights by adding some code to the url. For example: to get here Why does God hate Cornell so much?

you use "www.laxswami.com/tw10-01"

just add the characters after the backslash: twxx-yy where xx is the last two digits of the year you want and yy is the issue number, in this case the first of the year. You're welcome.