NCAA Lax Selections

#1 Duke vs. Providence
#8 North Carolina vs. Navy

#5 Albany vs. Loyola
#4 Cornell vs. Towson

#6 Georgetown vs. Princeton
#3 Johns Hopkins vs. Notre Dame

#7 Maryland vs. UMBC
#2 Virginia vs. Delaware

Their criteria suck. There is no way Hopkins should have been ahead of us, they had 4 losses.

I was going to say the same thing. Maybe Duke with the two losses, I guess, but UVa with 3 and Hopkins with 4? I'm sorry, that's dumb.

What's the scouting report on Towson? Similar team to the one we faced two years ago?

You're focusing on the wrong things. It's all about the match-ups. Although Towson is dangerous (more on that later), I'd rather play them than red-hot Delaware (with the best faceoff man in the nation) or Notre Dame. This is not as bad a draw for Cornell as the seeding would imply.

They don't reseed after any of the rounds, right? I can't seem to remember from previous seasons.

redhair34
What's the scouting report on Towson? Similar team to the one we faced two years ago?

I don't know a whole lot about them, but one thing I see from their team stats page that's encouraging:

 ## FACE-OFF PCT.         GP   W   L  Pct.
 ------------------------------------------
 1  Eckerl, Matt          11  91 106  .462
 9  Rosensweig, Mitchell  15  36  44  .450
 23 Brakebill, Clint      13  19  24  .442
 41 Geary, Danny           3   1   4  .200

Josh '99

redhair34
What's the scouting report on Towson? Similar team to the one we faced two years ago?

I don't know a whole lot about them, but one thing I see from their team stats page that's encouraging:

 ## FACE-OFF PCT.         GP   W   L  Pct.
 ------------------------------------------
 1  Eckerl, Matt          11  91 106  .462
 9  Rosensweig, Mitchell  15  36  44  .450
 23 Brakebill, Clint      13  19  24  .442
 41 Geary, Danny           3   1   4  .200

Good! IIRC that wasn't the case two years ago.

On the bright side:

At least we got home ice. Er, field.
If we advance: Quarterfinals at Princeton (says InsideLacrosse), closer to home.
[edit add:]Added incentive to prove the seeding committee wrong or the criteria bogus.

However: If we advance again (no reseeding, right) -- Semifinals could pit Cornell and Duke. Lot of people may argue this would be the title game.

Towson's primary faceoff man Eckerl is excellent, but he has been hampered by an injury for much of the season. His numbers are artificially depressed because he missed several midseason games when he could have cleaned up, and when he returned he had to face a gauntlet of superb faceoff men -- including Delaware's Smith (twice in less than a month). If he had faced off against the faceoff specialists on Cornell's schedule, I bet you could add at least 10 percent.

Isn't albany a bad matchup for us? From what I remember they have a very strong offensive midfield, and our weakness is our ssdm.

Also concerning is if slumping Albany can't hold off Loyola, we get to play Loyola with their face-off experts.

Ah, well. Hopefully I'll see everyone in Annapolis in a couple weeks.

I assume we're in Annapolis from the seeding, right?

Jacob '06
Isn't albany a bad matchup for us? From what I remember they have a very strong offensive midfield, and our weakness is our ssdm.

Both Albany and Loyola present match-up problems.

Albany has a kick-ass midfield, no doubt about it. Jordan Levine was one of the three best midfielders I saw all year (the others being Johns Hopkins' Paul Rabil and Cornell's John Glynn). The Ammann brothers are super too.

Loyola has the great faceoff game -- and it's not just Kallaugher, the grad student and former Yalie.

But look at the teams that Duke, Virginia, and Johns Hopkins might have to play should the top three seeds advance. Cornell's draw could be so much worse.

IC makes the DIII tournament and gets a decent matchup; they go to Pennsylvania to play Cabrini, who were 15-2 but against a very weak schedule.

Answers to some earlier questions:

No, they don't reseed after each round.

No, if Cornell beats Towson they are not playing in Annapolis. They'd advance to play a quarterfinal game in Princeton on Saturday the 19th -- a better location, a familiar venue (site of 2005 quarters), a more favorable surface, you name it.

Edit: I just looked at the brackets on LaxPower. 1 and 2 play south, 3 and 4 play north.

Not how I expected they would be placed, but I guess it works.

Jeff Hopkins '82
So you're saying that the upper bracket 1-8, 5-4 is the North Bracket?
I guess that figures with Hopkins, Maryland, Georgetown, and UVa in the other bracket.

But it's kind of counter-intuitive with Navy in our bracket, and Princeton in the other bracket.

The Princeton quarterfinal games:

Cornell-Towson winner vs. Albany-Loyola winner
Johns Hopkins-Notre Dame winner vs. Princeton-Georgetown winner

Maybe this also helps folks realize how Cornell's draw ain't so bad. If Princeton beats the Hoyas, can you imagine how chapped the Hopkins-Notre Dame winner will be at the prospect of playing Princeton at home?

Edit: Same for Duke, should they advance along with Navy. Now that would be a nightmare: advancing to play Navy in the quarterfinals at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium.

I agree our match-ups are about as favorable as we'd want (short of playing Providence), but it so irks me to see us at #4. Now, just prove it on the field, dammit!

More rose-tinted thoughts about Cornell's draw: the hot factor.

Towson has lost three of their last five games.

Loyola has lost three of their last five games.

Although Albany won their conference tournament, they lost two of their last three regular season games. It could have been even worse for the Danes had they not managed a miraculous last-minute come-from-behind victory at home against Dartmouth in their second-to-last regular season game.

Game time has been announced as 2:30 p.m., Saturday, May 12.

Hillel Hoffmann
Game time has been announced as 2:30 p.m., Saturday, May 12.

Excellent... anyone know what channel?

Hopefully this is just more added motivation for the Rojo Grande.

DeltaOne81

Hillel Hoffmann
Game time has been announced as 2:30 p.m., Saturday, May 12.

Excellent... anyone know what channel?

All games on ESPNU... which begs the question, All-Access or no access? Comcast sucks and doesn't carry ESPNU...

DeltaOne81

Hillel Hoffmann
Game time has been announced as 2:30 p.m., Saturday, May 12.

Excellent... anyone know what channel?

ESPNU. Don't know if local TWC has any right to broadcast the game.

Josh '99
#1 Duke vs. Providence
#8 North Carolina vs. Navy

#5 Albany vs. Loyola
#4 Cornell vs. Towson

#6 Georgetown vs. Princeton
#3 Johns Hopkins vs. Notre Dame

#7 Maryland vs. UMBC
#2 Virginia vs. Delaware

As pointed out on Laxpower, if the teams seeded 1, 2, 7, and 8 win their opening games, the 1/4 final in Annapolis will be a replay of the ACC tournament from a couple of weeks ago.

Chris '03

DeltaOne81

Hillel Hoffmann
Game time has been announced as 2:30 p.m., Saturday, May 12.

Excellent... anyone know what channel?

All games on ESPNU... which begs the question, All-Access or no access? Comcast sucks and doesn't carry ESPNU...

I didn't know if they'd be able to show all games, but looks like they are. Awesome.

Sat.,
May 12 Men's lacrosse
Duke vs. Providence Noon

Sat.,
May 12 Men's lacrosse
Towson vs. Cornell 2:30 p.m.

Sat.,
May 12 Men's lacrosse
Navy vs. North Carolina 5 p.m.

Sat.,
May 12 Men's lacrosse
Johns Hopkins vs. Notre Dame 7:30 p.m.

Sun.,
May 13 Men's lacrosse
Princeton vs. Georgetown Noon

Sun.,
May 13 Men's lacrosse
Albany vs. Loyola 2:30 p.m.

Sun.,
May 13 Men's lacrosse
Delaware vs. Virginia 5 p.m.

Sun.,
May 13 Men's lacrosse
Maryland vs. UMBC 7:30 p.m.

DeltaOne81
I didn't know if they'd be able to show all games, but looks like they are. Awesome.

Yeah, that starts at 9 am for me here in Seattle. My crappy hotel room only gets about 20 channels, but wonder-of-wonders, those 20 channels include ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPN News, and ESPNU. Can the Ocho be far behind???

Perhaps I should give up on cases and just get a mini-keg to make it through this marathon...

Hillel Hoffmann
Cornell's draw could be so much worse.

Listen to Hillel, the Yoda of lax fandom on this board (in wisdom, not age). For the most part, it seems nobody really exploded here in obsessing over the number, which is good. This is a pretty close feeling to the 2002 hockey tournament, being miffed after missing a bye and seeing that we got handed Quinnipiac. Or the opposite feeling of locking up the #1 seed in 2003 and getting a WCHA team instead of one of the MAAC/CHA.

Seriously, erase those numbers out in front and look at the bracket...I'm pretty happy. About my only complaint is that the two teams that most everyone seemed to agree on being the strongest are bracketed to meet in the semis.

If pride is the only thing that got hurt out of this, well, I'll settle for dented pride. If it gets even more fire under the Red, even better.

Throw out the seeding...let's settle it on the field.

LGR!!!!

RichH
]

Listen to Hillel, the Yoda of lax fandom on this board (in wisdom, not age).

Well, I throw out these questions to Hillel or any other Yoda that also follows Women's Lax. I'm a Lax newbie and am becoming quite hooked now that I have CSTV/ESPNU and that they do late night replays of the games .

I watched some of the Women's Northwestern/JHU game yesterday (NW won 22-6 @ JHU... big blowout), and I noticed that the women take the face-off differently and that they do not have to wear helmets. What is the rationale for the difference in the face-off?

I understand that like in hockey, no body checking is allowed. Is the material of the sticks still the same in Men's and Women's Lax? The way those sticks move about, I think I might want something more protecting my head than a pair of goggles.

Finally, it looked like the nets are placed differently. I also caught some of last night's (this morning's) ESPNU "cram session" and a replay of the JHU/Hofstra game from March. Since JHU is a lacrosse only field I could see the markings better and it look like the nets were positioned differently in the two games (or maybe my bleary, tired eyes were confused).

Thanks!
LGR!

For starters there's no real out of bounds in W. Lax. The goals are 90 yds apart for women, 80 for men.

Why they face off differently is probably to do with the fact that the men's faceoff is too violent for a game with no real padding or head gear but I'm not certain if there is a better reason.

This is a decent piece addressing some differences: [www.dailyprincetonian.com]

See also: [activityworkshop.net] with links to M and W rules and field markings.

My high school used to (perhaps still does) have a girls v. boys lacrosse scrimmage. I believe it was played with girls' rules (i.e. no contact) and boys' positions (number of people on the field, field set-up, etc.). I never saw one, but I know the differences between men's and women's lacrosse are significant enough that they had to draw up new rules for these scrimmages.

Once you can hit, as in men's lacrosse, and then you add more padding to the arms, plus deeper pockets in the sticks, it encourages a vicious cycle of even more vigorous stick checks and slashes-that-aren't-slashes. Those who've seen a generation of college lacrosse played (that is, going back to Cornell's powerhouse years 1968-88) have a sense there's a lot more pushing, shoving, slashing, and hitting. You pretty much have to tomahawk the attackman (is that term still allowed?) to get the ball loose.

By not having protective equipment, there's less violence players can do to each other. And because the women's stick pockets are shallower, less violence is necessary to get the ball loose.

OTOH, as the women playing the game become stronger and their shots become harder, protective goggles have become mandatory, and for good reason - there were too many eye injuries the previous decade.

Chris '03
For starters there's no real out of bounds in W. Lax.

Makes it easy to run out the clock. Put your cross-country star on the field, give her the ball, and have her head for Peoria. Game over.

Al DeFlorio

Chris '03
For starters there's no real out of bounds in W. Lax.

Makes it easy to run out the clock. Put your cross-country star on the field, give her the ball, and have her head for Peoria. Game over.

Peoria, IL? Oh gosh, isn't that bordering on cruel and unusual punishment?

Thanks for the explanations.

From Monday's Baltimore Sun:

"But the real controversy took place at the top of the bracket. That Duke inched up to the top seed was not a shock. But Virginia and Hopkins leapfrogging over Cornell, which is seeking to win its first national title since 1977, was a bit of a stunner.

"'The way the system worked, 50 percent of it was result-driven, 30 percent was strength of schedule and 20 percent was [Rating Percentage Index],' Cottle said. 'When the numbers came out, Duke clearly was No. 1, and Virginia and Hopkins were tied for No. 2, and Virginia won at Hopkins, which made that easy. But Cornell was easily No. 4. It was such a big difference, you couldn't play around with it.'"

While it may not have made much of a difference in the path to the championship, the fact that the criteria are so heavily weighted toward the "whom have they played" factor will continue to cause Cornell problems as it did a few years ago when we were sent to Towson rather than given a home game in the first round. It could also easily mean being left out of the tournament while an 8-6 UMBC or Towson is given a bid instead. Maybe the controversy over this year's seedings will cause someone to rethink the criteria. [Wishful thinking, I know.]

Al DeFlorio
From Monday's Baltimore Sun:

"But the real controversy took place at the top of the bracket. That Duke inched up to the top seed was not a shock. But Virginia and Hopkins leapfrogging over Cornell, which is seeking to win its first national title since 1977, was a bit of a stunner.

"'The way the system worked, 50 percent of it was result-driven, 30 percent was strength of schedule and 20 percent was [Rating Percentage Index],' Cottle said. 'When the numbers came out, Duke clearly was No. 1, and Virginia and Hopkins were tied for No. 2, and Virginia won at Hopkins, which made that easy. But Cornell was easily No. 4. It was such a big difference, you couldn't play around with it.'"

While it may not have made much of a difference in the path to the championship, the fact that the criteria are so heavily weighted toward the "whom have they played" factor will continue to cause Cornell problems as it did a few years ago when we were sent to Towson rather than given a home game in the first round. It could also easily mean being left out of the tournament while an 8-6 UMBC or Towson is given a bid instead. Maybe the controversy over this year's seedings will cause someone to rethink the criteria. [Wishful thinking, I know.]

It would seem our only real alternative is to either go independent (i.e., Hopkins and Syracuse) or join the ACC

scoop85
It would seem our only real alternative is to either go independent (i.e., Hopkins and Syracuse) or join the ACC

[sarcastic rant about selection criteria]Or just play teams with consistently strong schedules several times a year. Next year I want a home and home with Hop and SU and will settle for singles with Duke and UVa. Then we can play an extra game with PU for fun and make the tourney at 8-5 or 7-6. We could also investigate splitting the Ivies into two divisions (PU and CU plus third place from the year before in one division and the other four in the other). Then Cornell wouldn't have to play yale, dartmouth, brown, penn and harvard every year. They'd just see one of them in division and one in an ivy title game if they got that far. Then we can add another game or two with Hop.

I can't wait to see how they tweak the system to count SOS in a new way this offseason. Maybe combined NCAA titles of opposing teams? Or just final fours?

Can Cornell just barnstorm the south next spring break? Play 4 games in 7 days against top teams. Even play the frosh every other day. It's not who you beat, it's who you play. [/rant...for now]

>>> "'The way the system worked, 50 percent of it was result-driven, 30 percent was strength of schedule and 20 percent was [Rating Percentage Index],' Cottle said. 'When the numbers came out, Duke clearly was No. 1, and Virginia and Hopkins were tied for No. 2, and Virginia won at Hopkins, which made that easy. But Cornell was easily No. 4. It was such a big difference, you couldn't play around with it.'"

Nice to know we were easily No. 4, as opposed to a close No. 4.

This was before my time (not by much), but this crap persisted in lacrosse for a long, long time ... only before 1970 it was not for pecking order in tournament, but for the final ranking of the teams and the right to be called national champion.

And then in 1970 in the seeding for the first-ever tournament, the top two teams were generally believed to be Cornell and Army, or Army and Cornell, whereas it was an off year for the southren affiliation, and so Cornell's 17-16 win over Army (played at Army ... the army may travel on its stomach, but Cornell travels, period) was the de facto title game, even though the actually crowning came a week later when Cornell dismantled Maryland 12-6.

We got screwed over by Syracuse having its worst record since around the time of Carter presidency ... by Colgate not doing a little better this year ... by playing Army-Colgate-Binghamton not Army-Colgate-Albany ... by Princeton having a weak year ... by Notre Dame not finishing higher.

We could improve our SOS by tossing away Hobart, which isn't what it was five and ten years ago, except maybe head coach Jeff Tambroni (Hobart '92) wouldn't like that idea.

We're helping advance lax in the near midwest by playing Notre Dame.

Imagine how far up the creek we'd be this year if the Duke lax problem took place in 2007 and it got wiped off this year's schedule? A bet we'd be on a bus somewhere for round one.

billhoward
We could improve our SOS by tossing away Hobart, which isn't what it was five and ten years ago, except maybe head coach Jeff Tambroni (Hobart '92) wouldn't like that idea.

In lax land, only the 10 best opponents count so Cornell drops its worst three, including Hobart. ACC teams on the other hand get to play each other twice, insulating their schedule and allowing them to drop more teams off their SOS. Duke played 16 games (including UVa and UNC twice) and gets to drop 6 from SOS calculations ((45)st. joe's, (32)army, (41)Bellarmine, (40)air force, (21)dartmouth, (25)denver). As a result the lowest RPI team they "played" was 13 delaware. They also played 2, 3, 4(twice), 6, 7(twice), 9, and 12.

Some remarks from Coach Tambroni:

[cornellbigred.cstv.com]

Good job by those running the Athletics website in getting these, and putting them up.

RichH
Some remarks from Coach Tambroni:

[cornellbigred.cstv.com]

Good job by those running the Athletics website in getting these, and putting them up.

No offense intended but: The job of a PR department is to put out information about the people or product you're hired to publicize. Seems like what Cornell did falls within the realm of routine and ordinary, not extraordinary. Except, and this is a very big "except," in the realm of CSTV/Cornell failures to deliver, the normal now seems abnormally good.

But, yes, it was a pleasant surprise to see this.

Hillel Hoffmann
Edit: Same for Duke, should they advance along with Navy. Now that would be a nightmare: advancing to play Navy in the quarterfinals at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium.

And should Duke survive that they have a likely semi-final date with the Coaches/Sports Writers undefeated and unanimous #1 who beat them at their home field in March. Of course, anyone you meet in a national semi-final is going to be a very good team, but doesn't putting these two particular obstacles in Duke's path to the championship game seem like a bit of a screwing for the #1 seed?

More confusion from the media. It seems that they're more outraged than the fans at this point:

[www.cstv.com]

Not this fan. I've read all of the sober analysis and any system that takes an undefeated team, including a win over the system's best team, and places them at #4 is stupid.

It may be good for us; it may screw Duke even harder; it may have come from good intentions.

It remains stupid.

ugarte
Not this fan. I've read all of the sober analysis and any system that takes an undefeated team, including a win over the system's best team, and places them at #4 is stupid.

It may be good for us; it may screw Duke even harder; it may have come from good intentions.

It remains stupid.

Couldn't have said it better. One can only wonder at how "stupid" the NCAA must be not to recognize this.

Any system that puts an undefeated team behind teams with losses is ill-conceived. I don't care what the SoS is. There's just no data to indicate that an undefeated team isn't the best team, only incomplete data saying that it might be.

But I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. When all is said and done Cornell needs to win 4 more games and they're pretty much all going to be against good teams. Wouldn't be any different if we were #1.

i agree. it doesn't matter if we lucked out in that our actual draw isn't that bad. our being seeded 4th is still absurd. us being anything less than first is difficult to justify at best, especially losing the one seed to a team that we beat on their own field. the fact that we're behind a team with 4 losses and will meet duke in the semis when duke and cornell are clearly the best two teams in the country is a joke. the selection committee should be embarrassed.

does anyone know:

if we hypothetically added two losses to top 5 teams to our record, would our ranking improve or worsen? i.e. would the improvement in sos outweigh the extra losses?

KeithK
Any system that puts an undefeated team behind teams with losses is ill-conceived. I don't care what the SoS is. There's just no data to indicate that an undefeated team isn't the best team, only incomplete data saying that it might be.

I agree. Coach Tambroni's calm comments notwithstanding, I think that placing an undefeated team a #4 is not only stupid or ill-conceived, but it also sets a bad and dangerous precedence for all future undefeated, Ivy League teams.

KeithK
Any system that puts an undefeated team behind teams with losses is ill-conceived. I don't care what the SoS is. There's just no data to indicate that an undefeated team isn't the best team, only incomplete data saying that it might be.

Tell that to Boise State.

KeithK
Any system that puts an undefeated team behind teams with losses is ill-conceived. I don't care what the SoS is. There's just no data to indicate that an undefeated team isn't the best team, only incomplete data saying that it might be.

I don't agree entirely with this. Being undefeated against lesser opponents doesn't merit a #1 national ranking. If Cornell were in a tougher league, we might see it that way.

However, I have trouble reconciling being ranked LOWER than Duke after defeating them away!? Isn't head-to-head the best measure of superiority?? Same applies to Hopkins, although that was a scrimmage.

Townie

KeithK
Any system that puts an undefeated team behind teams with losses is ill-conceived. I don't care what the SoS is. There's just no data to indicate that an undefeated team isn't the best team, only incomplete data saying that it might be.

I don't agree entirely with this. Being undefeated against lesser opponents doesn't merit a #1 national ranking. If Cornell were in a tougher league, we might see it that way.

However, I have trouble reconciling being ranked LOWER than Duke after defeating them away!? Isn't head-to-head the best measure of superiority?? Same applies to Hopkins, although that was a scrimmage.

First off, Hopkins outplayed us badly in this year's scrimmage. Last year was the reverse.

I wouldn't agree that an undefeated team should automatically be seeded #1 in the tournament. But I would say that an undefeated team deserves a shot at the tournament, unlike what the NCAA did to Bucknell a few years ago.

Keith's point that it's POSSIBLE that an undefeated team might be the best--because no one has yet been able to beat them--should at least be tested in the season-ending tournament. The fact that Bucknell didn't beat any of the top teams would result in skepticism that they were capable of beating the best and therefore given them a lower seed, but I would say they deserved the chance to see just what they could do against the best. Instead, some other team with an 8-5 or similar record and that had already shown by their five or six losses that they weren't really a threat to win it all (and, yes, I know about the 6-5 1988 Cornell team that got to the finals before losing) was given a berth instead because they played and lost to Hopkins or Virginia or Syracuse--something Bucknell could easily have done as well. Seems to me an undefeated team has at least earned for itself the right to have a shot at showing what they could do.

Adding losses to Albany, UVa, and Hop, Cornell's MSOS goes from 17th to 6th. RPI would stay #2. Of course, then Cornell would be a three loss team and probably get seeded 4th anyway...
You can play with it here: [lacrosse.homelinux.net]

Chris '03
Adding losses to Albany, UVa, and Hop, Cornell's MSOS goes from 17th to 6th. RPI would stay #2. Of course, then Cornell would be a three loss team and probably get seeded 4th anyway...
You can play with it here: [lacrosse.homelinux.net]

Don't forget that you would also be giving Virginia and JHU wins over Cornell, so it would strengthen their profiles at least as much as the "good losses" would strengthen ours.

FYI, The past few nights ESPNU has been showing replays of Lax games featuring tournament bound teams. I'm catching them after 1 am. Here is the link to the programming guide. It also seems that some will be re-aired in the "normal" morning hours too.

Al DeFlorio
...and, yes, I know about the 6-5 1988 Cornell team that got to the finals before losing.

Thank you, Al. I'm glad someone brought up that team before we opened up another bag of fresh and tasty Righteous Indignation Chips.

Going into the season, was there a veteran college lacrosse fan here who actually thought that the current tournament selection and seeding system wasn't stupid, unfair, redundant, inconsistently applied, lacking transparency and set up to reward independent and Atlantic Coast Conference teams? (Newcomers to following the game closely are forgiven for getting huffy.)

Free red "21" t-shirt to the first person who creates a new thread about the Towson game with at least one unit of analysis, scouting or some such.

Hillel Hoffmann
Going into the season, was there a veteran college lacrosse fan here who actually thought that the current tournament selection and seeding system wasn't stupid, unfair, redundant, inconsistently applied, lacking transparency and set up to reward independent and Atlantic Coast Conference teams?

Maybe not here, but there sure are elsewhere.

The NCAA has made a number of changes to the hockey pairwise in response to people pointing out obvious issues with it. If no one does the same for lacrosse, there'll be no impetus for changing it--and it really does need to be changed.

ugarte

Chris '03
Adding losses to Albany, UVa, and Hop, Cornell's MSOS goes from 17th to 6th. RPI would stay #2. Of course, then Cornell would be a three loss team and probably get seeded 4th anyway...
You can play with it here: [lacrosse.homelinux.net]

Don't forget that you would also be giving Virginia and JHU wins over Cornell, so it would strengthen their profiles at least as much as the "good losses" would strengthen ours.

Right, but there are only so many top 5 teams. I guess the better case would be to add wins against teams ranked 6-15 or so that aren't going to leapfrog Cornell. Losing to Navy, GT, and Loyola would do the same but those three teams would jump ahead in QWF. But we don't know how QWF is really calculated I don't think.

Al DeFlorio

Hillel Hoffmann
Going into the season, was there a veteran college lacrosse fan here who actually thought that the current tournament selection and seeding system wasn't stupid, unfair, redundant, inconsistently applied, lacking transparency and set up to reward independent and Atlantic Coast Conference teams?

Maybe not here, but there sure are elsewhere.

The NCAA has made a number of changes to the hockey pairwise in response to people pointing out obvious issues with it. If no one does the same for lacrosse, there'll be no impetus for changing it--and it really does need to be changed.

Good points.

With our luck, they'll change the system after Princeton and Syracuse return to form and when Colgate, Dartmouth and Brown are noob powerhouses, just in time for Cornell to be punished for our ridiculously strong fixed schedule.

jtwcornell91

KeithK
Any system that puts an undefeated team behind teams with losses is ill-conceived. I don't care what the SoS is. There's just no data to indicate that an undefeated team isn't the best team, only incomplete data saying that it might be.

Tell that to Boise State.

But everyone knows the BCS system is ill-conceived, at least in terms of determining a true and worthy national champion. It's probably pretty well set up to provide a near optimal revenue stream, however.

Hillel Hoffmann
With our luck, they'll change the system after Princeton and Syracuse return to form and when Colgate, Dartmouth and Brown are noob powerhouses, just in time for Cornell to be punished for our ridiculously strong fixed schedule.

The only way you can be "punished" for a strong schedule is if you fall below .500, as Virginia did in 2004 and Syracuse this year. Virginia responded by replacing Penn State and Air Force (both 2004 losses) with Mount St. Mary's and Manhattan in 2005, and then with Bellarmine and VMI in 2006 and 2007. These schools, of course, have no effect on their strength of schedule, as only the top ten teams are considered, but they do assure two wins and the padding of individual stats. Syracuse played a solid schedule top to bottom this year. I hope they don't resort to scheduling Wagner and Lafayette as a curative.

Al DeFlorio

Hillel Hoffmann
With our luck, they'll change the system after Princeton and Syracuse return to form and when Colgate, Dartmouth and Brown are noob powerhouses, just in time for Cornell to be punished for our ridiculously strong fixed schedule.

The only way you can be "punished" for a strong schedule is if you fall below .500, as Virginia did in 2004 and Syracuse this year. Virginia responded by replacing Penn State and Air Force (both 2004 losses) with Mount St. Mary's and Manhattan in 2005, and then with Bellarmine and VMI in 2006 and 2007. These schools, of course, have no effect on their strength of schedule, as only the top ten teams are considered, but they do assure two wins and the padding of individual stats. Syracuse played a solid schedule top to bottom this year. I hope they don't resort to scheduling Wagner and Lafayette as a curative.

You know, until you posted that, I had not focused on how few creampuffs there are on Syracuse's schedule. You're right, it will be interesting to see whether Siena or Providence or some such team finds a way onto their schedule next year.

Does anybody have the ability to take the Lax season results and generate a pairwise ranking. It would be interesting to see what this well known set of criteria would generate.

nshapiro
Does anybody have the ability to take the Lax season results and generate a pairwise ranking. It would be interesting to see what this well known set of criteria would generate.

If you had a few hours, you could probably format the season's results to plug them into JTW's script. You'd have to do things like assign Hopkins the abbreviation for CC or something...

All I know is Cornell would be PWR 1.

nshapiro
Does anybody have the ability to take the Lax season results and generate a pairwise ranking. It would be interesting to see what this well known set of criteria would generate.

I could probably do this, since I'm planning to do a Bayesian Bradley-Terry with a proper prior, and I already have methods to do most of the pairwise criteria. (Although now that I think about it, the actual PWR was done in each script separately.)

I've known for years that the lax criteria were retarded. I mean...

Criterion #1 counts how many wins you have against good teams, regardless of how many games it took you to get them. So going 3-6 against the top ten would be better than going 2-0.

Criterion #2 compares strength of schedule, paying no attention to how many of those games you actually won.

Criterion #3 finally considers your won-loss record, as part of RPI. Which is supposed to include strength-of-schedule. Which was already its own criterion.

People say KRACH overweights strength-of-schedule because it actually uses the strength of your opponents to evaluate all of your wins and losses. Well, the lax criteria actually do weight strength of schedule separately and more strongly than your actual game results.

jtwcornell91
I've known for years that the lax criteria were retarded. I mean...

Criterion #1 counts how many wins you have against good teams, regardless of how many games it took you to get them. So going 3-6 against the top ten would be better than going 2-0.

Actually, the actual wording of the criteria says "record" against top 10 teams, not just wins. However the committee has treated it as wins only for a long time. What is needed here is to emphasize record instead of wins.

This article is worth a read.

“As a committee, we sit down and we’re given a sheet that tells us the exact formula to follow,” said Butler associate athletic director Jon Hind, who heads the men’s selection committee. “People see the selections, and they are unaware of the criteria, and that starts up all the angst.”

Of course, because the criteria are sacred. It isn't possible that the criteria and the unpopular consequences of using the criteria are what upset people.

Can someone show me the SOS numbers that get Maryland the 2?

IL
According to the numbers used by the committee, Duke had the toughest strength of schedule, followed by Maryland at No. 2, Virginia at No. 3, and Johns Hopkins at No. 4. Solid numbers by all accounts. Of the teams that made it into the tournament field, however, only Notre Dame and Providence had a lower SOS than Cornell. Among all DI teams, that SOS number dropped to No. 19 overall for the Big Red.

So only 20 teams under consideration? Where does that come from? I guess QWF only goes out 4 bands then...which pokes holes in some of the Princeton over Colgate arguments.

“They had a great year, and they were on the board until the bitter end,” said Hind. “…If Ohio State wins there, which they did, Colgate has an RPI that is 16th out of the 20 that were being considered [for the tournament]. If Army wins, that jumps to 14. And how many teams make it?”

Which is it?

Secondly, the committee examines a candidate’s strength of schedule (SOS) index based upon the 10 strongest teams on its schedule (again, according to those opponents’ RPI ratings).

“We assess value to team’s full schedule,” said Hind.

This logic is ass backward. The t-10 metric only pads Hop, SU, and the ACC and lets them take on 5-6 nobodies to beat into the ground to ensure an NCAA ticket.

Hind explains that the 10 strongest teams provision was instituted several years ago to ensure that perennial powers are not punished for playing traditionally weaker teams, and so that stronger teams within a primarily weak conference are likewise not penalized.

So you can't count H2H unless teams are within a certain metric (like GT and MD)... but:

In Cornell’s case this year, Hind said, those secondary criteria never really came into play, although the head-to-head result between the Big Red and Blue Devils was certainly addressed and discussed by the committee.

Long live PWR!

Chris '03
Long live PWR!

If it means anything (and it doesn't), a quick look suggests that if a hockey-type PWR was used, we'd win the the comparison with Duke

RPI - Duke
H2H - Cornell
TUC - Cornell

Jeff Hopkins '82

Chris '03
Long live PWR!

If it means anything (and it doesn't), a quick look suggests that if a hockey-type PWR was used, we'd win the the comparison with Duke

RPI - Duke
H2H - Cornell
TUC - Cornell

Of course that presumes Cornell played the requisite number of TUC games, whatever that may be in a 13 game season... and however you define TUC for lax. The committee apparently considered 20 teams. I think there were about 32 teams with RPI over .500. COp is obviously a wash. We'd certainly win every other comparison.

Maybe the 10-strongest-teams-played parameter ought to be reworked to still not penalize teams with poorer league opponents, but disallow credit for putting on the schedule teams with limited talents (besides sounding like a single-malt scotch, such as Bellarmine).

This is not a legitimate criterion, but every non-Ivy opponent Cornell booked was in or around the top ten (or twenty) at the time Cornell played them: Army, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Binghamton, Colgate. Our strength of schedule is hurt also by not being able to play the best Ivy team.

Anyone feel like reverse engineering ratios to see if it's 25/50/25 or something else?

[web1.ncaa.org]?

Chris '03
Anyone feel like reverse engineering ratios to see if it's 25/50/25 or something else?

[web1.ncaa.org]

It is. It exactly matches this:
[www.vaporia.com]
Which uses the rules defined here, including 25/50/25:
[www.vaporia.com]

(this is the 2nd week in a row that the NCAA exactly matched Wobus - which is 2 for 2 since that's how long I've been counting)

It is very close to laxpower which now uses 25/50/25 as well:
[www.laxpower.com]
Some small detail flips Princeton/Maryland, and some others.

Hymie is close as well, but has some known differences in his versions of the calculations:
[lacrosse.homelinux.net]

The link below is to a column by Dave Rahme in the Syracuse Post-Standard, in which he discusses how the Southern lacrosse powers manipulate the system and why the selection process is unlikely to change. I was pleasantly surprised that a Syracuse guy would write this, considering that the Orange are the only Northern team that can load their schedule in the same way as Hopkins and the ACC schools.

Lax powers want it both ways

Take a listen (start at about 3:30): [laxpower.com]

Copying from laxpower:
Coach Cottle has explained that QWF is calculated as such:
20 points for wins over 1-5
18 for 6-10
16 for 11-15
etc

Losses count (kinda...)!
-1 for losing to 1-5
-2 for 6-10
etc.

He said Duke finished with 96, Hop and UVa tied with 87.5 (how you get half is beyond me!), Cornell had 78. There was a fudge factor of 5, so the committee let themselves swap teams that were within five pts.

First problem that jumps off the page. More games=more points and teams don't play equal numbers of games. The ACC tournament handed Duke the win in QWF. They played 3 more games than Cornell. It's bad enough MSOS rewards teams with longer schedule, but I hoped QWF wouldn't be as brutal.

Cottle said he thinks the system is flawed. He wants the rankings published like the BCS so people have a clue as the season goes along and he wants a bonus for being undefeated (~10 pts).


SO now we know that these results oriented points are worth 50%, MSOS is worth 30 and RPI is 20. Let's see if we can replicate it.

For those of us that do not follow this as closely as others, are we capped at how many regular season games we can play?

nyc94
For those of us that do not follow this as closely as others, are we capped at how many regular season games we can play?

I'm not sure. This year Ivy teams played 12-15 games with 4 teams playing 13. If there's no limit, let's play Binghamton and Colgate on alternating Tuesdays next year. Play 18-20 games... rack up those points

Based on these numbers there is essentially no downside for losses against top teams. 20 points for a win and -1 for a loss? Give me a break. Talkabout a rigged system.

KeithK
Based on these numbers there is essentially no downside for losses against top teams. 20 points for a win and -1 for a loss? Give me a break. Talkabout a rigged system.

But if you lose to Wagner, look out! It's a -20. It's certainly nice that someone has finally at least shed some light on the criteria so it can be roundly criticized. It's the first step towards positive change.

KeithK
Based on these numbers there is essentially no downside for losses against top teams. 20 points for a win and -1 for a loss? Give me a break. Talkabout a rigged system.

Agreed. The Hopkins fans on laxpower will tell you that the downside of playing the top teams is the risk of falling under .500 and out of selection consideration--see Syracuse 2007. But, you can easily decrease this risk by scheduling a few cupcakes without hurting your SOS.

These numbers don't make sense. There has to be a cliff and it can't be a straight line decline of 2 for every band of five teams. Cornell has 160 points following that logic, with an average of 6 pts per game. Duke's average is also 6. Perhaps they only count games vs ACC and independent teams.

Chris '03
Take a listen (start at about 3:30): [laxpower.com]

Copying from laxpower:
Coach Cottle has explained that QWF is calculated as such:
20 points for wins over 1-5
18 for 6-10
16 for 11-15
etc

Losses count (kinda...)!
-1 for losing to 1-5
-2 for 6-10
etc.

He said Duke finished with 96, Hop and UVa tied with 87.5 (how you get half is beyond me!), Cornell had 78. There was a fudge factor of 5, so the committee let themselves swap teams that were within five pts.

...

SO now we know that these results oriented points are worth 50%, MSOS is worth 30 and RPI is 20. Let's see if we can replicate it.

The "half" comes from multiplying the results from the win/loss factors by the 50% factor. The entire system is very biased toward schedule strength and toward number of games played.
If you're an extra 2-2 against teams in the 16-20 range, it helps you immensely - which doesn't make any sense for teams battling for the top 4 seeds. It's an absolutely horrible system for many reasons. I don't like PWR and it's very quirky, but at least it doesn't have the built-in biases that the lacrosse system has.

jkahn
The "half" comes from multiplying the results from the win/loss factors by the 50% factor. The entire system is very biased toward schedule strength and toward number of games played.
If you're an extra 2-2 against teams in the 16-20 range, it helps you immensely - which doesn't make any sense for teams battling for the top 4 seeds. It's an absolutely horrible system for many reasons. I don't like PWR and it's very quirky, but at least it doesn't have the built-in biases that the lacrosse system has.

OK... now maybe this is too obviously stupid but is the formula points/2 + MSOS*.3 + RPI/5? Would that create a selection index where a team could have a QWF of ~-150-~300 but an SOS and RPI between 0-1, 0-10, or 0-100 depending on decimal points. If they aren't on the same scale, isn't the summing putting even more weight on QWF? I sure hope they're smarter than that... Cottle said they have a "math guy."

Just learned that Rahme's running another piece on the selection criteria in Sunday's Post-Standard. I emailed him the Cottle revelations.

Chris '03
Adding losses to Albany, UVa, and Hop, Cornell's MSOS goes from 17th to 6th. RPI would stay #2. Of course, then Cornell would be a three loss team and probably get seeded 4th anyway...
You can play with it here: [lacrosse.homelinux.net]

Given today's Cottle revelations, the three losses would have cost us a whopping three points in the most important criterion: "results against teams in descending order." I suspect that would have no meaningful effect whatsoever. But losing to those teams would replace #23 Penn, #25 Harvard, and #31 Brown in our strength of schedule metric with #3 Hopkins, #4 Virginia, and #5 Albany--a huge bump up in the second most important criterion. (The average RPI of our top ten opponents (as measured by RPI) would go from 17.7 to 11.)

The three losses would clearly drop our winning percentage (weighted at 25% in RPI) down from 100 to 81 but with a positive bump in opponents' winning percentage and opponents' opponents' as well. I'll trust Chris got that right in the simulation because I'm too lazy to confirm it.

While I was pleased at the time that Virginia failed to make the tournament when they fell below .500 in 2004, it's now come to haunt us as EVERYONE points to that as the terrible sword of Damocles hanging over teams that have a bunch of top teams on their schedule. Of course, a sprinkling of VMI's and Bellarmine's is a sure cure for such a worry. And a 20 to 1 reward structure makes such a tiny risk clearly worth taking. How can I get such odds in the market?

Al DeFlorio
Given today's Cottle revelations, the three losses would have cost us a whopping three points in the most important criterion: "results against teams in descending order."

They should call the criterion what it really is, "wins against teams in descending order." "Results driven" is a bit misleading.

redhair34

Al DeFlorio
Given today's Cottle revelations, the three losses would have cost us a whopping three points in the most important criterion: "results against teams in descending order."

They should call the criterion what it really is, "wins against teams in descending order." "Results driven" is a bit misleading.

Couldn't agree more.

Interesting quote from the Cottle interview: "We need a math guy...I think there's a flaw in the system, obviously, if you have a team that's 13-0 and beat the other team head to head..." and then unfortunately he went off on a digression about flipping Georgetown and Maryland and never came back to finish the thought.

Al DeFlorio

redhair34

Al DeFlorio
Given today's Cottle revelations, the three losses would have cost us a whopping three points in the most important criterion: "results against teams in descending order."

They should call the criterion what it really is, "wins against teams in descending order." "Results driven" is a bit misleading.

Couldn't agree more.

Interesting quote from the Cottle interview: "We need a math guy...I think there's a flaw in the system, obviously, if you have a team that's 13-0 and beat the other team head to head..." and then unfortunately he went off on a digression about flipping Georgetown and Maryland and never came back to finish the thought.

Paging Dr. Whelan... Dr. Whelan to the courtesy phone, please.

I'd been thinking for the last few days that if they were going to put a heavy weight on "quality wins" they really ought to put a comparable weight on "defective losses" as well.

If we very quickly put their point system on a points per game basis by dividing the total points by the number of games played we get:

Hopkins 6.75
Cornell 6.00
Duke 6.00
Virginia 5.83

It's better, because it at least puts Cornell and Duke closeer to each other, but it's still weighted in favor of playing top teams instead of beating top teams.

And another thought. If they don't want to penalize teams too badly for losing to good teams, make the point total for a loss to a top ten team increase with the number of losses. For example, make the first loss to a top ten team worth -2, the second -3, the third, -4, the fourth -5, etc. Under this system, Hopkins doesn't lose 4 points for their four losses, they lose 14 points.

Probably statistically insignificant, but interesting nonetheless: Hopkins has failed to equal their seeding in six of the last nine NCAA championships, and in no instances did they surpass their seeding.

1998: Seeded 4, beaten in quarterfinals
1999: Seeded 2, beaten in semifinals
2000: Seeded 4, beaten in semifinals (achieved seeding)
2001: Seeded 4, beaten in quarterfinals
2002: Seeded 1, beaten in semifinals
2003: Seeded 1, beaten in finals (partial credit, perhaps?)
2004: Seeded 1, beaten in semifinals
2005: Seeded 1, champions (achieved seeding)
2006: Seeded 4, beaten in semifinals (achieved seeding)

I have results but not seedings for the rest of the 1990s.

Same analysis for a team with an Ivy League schedule:

1998: Seeded 2, champions (exceeded seeding)
1999: Unseeded, beaten in first round (achieved seeding)
2000: Seeded 3, beaten in finals (exceeded seeding)
2001: Seeded 2, champions (exceeded seeding)
2002: Seeded 4, beaten in finals (exceeded seeding)
2003: Seeded 4, beaten in quarterfinals
2004: Seeded 6, beaten in semifinals (exceeded seeding)
2005: Did not make tournament
2006: Seeded 7, beaten in quarterfinals (achieved seeding)

Al DeFlorio
Just learned that Rahme's running another piece on the selection criteria in Sunday's Post-Standard. I emailed him the Cottle revelations.

Rahme's column today: [www.syracuse.com]

That is the same column, isn't it?

ugarte
That is the same column, isn't it?

No. His first piece is in his blog. Column is probably based on the blog.

For what it's worth, the NCAA keeps updating their RPI calculations: [web1.ncaa.org]?

The Final Four by RPI will be:
#1 Cornell v. #2 Duke
#3 JHU v. #8 Delaware

Chris '03
For what it's worth, the NCAA keeps updating their RPI calculations: [web1.ncaa.org]?

The Final Four by RPI will be:
#1 Cornell v. #2 Duke
#3 JHU v. #8 Delaware

#1 played #4 in the quarters and will play #2 in the semi's? Genius!!

Jacob '06

Chris '03
For what it's worth, the NCAA keeps updating their RPI calculations: [web1.ncaa.org]?

The Final Four by RPI will be:
#1 Cornell v. #2 Duke
#3 JHU v. #8 Delaware

#1 played #4 in the quarters and will play #2 in the semi's? Genius!!

Duke scheduled a bunch of cupcakes in the postseason.