Rankings for the week -- Let the asterisks begin!
Duke* is undeniably the best team in the nation. They should be. They were given a bigger advantage than any team in college history when the NCAA awarded extra eligibility to their star players for suffering through the Duke mishandling of the “false accusation scandal” as we now call it. At the very least, this team deserves an asterisk next to it for eternity.
Rumors are that one or more schools have considered going to court to stop Duke from playing in the NCAA tournament with that squad of men against boys. To me, it’s like when people put out national rankings for high schools. The post-graduate schools like Lawrenceville, Navy Prep and Bridgeton are not included. Those schools are loaded with fifth-year seniors from great high school programs from all over the country and the players are just improving their grades so they can accept awaiting college scholarships. It would not be fair to include those schools. And neither is this blue devilish super-senior scenario.
So we will be the first to put that nasty little star next to the Duke name, where it will ultimately remain forever after they win the national tournament. What a sad way to break the four-team, 30-year stranglehold on the game’s national championship. For the first time in years, I may root for the same old teams to win.
The second group is undefeated Virginia and undefeated UNC if Duke were discounted.
The third logical break partitions the top teams but for losses to Virginia or Carolina. Cornell, Notre Dame, and Syracuse, in that order of leanings, are fragile contenders, with very hungry teams below them going in both directions.
The seventh-ninth teams in no order sentimentally are better than that, but they lost to teams which they should not have. They are the upset victims of the top ten. UMBC almost shocked two of them. But we’ll talk about the Retrievers later. Navy only lost to Cornell by one, but we think that a break in quality exists there. Hopkins should be higher and Virginia should be lower. They will likely meet in the same grouping if the Jays beat the Cavaliers at home this weekend. I will be stunned if Virginia beats Hopkins. It will take a coaching debacle for that to occur.
UMBC is in the 10-14 grouping with Princeton, Army, Stony Brook and Georgetown in no order. Don Zimmerman’s on his way to another Coach of the Year award. He’s taken a brand new UMBC team that played poorly to start the year to a "top-tenish" team in a matter of weeks. They lost badly to Rutgers and Delaware, but in more recent weeks beat Maryland and almost beat the Hop.
If UMBC runs the table for the rest of 2008, we would not be surprised. Such an inexperienced team may take a lump or two, but perhaps not. Next week they are in Columbus, Ohio, and then they host Stony Brook before hitting the bulk of their weaker America East Conference games and then the conference tournament.
Drexel, Delaware, Hofstra, Bucknell, Ohio State, Loyola, and Quinnipiac are the current, early stage “bubble teams." There’s time to move up and in better standing and plenty of time to plummet into 2008 obscurity because hungry Towson, Denver, Brown, Penn, Yale and Binghamton are just below and someone will surprise in this group.
The biggest surprises of 2008 are in the next two groups. The season started with the scandal at UMass, where they lost many players for the year over a fighting incident. We are all stunned by the fall of Albany after a great 2007. Siena’s erratic surge to break into mainstream lacrosse has been fun to watch as they pick off stragglers at the back of the pack like a tiger in the old Tarzan movies. There are no leanings in our last three groups.
The RRRR Men's Division I Lacrosse Rankings for March 17, 2008
1*
Duke* 7-0
2 - 3
North Carolina 5-1
Virginia 7-0
4 - 6
Cornell 3-1
Notre Dame 5-1
Syracuse 4-1
7 - 9
Navy 6-1
Maryland 5-2
Johns Hopkins 3-2
10 - 14
Army 3-2
Georgetown 3-2
UMBC 2-3
Princeton 1-2
Stony Brook 2-2
15 - 21
Bucknell 5-1
Delaware 5-2
Hofstra 2-2
Ohio State 2-2
Drexel 5-1
Loyola 2-2
Quinnipiac 6-0
22 - 28
Towson 1-3
Denver 3-3
Brown 4-2
Penn 3-2
Harvard 3-1
Yale 1-3
Binghamton 2-1
* Duke players were given extra eligibility by the NCAA creating an unfair advantage over all other contending teams in 2008.
Comments
Why no respect for Hobart? Two losses but they came by one goal each (w/ one coming in double OT) against teams in the top 20. I guess they'll have to take down the Orange to crack it.
Posted by: Bill | March 20, 2008 4:52 PM
John...or others....your thoughts on Duke's fifth year guys' assault on scoring records....can we assume the 2006 stats stayed on the books?
Posted by: captpat | March 20, 2008 5:45 PM
Maybe we should put an asterisk on UVa's 2006 title because they didn't have to play Duke that year?
Posted by: Jim | March 21, 2008 9:36 AM
Excellent blog. Duke is basically an expansion MLL team for all intents and purposes. Hopkins was probably looking ahead to UVA in the final 2 minutes of the game with the Orange, but you've got to credit Syracuse for not letting Hopkins get too far ahead. I'd almost blend your 7-14 seeds.
Posted by: John Pusateri | March 21, 2008 10:17 AM
Duke would not have beaten U.Va. in 2006. Plus it was Duke's decision to pull the team, not the NCAA's. It should not affect U.Va. either way and it is now. That's the point, one of them anyway.
The other is the record Captain Pat brings up. I assume the record stands. The NCAA has not announced otherwise and the school includes them in career totals, as far as I know. It would be news otherwise. I would be half OK with the decision if the 2006 personal records were removed.
There is no right way to fix such a terrible decision by the Duke admin. So many people are suing Duke that I am thinking of suing them as a fan. Maybe we could all sue them as a class-action deal with our boy Angelos taking the case. We could own Duke.
Now that I own Duke, I wouldn't mind winning a championship, so I am flip-flopping and am now FOR the decision and think all of you folks should just mind your own business.
Posted by: John Weaver | March 21, 2008 2:56 PM
Enjoy your " blog" thing very much.
Sometimes I think " blog " stands for "big log " as in piece of lumber. Your analysis is interesting. Perhaps you saw my facetious comment before that a rumour had the NCAA granting Duke extensions on eligibility till they eventually win, nasty, nasty.
Posted by: freeline | March 22, 2008 11:36 AM
As to your first point, “Duke would not have beaten U.Va. in 2006.” Might I remind you that Duke beat UVa 17-2 in 2005. Duke was the heavy pre-season favorite in 2006, returning just about every starter after losing in the final by a goal the year before. To say so unequivocally that one team would have beaten another in a hypothetical game seems unduly speculative (and belied by the facts).
“Plus it was Duke's decision to pull the team, not the NCAA's. It should not affect U.Va. either way and it is now.” I am not sure what this means. I assume you are saying that the NCAA had no obligation to the Duke student-athlete’s because it was Duke’s hasty decision that cost them the remainder of 2006 season, not the NCAA’s. Well, Duke petitioned the NCAA on behalf of its players to get the year back. To say that NCAA should have responded “this wasn’t our fault, just live with it Duke,” doesn’t make any sense. The NCAA is an administrative body obligated to make decisions affecting student athletes. Because it was solely within their power, the decision to grant an extra year belonged to the NCAA. The NCAA then made admittedly a difficult decision in an unprecedented situation. There are a whole variety of situations (“hardships”) for which a student athlete will be given an extra year. If these kids didn’t deserve an extra year, then why would an injured player can get an extra year? Would it be unfair if Duke had five fifth year seniors by virtue of medical redshirts? I just can’t see a principled rationale to distinguish between someone who is injured getting an extra year, but not someone whose season was terminated due to a false accusation of rape.
Was the NCAA’s decision the right decision? If its measured by the benefit given to the kids whose season was derailed, then yes. I for one believe the NCAA has a duty to its student athletes foremost. If you want what’s best for those kids, give them a year back. The downside of course is that Duke is stacked this year vis-à-vis the competition. That certainly is a downside, but is it “unfair” as you say? I would imagine, if you asked any Division I lacrosse player “would you want a rule in place that would give you an extra year of eligibility if you were falsely accused of rape and your promising season was cancelled?”, to a man they would answer “yes.” In this sense it is fair.
By the way, UVa is undefeated this year (don’t hand Duke the title just yet). And who is a starting midfielder for UVa? Fifth year senior Peter Lamade. So the NCAA’s decision actually HAS affected UVa for the better. Should they get an asterisk this year too? Or just 20% of an asterisk because Duke has five fifth year seniors by comparison? Maybe they should be putting asterisks on any goal Lamade scores? Should there be an asterisk next to any wins that Loyola and Brown have this year? Ironically, the most prominent opponent against granting the extra year to the Duke players was UVa’s coach Dom Starsia. I guess he wasn’t that much against it though considering that he accepted Lamade (an All-American) onto his team.
If you had actually made the case that the NCAA’s decision was unfair, then maybe you’d have a point. Instead, what you are doing with your cheeky little asterisk is demeaning a group of teenagers and twenty-somethings who never wanted to be in this situation. Don’t belittle their accomplishments.
Posted by: Jim | March 22, 2008 1:37 PM
I do not think Jim's fine arguments win the debate on assigning an asterisk where an abnormality is notable enough to... well... note.
Jim is spot on, however, when it comes to the situation at UVa with Peter Lamade and anywhere else a Duke transfer might be enjoying a extra senior year, this year or perhaps next.
So, we will find out where any and all of these guys are and assign an asterisk to each team, BUT only on the year when a player is a fifth year senior. For example, an asterisk would not be given to Loyola until Collin Finnerty is a senior in the lacrosse program. He is a sophomore this year and there is no problem at all with any of the players getting their full eligibility.
I know Seligman is at Brown. Anyone know of the other transfers, if any? This is not a Witch hunt, assigning scarlet asterisks to the chests of the tainted, but to Jim's point, the NCAA decision, was made more complex by the normal movement of players from school to school based on normal things.
As transferring occurred and the accused pair returned to other institutions (the third, David Evans graduated and is succeeding somewhere) the entire pool of NCAA participants was poisoned, metaphorically. Some were, literally. It is important to note that an asterisk is a notation, not a judgment. Some may wish that judgment were involved, but I am simply calling for the asterisk.
I think Jim's comments merit some discussion if anyone wants to join in. This is the part of the Duke false accusation scandal that is important to the game. Some of the super seniors at Duke are surpassing NCAA records each week that were earned playing fewer games. At the very least, the 2006 personal records should be removed.
It’s your game. What do you think?
Posted by: John Weaver | March 23, 2008 2:10 PM