ELynah Forum

Wow! Usually the pre-season poll has the champion from last year as No. 1 or 2. Not 2026.

PRESEASON MLAX TOP 20  (USA Lacrosse Magazine)
1. Maryland
2. Syracuse
3. Princeton
4. Georgetown
5. North Carolina
6. Cornell
7. Notre Dame
8. Duke
9. Penn State
10. Richmond
11. Ohio State
12. Harvard
13. Virginia
14. Army
15. Rutgers
16. Boston University
17. Johns Hopkins
18. Towson
19. UAlbany
20. Michigan
Also considered (alphabetical order): Bryant, Denver, Fairfield, High Point, Villanova, Yale

Four of the top twenty are New York State teams: Syracuse, Cornell, Army, Albany. Top-twenty Ivies are Princeton, Cornell, Harvard plus Yale as HM. Penn kind of dropped away, went 4-10 last year, HC Mike Murphy fired after 16 seasons.

IIRC, your suitability for post-season play (and placement/opponent) includes how you fared against opponents in ranked bands, thar is 1-5, 6-10, etcetera.  This from the NCAA:

NCAA >>> DIVISION I SELECTION CRITERIA:
The committee will utilize the following criteria to select and seed teams:
• Strength of schedule index.
• Results of the RPI.
   -  Record against ranked teams 1-5; 6-10; 11-15; 16-20; 21+     
   -  Average RPI win (average RPI of all wins)
   -  Average RPI loss (average RPI of all losses)
• Head-to-head competition:
   -  Results versus common opponents.
   -  Significant wins and losses (wins against teams ranked higher in the RPI and losses against teams ranked lower in the RPI).
   -  Locations of contests.
• Input from the regional advisory committee (comprised of [ed: "composed of"] lacrosse coaches from all AQ conferences).


Link: https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/college/men/maryland-ranked-no-1-usa-lacrosse-division-i-mens-preseason-top-20

2026 men's lacrosse regular season thread

No Syracuse in 2026 (Orange do play Princeton). Ranked opponents as of pre-season poll: 3 Princeton, 8 Duke, 9 Penn State, 10 Richmond, 12 Harvard, 19 Albany, HM Denver, HM High Point.  This sucks: Likely game to determine home field for Ivy lax tournament, is RS game March 21 at Princeton, same weekend as ECAC hockey finals in Lake Placid. If the football poobahs keep Harvard-Yale football as the finale, why not same for Cornell-Princeton lacrosse? (Quote: "Well, that's different.")

Date   Time   At   Opponent   Location
Regular Season
Feb 14 Sat  TBA         @Albany   
Feb 21 Sat  12MT        @Denver   
Feb 24 Tue  6:00        Hobart   
Feb 28 Sat  12:00       Richmond
Mar 07 Sat  TBA         @Penn State    
Mar 14 Sat  12:00       Brown    
Mar 21 Sat  TBA         @Princeton
Mar 28 Sat  3:30        Yale
Apr 04 Sat  TBA         @Penn
Apr 11 Sat  2:00        Duke @LIU Brookville
Apr 13 Mon  12:00       High Point
Apr 18 Sat  TBA         @Dartmouth
Apr 25 Sat  12:00       Harvard
-----------            
Ivy League Tournament   4 Teams
May 1 Fri      @#1 Seed Ivy Lax Tournament Semis   
May 3 Sun      @#1 Seed Ivy Lax Championship   
-----------
NCAA Tournament  18 Teams
May 03                  Selection show
May 09 Sat              First round play-in (2 games)
May 16 Sat      Quarterfinals @ Hofstra, Shuart Stadium
May 17 Sun      Quarterfinals @ Newark DE, Delaware Stadium
May 23 Sat      Semifinals @ UVA Scott Stadium (61,500)
May 25 Mon      Final @ Scott Stadium
Video: All RS games ESPN+ except Denver, Penn State (probably BTen), Duke         

In an extension of Mike Schafer's three decades of strategy, Cornell in Casey Jones' first dozen games is also winning by not letting the opponent score enough to win. Of all RS games through Nebraska-Omaha, for Cornell:

2 goals enough to win 5 games of the 13 we played
3 goals enough to win 3 more games
4 goals needed to win no games
5 goals needed to win 1 more game

In the losses we would have needed to score 5 (Clarkson), 3 (UMass), 3 (Dartmouth) and 3 (BU). And we have reasons excuses: @Clarkson was Casey's return to the school he left, @UMass was Cornell's first RS game and UMass eighth game, and BU was a good, so was Dartmouth good and also we in recent years have underperformed in Hanover.

Who wouldn't want four very good scoring lines? "Checking line" may be a euphemism for players who can't score but it may also be a sound strategy for players who can disrupt an opponent's great scoring line and the opponent has no second/third line that approaches the first line, the checking line is use to not tire out our first line.

See the ECAC standings: Princeton (OMG, in first place, run by Ben Syer after 13 years at Cornell), Dartmouth and Cornell, then Quinnipiac are at 19-18-18-17 points and Harvard 2 points back, nobody else above 12. This is a very good start for a team with so many freshmen.

Background check makes sense. The wording of the announcement was awkard. Might have been better to say "made official once paperwork [or formalities or administrative details] are finished."

It could be details were about to leak out, so Cornell got a story out quickly.

A while back (like 50 years ago), working summers for the Rochester paper, I broke a story on Cornell hiring a new basketball coach. Cornell was about a week away from going official. Fast forward 3 years and The Sun broke a story on his firing for violating some mickey mouse NCAA rules, the players actively disliking him, and an alcohol problem. Cornell runs a much tighter ship now.

Liked Cornell's line about "officially hired from IC once Toerper passes a background check."

That sounds not like "want to be sure this is not Michigan Football V2.0" versus it was leaking out, Cornell wanted to get ahead of the story, and the disclaimer provided wiggle room in case the deal couldn't be closed. Also, saves money on relocation fees.

Quote from: Weder on December 08, 2025, 08:37:51 AMHonestly, as I've older I am not totally against having any kind of extra room. Lynah is a much better rink to stand in than to sit in. (Are more people buying alcohol since they expanded who can? When it was more limited I never saw more than a couple people in line.)

Yes! There is no shame in comfortable seats. Or less uncomfortable seats.

If you ever wondered, "Does Clarkson have fraternities?" — here is your likely answer. Who else would go out in shorts and a well, not-quite-Hawaiian shirt? Although he appears to have a date.

This is the Clarkson women's game Saturday afternoon versus SLU, same as our Colgate kind of home-and-home weekend. The temperature had recovered, slightly, from the minus-5-degrees overnight temperature.

In Canton/Potsdam, I had to buy some windshield washer fluid (thank goodness for Tractor Supply), my choice was 32 degrees-rated fluid at 99 cents a gallon (I think left over from summer), 0 degrees, and minus-30 degrees. I went to minus thirty. We had to drive home via Syracuse and the Lake (Ontario) Snow Effect is not fake news.

That is all.

Four days in the North Country and we were lucky to get away with only this much road salt attaching to the car.

Clarkson uses pro arena attendance counts: Anybody who has season or advance-sale tickets and didn't show, gets counted, although these ticket holders aren't buying burgers, pizza or beer at Cheel.

Cheel capaciy        3000
Reported attendance  2285
Percent full          76%

Upbeat: Note the last item in the 2025 Big Red football schedule.

Could be of a sporting nature: College Bowl (TV quiz show), cheer squad, Miss America, Nobels, Pulitzers (Jay Branegan '72, Jeffrey Gettleman '94, Marc Lacey '87 (2X), Eric Lichtblau, EB White, Molly O'Toole, all Cornell Daily Sun; faculty have also won). Nobels. Also Olympic gold medals. Also Medals of Honor. How wide does one go? Oscars?

Good step forward. Columbia is also beatable. Maybe ... Princeton. LGR!

Quote from: scoop85 on October 25, 2025, 02:19:10 PMI'm astounded at how often football coaches can't see what's in front of them.

a) Fog of war.
b) Duffy Daugherty, Michigan State coach circa the Marinaro era (paraphrasing): "Monday morning, anyone can tell me the right play to run. On Saturday afternoon, coaches have 25 seconds." He also had a bunch of Yoga Berra-isms led by, "My only feeling about superstition is that it's unlucky to be behind at the end of the game."

Cornell used a lot of running, got the score to 23-7 after three, 30-7 five minutes into the fourth, then Bucknell caught fire and got two TDs 6 and 12-1/2 minutes in to make it 30-20. Cornell's next position lasted all of 22 seconds, Bucknell moved quickly past midfield, got intercepted, Three Cornell kneeldowns were enough to run out the clock.

A very good game. but how much interest? Almost 24 hours after the game was played, there are less than a dozen comments here on the team's first win and some decent play. And only 4200 showed on a pretty nice day.

The West Stands were fabulous. Okay, that was fifty years ago, and it reminds me: Saying "you shoulda seen the '70s" to current students is like a Class of '25 (1925) grad telling me (Class of '74) in the Vietnam / 29-0 / Marinaro /first lax championship era how cool it was wearing raccoon coats (and celebrating national football championships) and drinking Bees Knees (gin, honey syrup, lemon juice) in the Crescent. The West Stands:

• • Held 4000 people.
  • Were enclosed, with steel under your feet and behind your legs, so they felt like real stands not what you had in HS. There started about 8 feet above ground level; you could see over the players; compare to Berman Field stands about half as high.
  • Were around 1947 to 2016, held mostly Cornell students, and were a suitable for launching plastic champagne corks between quarters.
  • Were useful at graduation when there are capacity issues.
  See this Cornell Daily Sun 2016 article on the demise of the West Stands: https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2016/03/west-schoellkopf-stands-torn-down-due-to-underuse-disrepair
  
  I have hopes that at some point Cornell moves the playing surface closer to the Crescent (remove the old running track no longer used for competitions) and builds in the space between the garage/press box and the field:
  
  • Maybe a grassy knoll like some schools have for lazing at the game, catching sun, etcetera.
  • Or better, a thin building slides in there, maybe for athletic administration, with an open but covered top level that holds 500 for, say, early season lacrosse, or sprint football. Thus making Teagle Hall available to be reconfigured with a 50-meter swimming pool.
  
  The terrace seating used for lacrosse late in the season was great for getting close to the action, taking photos up close, getting a beer or wine legally, or — this happened also — lets parents and boisterous alums yell at the refs up-close.