Schadenfreude - Duke vs. Hopkins NCAA lax title game

[billhoward]

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.

[David Harding]

Phillip Hersch in the Chicago Tribune recognises the Duke men's lacrosse team as a bunch of scumbags.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/premium/printedition/Monday/sports/chi-hersh-im28may28,1,4322808.story

[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]

[Jacob '06]

This game is a bit reminiscent of saturday.

[Al DeFlorio]

[quote David Harding]Phillip Hersch in the Chicago Tribune recognises the Duke men's lacrosse team as a bunch of scumbags.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/premium/printedition/Monday/sports/chi-hersh-im28may28,1,4322808.story

[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][/quote]
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.

[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.

[Al DeFlorio]

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

[DeltaOne81]

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

[billhoward]

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

[billhoward]

[quote Al DeFlorio][quote David Harding]Phillip Hersch in the Chicago Tribune recognises the Duke men's lacrosse team as a bunch of scumbags.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/premium/printedition/Monday/sports/chi-hersh-im28may28,1,4322808.story

[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][/quote]
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.[/quote]
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.

[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.

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.

[billhoward]

[quote 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. ... [/quote]
The Hopkins server was down?

[dbilmes]

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!

[DeltaOne81]

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

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

[billhoward]

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.

[ugarte]

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