The Division I men's lacrosse NCAA tournament field includes 16 teams. Seven conference champions will receive automatic bids. They are:

1. Colgate - Patriot League - Colgate was the tournament winner; Navy, Army and Bucknell are all viable at-large possibilities.

2. Loyola - Eastern College Athletic Association – No conference tournament; Georgetown is a viable at-large possibility.

3. TBD - American East Conference - Tournament is next week; UMBC won the regular-season title; UMBC and the Albany-Stony Brook winner on May 3 are viable at-large possibilities.

4. TBD - Colonial Athletic Conference - Tournament is next week; Drexel and Hofstra share the regular-season title and both are viable at-large possibilities. Towson or Delaware will need to win the conference tournament for entry.

5. TBD - Great Western Lacrosse League - Tournament is next week; Notre Dame, Ohio State and Denver share the regular-season title. All three are viable at-large possibilities. Quinnipiac could get in if they win the conference tournament.

6. TBD - Ivy League - Cornell will share the title with the Brown-Princeton winner on May 3. There is no tournament. All three are viable at-large possibilities. With a win over Harvard next week, Dartmouth should be also.

7. TBD - Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference - The tournament is next week; Providence and Canisius share the regular-season crown. Manhattan and VMI could gain entry if they win the conference tournament. None are viable at-large possibilities.

The ACC is a conference but, with only four teams, has no automatic bid. The Blue Devils were the tournament and regular-season champions. They, along with Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina are viable at-large possibilities. Syracuse and Johns Hopkins are independent teams that are not in a conference but are viable at-large possibilities.

After the automatic bids are awarded and those teams are set aside, nine more teams are picked as at-large participants based on a few things. They are (in order):

1. Results against ranked teams (according to the RPI rankings). RPI rankings are a median of data including a team's Division I winning percentage, their opponents' records and their opponents' strength of schedule.

2. Strength of schedule rating. The committee takes each team’s 10 highest-ranking opponents (RPI again) and creates an index from the average of those.

3. RPI ratings.

Seem redundant? This data is more inbred than European Royalty. But lacrosse is a small world and if this incestuous input doesn’t give them enough information, they are allowed to finally look at objective data like head-to-head competition and results against common foes. It is at this late point in the process that they employ the first logic not based on the RPI.

No outside polls or data are to be considered. The blaring contradictions to committee-think contained in the outside data like other polls, E-Lacrosse's RRRR rankings or even blogs like this one would slow the selection process or do something worse, I am assuming.

The selection committee is also allowed to use rankings and advice from regional advisory committees. These are people who have, likely, actually seen the teams play – not just the ones being considered, but the ones who perhaps should be. It seems like a good idea but they come in late like Democratic Party super-delegates and hopefully don’t yield that kind of sway over the process.

Once the teams are selected, they need to be seeded. The top eight teams are ordered meritoriously. The rest are not. The second eight are placed, in no order of accomplishment, to make for a cheap and entertaining tournament. Teams are put where they have less distance to travel, and if possible, where the matchups will draw an audience. Should a fair committee be thinking about gate sales and travel requirements? Do I need to answer that?

When the committee is not seeding teams based on merit, we are allowed to ask if the growth of lacrosse might be just as important to consider in the process as the size of a first-round crowd in a given year. But when, and if, the committee starts looking ahead at the potential crowds for quarterfinals and even the Final Four based on the probable outcomes of their seedings, that the system gets corrupt. Not FAA corrupt. Not New Jersey corrupt. Not corrupt enough to pick a champion, but close enough. Just allowing for the subjective placement of the bottom eight “non-seeded” teams provides enough ambiguity to breed suspicion in a sport divided geographically and by postseason haves and have-nots.

Teams must play a minimum of 10 Div. I opponents during the regular season to be selected to the tournament. This is why teams like Mount Saint Mary’s, St. John’s and Presbyterian score games against top ten teams while bubble-possible teams like Denver, Ohio State and Bucknell can’t schedule enough big games to help them reach at-large consideration during most years. In 1996 Bucknell went undefeated and was left at home.

You will notice that most top teams have a schedule formula of 50 percent top ten and 50 percent can’t lose. This ensures a winning record if you just beat one top ten team and don’t lose to Bellarmine or Vermont. Take any top team’s schedule and play out the worst-case-within-reason scenario and you will see it. It is pretty impossible for a Hopkins, Maryland, Duke, Princeton, Virginia, UNC or Syracuse to miss the show. They have to have historically bad seasons to get close, and in the case of the 2008 Johns Hopkins team, that won’t even do it.

The only time the formula does not work is when, like I said, the team loses to much lesser teams after dropping literally all of their games against top ten teams. Teams must have a .500 or better record against all opponents for at-large selection. This is why 5-8 Syracuse did not get in last year while they may have been a better team than some who did. Champions of lesser conferences are always bumping better teams so we are used to the possibility of seeing a lesser team gain entry. It’s a part of offering automatic bids.

The use of this formula is inevitable as long as the teams have the ability to call their own shots on scheduling. You cannot blame someone for playing by the rules. But the rules would be hard to change. Now that television exposure comes with those top ten games, it would be hard to pull big games away from anyone. True growth of the game has always been taboo to the big four and quite a few others who frequent the top ten. Title IX is all that keeps these teams from competing with Michigan, Miami, UCLA and the rest of the real college sports world.

So next week, as the last games are played I will break down the committee’s only real options based on their own criteria. With exception of some more subjective calls we might differ on, it will be easy to pick the top eight. The next eight we can pick with some accuracy but not seed because that is totally subjective. You can get a head start on the math yourself by using a couple of Lax Power tools: results against teams ranked by RPI, the SOS ratings and the RPI ratings. Remember these are the top three factors used by the committee. Have at it and let us know what you think.

The RRRR Men's Division I Lacrosse Rankings for April 28, 2008

1
Duke* 15-1

2
Syracuse 12-1

3
Virginia* 12-3

4
Maryland 8-5

5
Georgetown 9-3
North Carolina 8-5

7
UMBC 10-3
Notre Dame 11-2
Cornell 10-3

10
Drexel 12-3
Johns Hopkins 6-5
Ohio State 9-4

13
Denver 10-5

14
Brown 10-3
Colgate 10-5
Navy 9-5

17
Bucknell 10-5
Army 9-5
Loyola 7-5
Albany 7-7
Dartmouth 6-7

22
Princeton 7-5
Stony Brook 7-6

24
Hofstra 8-5
Hobart 8-5
Towson 5-9
Harvard 6-7

See the full rankings at E-Lacrosse

* Duke players and a Virginia player were given extra eligibility by the NCAA, creating "super-seniors." In my opinion, this gives them an unfair advantage over all other contending teams in 2008.

Posted by baltimoresun.com at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

In most cases, in most sports, conference tournament winners receive the automatic NCAA tournament bid, instead of awarding it to the regular-season champion. When these tournaments produce an upset champion, especially one that is unranked and would not otherwise qualify for the NCAAs, often the conference gets an extra team in the big show. The ranked teams and the new upset champion go. But in lacrosse, we have nine at-large spots and too many conferences to offer the same accommodation.

This weekend Colgate won the Patriot League tournament title, rolling past Navy and then Bucknell, who “upset” Army in their semifinal. Colgate was not going to the tournament without the title. Army and Navy were pretty assured of spots having tied for the conference regular-season title. Army holds the upper hand after ending a 13-game drought against their rival. Colgate and Bucknell would not have likely been in consideration for the at-large spots before this weekend. With the two conference tournament victories, Colgate reached out and took an at-large spot from someone. We won’t know the victim until next week, but it could well be Army or Navy.

Even Bucknell could now spell big trouble for both Army and Navy. With a 10-5 record, two wins over Army and a win over Ohio State, they have the victories. Their losses are a 4-3 overtime loss to Navy, twice to conference champion Colgate, No. 1 Duke and Penn State. Only the Penn State loss looks bad now. Otherwise, Bucknell trumps Army and maybe even Navy. I mean, how many bids can we count on being given to the conference after an upset champion shrinks the field for everyone?

Conference tournaments often offer the opportunity for redemption, like the Patriot did for Colgate. But sometimes a team neither needs nor really wants a second chance. Sometimes, perhaps half the time, a team is perfectly happy with the result of the first contest. That’s likely the case of Albany, who played Stony Brook this weekend in their regular-season finale, winning 10-7. Their reward -- they play Stony Brook next week again in the America East tournament. Stony Brook’s redemption could come very rapidly. Beating a team twice is always tough. Beating them twice in a week may prove even harder. But Albany will be fighting for their season, literally. With quality wins, showcasing the 10-2 victory over poll voter-darling Princeton, they might not need the tournament title to gain entry to the NCAAs. But they will need that seventh win in the tournament semifinals to go with the seven losses they have just to qualify for at-large consideration. Stony Brook, at 7-6, in my opinion, needs a win this weekend themselves for consideration.

COME JOIN US AT THE AMERICA EAST TOURNAMENT THIS WEEKEND AT UMBC!

Why wait for the NCAAs to start? Get into playoff lacrosse this weekend. Thursday at 4 p.m., Albany and Stony Brook will be playing for their lives and a chance to face this year’s surprise contender, UMBC. At 7:30, the high-flying Retrievers will have to hold off Ed Stevenson’s Binghamton squad, which specializes in defense and low scores. Come on out Thursday and Saturday for all the action.

America East Tournament at UMBC Stadium: Thursday, May 1

No. 2 Albany (7-7, 4-1) vs. No. 3 Stony Brook (7-6, 3-2) 4 p.m.

No. 1 UMBC (10-3, 5-0) vs. No. 4 Binghamton (4-7, 2-3) 7:30 p.m.

Tickets for the tournament are on sale now and available through the UMBC ticket office. All-session passes for adults are $15, while all-session tickets for youths 14 and under and America East students with a valid ID are $4. Individual tickets can be purchased for $8 for adults and $2 for youths and America East students.

Posted by John Weaver at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

I do Philadelphia road trips pretty regularly. I’ll try to cover a high school or college game on the same day as a Wings pro indoor game. This past Saturday, I was able to see a triple header -- Haverford played McDaniel, Drexel played Sacred Heart and then the Wings hosted the New York Titans with Casey Powell, Ryan Boyle and a host of other American box stars.

I had run into Wings coach Dave Huntley at a Calvert Hall game and he mentioned that he thought the game against the Titans on April 19 would draw really well. I marked the date and planned to go. A week earlier, Athan Iannucci, the second-year pro out of Hofstra, scored three goals and broke Gary Gait's National Lacrosse League record of 61 goals in a season. So 62 was the theme for the night and the celebration of Athan’s accomplishment was enjoyed by over 17,000 people. Gait sent a video message and they had a video presentation with darn near all of the 62 goals. I captured a bit for you, which I've posted below.

Iannucci was a first-round draft pick and No. 8 overall by the Wings in the 2007 NLL Entry Draft as well as the first overall pick in the 2007 supplemental draft by the Chicago Machine in the much smaller outdoor pro league, Major League Lacrosse. Iannucci has been on the radar of true box fans for a while, winning the Nieuwendyk Award as the top rookie in the OLA (Ontario Lacrosse Association) Junior A Lacrosse League in 1999 before winning three Minto Cups (Canada’s Jr. A Championship). In 2007 Iannucci was the leading scorer in the Canadian senior league with the New Westminster Salmonbellies and the Wings' leading scorer as a rookie. Box players often play two pro seasons, one in Canada in the summer and the NLL from January until May.

Whether it’s Iannucci, the new coach or just winning that is the cause, the Wings are back, or more importantly, the Wings fans are back. For years, the Wings drew better than any lacrosse crowd and only a few seasons ago, it waned off to a respectable but lower number. The fall in attendance coincided with a drop in quality on the floor. When the team is good, the place is packed. And they are quite good now, even though they lost this past game to the Titans behind a league Player of the Week effort by New York forward Pat Maddalena. Iannucci added four goals to his already best-ever 62 in the losing effort.

The Wings lost that night but it is so obvious that the winning ways in Philadelphia are back. Huntley exudes a quiet calm, Iannucci explodes with some sensational offense a few times a period and they added a fan favorite in Geoff “in-your-face-off” Snider to a cast the crowds already know and love led by Jake Bergey. The fans have been rejuvenated, and the Wings fans, whether a 10,000-person 2005 crowd or Saturday’s 17,000, are easily the best I have ever seen in any sport.

The Philly sports fan is unique. I remember waiting in a line for tickets 10 years ago and speaking with a whole group of Philadelphians who had come down to the arena complex to see the minor league hockey game, which ended up being sold out. Instead of leaving in disappointment, they just walked next door to see their first pro lacrosse game. I have met so many others like them since and I still see that same group all the time at Wings games. They were hooked that very night and now hold season tickets. The Wings have a 70 percent season ticket-owning crowd, I was told by a fan this week. If you watch the video, you will see that they rock the place and are a true 7th man.

A majority of the seats at a Wings home game are filled with people wearing a Wings jersey from years past if not the new number 23 Iannucci jersey that has to be the best-selling shirt in town. And yes, Iannucci was a huge Michael Jordan fan and picked the number 23 accordingly. One guy in front of me had taken his Gary Gait jersey and covered the name on the back with a taped-on piece of paper reading IANNUCCI. The “Nooch” is already loved. So is Snider. These fans love their team and its members. You can’t find anything close in the MLL and in most NLL towns. I will say that Denver seems to be similar in nature but I can’t make that drive four times a year to verify it.

And that brings me to the reason why I'm spending so much time in a baltimoresun.com blog talking about a Philly team. It’s just an hour away! If you’ve never experienced a Wings game you are missing a true lacrosse experience. I still have a physical warmth come over me when the players take the floor and a whole packed arena erupts. I have seen it in Philly, Toronto and Denver and each time I am slightly overcome. It is like the NCAA tournament but it’s just a home game with non-players in attendance. There are few people at the NCAA tournament not connected to lacrosse through their own experience in the game. But most of the people at a Wings game never played a game of lacrosse in their lives. They are just fans. They are, in fact, the most elusive thing in the game of lacrosse. They do not exist in Baltimore or New York. There are some in Canada and must be some in Denver, but otherwise, nada.

Baltimore had a few chances to support a team. When the Baltimore Thunder hosted a championship series game in 1998, the crowd was more than double that of any other home crowd that year. The Philly folks had shown up. It was the best crowd we ever had and the most fun I ever had at a Baltimore pro box game since the 1987 championship in the Eagle League that preceded the MILL, which preceded the NLL. After the 1999 season, box lacrosse gave up on Baltimore, but the move just proved that it’s not a Baltimore deficiency that doomed the Thunder. It was a lacrosse thing.

The Baltimore team, loaded with talent, moved to Pittsburgh and then Washington and finally to Colorado where they found a home. The MLL is suffering from the same dearth of actual lacrosse fans. They’ve actually proven a far worse premise. It is next to impossible to find a fan that did not play the game, or at the very least, has a kid who did. But in the case of Baltimore and New York pro efforts, it’s proven more than difficult to get even lacrosse playing people out to watch pro games.

The failed efforts of the MLL in so many lacrosse hotbeds also disprove the old standard theory held by so many lacrosse pundits and purists. It was always said that the fans did not come because of the box game’s crudities, fights and display of “poor lacrosse habits” for their young kids still learning the game. But those same guys did not buy any tickets for the outdoor pro league when they finally had the chance. Last year the two-time MLL champions failed to draw enough of a crowd to stay in business, in, of all places, Philadelphia. The MLL has repackaged the team as a touring champion with no home in hopes of placing the team somewhere, perhaps in Portland or somewhere else out west.

So what makes a team like the Wings succeed fabulously in the same town where the Barrage did so poorly. It wasn’t wins and losses. The Barrage won two straight titles and dominated the league. They had hometown heroes leading the squad and cooperation from quite a few in the lacrosse community. It is, obviously, the non-lacrosse connected people that make the difference. It’s the NASCAR crowd, or hockey crowd, or whatever you want to call them, but they pack the Wings games and would never even think of attending a Barrage game. Those folks aren’t at any of the college games in Philly either, where the average crowd at a Penn or Drexel game is about what the Barrage drew.

So what is it that either draws these folks to the indoor game or repels them from the outdoor version? Perhaps it’s the same things that keep the purists from the indoor game in Baltimore and New York -- the fights, loud music and rowdy fans. I myself wrote a scathing report from the sideline of a recent college game about the behavior of some lax dads who were jeering the refs. But at a Wings game, jeering the refs, and the other team, is part of the fan experience.

The whole experience could be very disconcerting to the real purist or puritan. When the opposing team is introduced, after each name is announced, the whole crowd yells “SUCKS," even if it’s Ryan Boyle or Casey Powell, who obviously don’t. The announcement of the opponents’ names is followed by that of the game’s referees and each of their names are also amended with the same requisite cheer from the crowd. After all of the guests have been insulted, the last name to be announced is that of the shot clock operator, a Philly resident and the crowd erupts in approving cheers as if to infer that he’s with them.

Like a hockey game, this is where that behavior is acceptable within lacrosse. The refs feed on it and are part of the show. And it is a show, with a soundtrack constantly playing. The game is real and the refs call the game to the best of their abilities, which are rated and evaluated regularly. But the event is a show and it’s entertaining as hell. I was surrounded by fans during the intro and after inquiring about my camera and finding that I was “press," they made me participate in the shouting of “SUCKS” after a few of the opposing players names (sorry guys) and it was cathartic. You should try it -- at a Wings game, not at your next youth game.

It sounds like a circus, but that was next door, literally. This crowd, while not typical of a lacrosse crowd at Homewood or Charlottesville, knows the indoor game. They are as sophisticated as any fans about the rules. An obvious non-call gets the whole place to their feet, on cue like it were a goal or big hit. They are baseball-like in their attention to the history and the players. Retired players like Kevin Finneran, Dallas Eliuk and Tom Marachek will always be recognized and asked for autographs at a Wings game.

The Wings crowd is clever, too. Many years ago the Wings used to play an actual vinyl record of the national anthem before games. The record become worn and scratched and eventually developed a faint hiss at a very regular interval as the needle passed a particular scratch in the record. The crowd had gotten used to it by the time they replaced the record and the record player with a brand new CD player and a much cleaner copy of the anthem on disc. But the crowd would have none of it and to this day, even when a live performer is singing the anthem before 17,000 fans, the crowd itself adds the slightest of hissing sounds at the same regular intervals where they were used to appear for so many years.

To the outsider, that might seem flippant or even disrespectful to the anthem, but its not. It’s part of the anthem there, like the “O” we shout in Baltimore. Lots of people misunderstand that but we know in Baltimore that the “O” is not intended to be un-American. It’s obvious the Wings crowd is not. The game opens with a live enlistment ceremony right in front of everyone, where new recruits are sworn into the service.

17,000 walking around a close space like an indoor arena is a big crowd but a small world. I always run into the same people, many of them field lacrosse people from all over Pennsylvania. This time I had just come from two college games at Haverford and Drexel and saw quite a few of the people from the stands for those games at the Wings game, too. The Wings games are peppered with local prep school jackets and youth program sweats, unlike a typical MLL game. So, while they attract the non-lacrosse people or NASCAR crowd, they also draw the prep school crowd and local lacrosse community.

Baltimore and Maryland, generally speaking, might find that hard to accomplish, for more social reasons. I’ll be blunt. Many Marylanders hate lacrosse or more aptly they dislike lacrosse players, or at least the ones they know or knew as kids. I was a longtime fan of the Maryland comptroller while I was growing up. Louis “Louie” Goldstein used to deliver his annual state of the Maryland economy address in rhyming humorous verses. He was a jolly soul from Prince Frederick, Maryland. He came up as a young man with later Governor William Donald Schaefer and later Ocean City Mayor Harry Kelly. I had actually played lacrosse with Schaefer’s grandson, but those three great Marylanders all had something in common, I learned from Goldstein. They hated lacrosse.

I had been very curious why the state sport was jousting instead of lacrosse and as the editor of a publication about lacrosse based in Maryland, I decided to ask and report on it. The story called “Surely you joust” was a fun look at the two sports comparatively, but during the research I learned something that I never imagined was true. I called the speaker of the Maryland senate to ask my question and was told that the legislation to make lacrosse the state sport in Maryland had been around for years and was rehashed every so often but that it was always quashed by a group led in spirit by Goldstein.

I knew that had to be wrong. I loved Goldstein and I loved lacrosse. So I called Goldstein's office, figuring I could speak to an aide about what was really going on. Maybe there was always some proverbial “pork” in the "Lacrosse as a State Sport" bill. Somebody may have been trying to sneak some unwise expenditure in along with the obviously unanimously heralded lacrosse measure. I was stunned to not only speak directly to Comptroller Goldstein, but at how polite and frank he was about it. He said that ever since he was a kid, he and the people he knew and liked were bullied or at least condescended to by Maryland lacrosse people.

Goldstein understood as I did, having attended a Virginia military school, Baltimore City College, Boys’ Latin and Dulaney for my four years of high school, that lacrosse people came in all varieties and that generally, the folks at a prep school might be more, well, self-satisfied, then some others. He agreed but apologized that his feelings were strong enough to keep blocking the move until his retirement and then, he said, he expected it to eventually pass. He was charming and we had a great conversation about a few other things. It was obvious he was good people and that he warmed up to good people easily.

When he did retire, finally, from public office, the legislation was passed, much to the credit of my friend and former Bayhawks co-owner/GM Gordon Boone. But the lesson was not lost on me. We in lacrosse love our game and know for a fact that it crushes baseball, for example (in my opinion), but we would be better off teaching our lacrosse-playing kids to treat all of their schoolmates with the same courtesy they show their teammates even if they play lesser games.

This shouldn’t be so much news to anyone really close to the game. Why do we think the overwhelming initial public reaction to the news of the Duke party and possible rape of a dancer was nothing less than contempt for the entitled? Do you remember how battered around the game and our prep school image was for months? People in towns all over America just substituted the most arrogant rich kid in their town or in their memory for those accused lacrosse players and assumed or at least wished they were guilty. Our game has recovered with the discovery of their complete innocence of the alleged offense, but I fear while we all thumped our chests in vindication, we missed an important discussion on how we are perceived by others as a sport.

In the “City of Brotherly Love” they don’t have that issue in lacrosse. Or at least it’s far less evident. The mixed crowd jams to the music, cheers the Wings and jeers the officials. There’s polo shirts and biker tattoos, varsity jackets and trucker hats, all under one roof, all loving the Wings and lacrosse. You never hear the standard Baltimore lacrosse question -- “Where did you play?" -- because the MOST important factor in the success of the Wings is that most of them didn’t.

Posted by John Weaver at 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The upset of the weekend was Princeton over Cornell, at least in the way it impacts the Tigers' season. It may get the Tigers into the show if the polls indicate anything. The coaches' and IL polls now have Princeton at 10 and 11 respectively, while a team that pounded them 10-2 remains unranked. We don’t think Albany should be ranked either, by the way. But we put Princeton legitimately in a 14-17 range and just out of the postseason at-large scenario for now. I say for now because I think a Cornell loss to Brown this weekend and Princeton win over Brown next week would lift Princeton legitimately even with the Albany loss. But Princeton could lose to Dartmouth this weekend and that would not surprise me. It would help both Princeton and the pollsters if Albany won the CAA. :)

Most surprising this week, Bucknell may have played its way out of NCAA at-large consideration by posting two bad losses to Penn State and Colgate. Towson put emphasis on a pretty bad season with a 7-4 loss to Villanova. The true redemption for Towson would be a season-spoiling win over Hopkins, but I can't see it. 0-12 Marist beat Providence. Providence only lost to UNC by two.

Maryland and Cornell must have been scratching their heads this week. The Terps started the week 12th and the Big Red were 6th in the coaches' poll. Cornell lost to Princeton and Maryland beat Penn. The two are tied for 8th this week. Beating Penn moves a team up four places? Remember, if the Terps moved four spots, some coaches may have had them moving six spots, while some moved them only two, for example. We see the final result -- the average of the voting. Either way, that’s some big shuffling of some major teams, which indicates either serious rethinking or indecision generally.

I am not criticizing the voters themselves. Polls are, for the most part, terrible instruments. A great example was on display this weekend. ESPNU covered the Manhasset-Chaminade high school matchup as a part of the Jimmy Regan Tribute which included Duke against Army. Regan, who died in service to our country, played at Chaminade and Duke and was from Manhasset. The game was between the nationally second-ranked Manhasset and the 20th-ranked Chaminade and No. 20 just ripped No. 2. It was obvious that the barometer was WAY off.

High school polls are sillier than college polls and just play with the emotions of many younger kids and parents who don’t deserve it. Calling a team one of the best in the nation would suffice, unless we can really play it out, which I would prefer, but that can't happen.

I get e-mails all the time asking why this region or that state are so lame that they won’t participate in a national high school tournament or even games between the big Maryland and New York teams at the end of the season. The truth is that the high school year in Maryland ends a month before New York. A Long Island team is just finding out the state playoff schedule when the Maryland kids are at Beach Week "down the ocean."

The RRRR Men's Division I Lacrosse Rankings for April 21, 2008

1
Duke* 13-1

2
Syracuse 11-1

3
Virginia* 11-2
Maryland 8-4

5
Georgetown 8-3
North Carolina 8-4

7
UMBC 9-3
Ohio State 9-3
Johns Hopkins 5-5

10
Drexel 11-3
Notre Dame 9-2

11
Cornell 9-3
Loyola 7-4
Navy 9-4

14
Brown 10-2
Army 9-4
Princeton 7-4
Denver 9-6

18
Bucknell 9-4
Albany 6-7

20
Dartmouth 6-6
Hofstra 6-5
Stony Brook 7-4
Colgate 8-5
Penn 5-6

25
Harvard 5-7
Delaware 9-6
Massachusetts 5-6
Towson 4-8
Fairfield 4-8
Rutgers 5-6
Villanova 5-8
Hobart 6-5

See the full rankings at E-Lacrosse

* Duke players and a Virginia player were given extra eligibility by the NCAA, creating "super-seniors." In my opinion, this gives them an unfair advantage over all other contending teams in 2008.

Posted by John Weaver at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Metro Lacrosse has been providing underserved Boston kids with a lacrosse experience for years now. It's a great organization. They teach transferable skills and lessons through lax.

This spring, with the NCAA lacrosse final four heading its way, Metro Lacrosse is integrating a fundraiser with a really neat event emulating the torch run for the Olympics. Check that -- it's like the torch run sans protesters. Here's the event information from a recent (unedited) release:

METROLACROSSE’S 34-MILE ‘CHAMPIONS FOR COMMUNITY RELAY’ GIVES TO THE GAME

Relay Carries Official Game Ball for NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championships from Massachusetts State House to Gillette Stadium

With each mile, metrolacrosse aims to raise $5k; Total fundraising goal is $100k

MetroLacrosse, a Boston-based non-profit that teaches urban youth and teens life lessons through the team sport of lacrosse, calls on lacrosse enthusiasts to join its Champions for Community Relay. The Relay is a 34-mile, Olympic-torch style event focused on raising funds to directly impact the academic, athletic and personal growth of MetroLacrosse’s youth and teens.

The Relay will kick off Friday, May 23rd at the Massachusetts State House where the first pass with the official game ball for the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championships will be made to a MetroLacrosse participant. The ball will travel through greater Boston neighborhoods culminating at Gillette Stadium on Saturday, May 24th where it will be delivered to the field for the semi-final face off.

With a fundraising goal of $100K, MetroLacrosse calls on players of all levels, weekend warriors or simply sideline enthusiasts to join in the Relay by sponsoring any of the Relay miles. To find out more about the Champions for Community Relay and how to get involved, please visit www.metrolacrosse.com.

Posted by John Weaver at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The biggest upset of the week was the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) over Siena. It is so very huge because it upsets the whole hierarchy of lacrosse rankings. VMI beats Siena, who beats Loyola, who beats Georgetown, who beats Duke. Duke ripped Virginia to set itself apart as a clear No. 1 for most folks outside Onondaga County and the even more isolated college coaching fraternity. But the chain of upsets connecting the lower end of DI lacrosse to the very top is getting shorter by the week.

Last week I used the following example: Hofstra over Johns Hopkins, 8-7; UMass over Hofstra, 8-4; Loyola over UMass, 15-1; Siena over Loyola, 5-4 and No. 46 St. Joe’s (Lax Power rankings) over Siena, 8-7. It took us five games, using a “beat the team who beat the team…” approach, like in boxing, to connect the No. 46 team to Hopkins, which was around 10th. This week, it only takes four games to suggest that VMI could beat Duke.

We know VMI can’t beat Duke. What we don’t know, as a sport and an industry, is what to do with Siena who could beat Loyola and lose to VMI, ranked 53 out of 57 by Lax Power. Siena is the Kevin Bacon of lacrosse in 2008.

I noticed that the coaches voted Syracuse No. 1 and Duke second. I won’t reiterate last week’s arguments, but none of the salient points were disputed by the week’s events. Duke annihilated UVa. in just a half of lacrosse, while Syracuse doubled up on a very sub-par Rutgers squad.

The coaches also ranked Princeton, but not Albany. The Danes beat Princeton by a score of 10-2. Do the voters have inside information I did not get? Was there a fifth-string keeper in the Princeton goal for that Albany game due to some stomach virus that kept half the Tigers out of the game? I did not read about that.

And that brings up an interesting point. Are the voters in polls allowed or supposed to use all things known to them, and not just the scores, when voting? For example, when we all went about ranking Maryland for the last two weeks, we all knew they were playing without their top scorer and offensive catalyst, Travis Reed. Did the voters rank them where they think the Terps will be when he gets back or where they are without him -- a team that lost to Navy and Hopkins? If you have any problem with how low or high Maryland was ranked in any poll this week, I suggest the problem lies in that type of interpretation by the varying polls and voters.

I don’t know if there are discussions about these types of considerations between the voting coaches or media. There were not when I was a voter, nor were there official guidelines to refer to when voting. This possible variance is not isolated to any one poll or ranking. It is the subjective, rather than the objective that we seek when we ask humans to rank anything. That’s how we got six votes for Canisius in the media poll this week. Lax Power has the Griffs ranked 37th nationally while E-Lacrosse ranks them between 32 and 37.

The RRRR Men's Division I Lacrosse Rankings for April 14, 2008

1
Duke* 12-1

2
Syracuse 10-1

3
Virginia* 10-2
Maryland 7-4
North Carolina 7-4

6
Cornell 9-2
Georgetown 7-3

8
Ohio State 8-3
Drexel 10-3
Notre Dame 7-2

11
Navy 8-2
Johns Hopkins 4-5
UMBC 8-3

14
Army 8-3
Bucknell 9-2

16
Loyola 6-4
Denver 9-4

18
Brown 8-2
Princeton 6-4

20
Stony Brook 6-4
Albany 5-6
Penn 5-5
Hofstra 6-4
Towson 4-7

25
Harvard 4-6
Delaware 8-5
Yale 3-7
Massachusetts 5-5
Penn State 4-6
Dartmouth 4-6
Fairfield 4-7

See the full April 14, 2008 rankings at E-Lacrosse

* Duke players and a Virginia player were given extra eligibility by the NCAA, creating "super-seniors" -- an unfair advantage over all other contending teams in 2008.

Posted by John Weaver at 6:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

A question submitted by Connor:

I recently started dying heads and I've found that when I try to put blue over another color, for example, red, in order to get a splatter effect, the blue mixes with the red and I end up with a very dark purplish color. Any suggestions or tips would be appreciated.

Connor,

That’s one of the tougher stick dying dilemmas. Of course we always use lighter colors before we use darker colors as cover, which you’ve done. But often a third color is inadvertently created when using two colors trying to do something cool. I love yellow and blue, but you always end up with some green in that dye and that stinks. Orange always emerges in a yellow and red dye and you got Tequila Sunrise every time! It makes any good red, white and blue head tricky. I have seen many a patriotic red, white and purple head.

A logo dye for Calvert Hall was a previous winner in E-Lacrosse's annual stick dying contest.

For those new to lacrosse or who’ve just seen the game played, the customization of sticks is very popular. Kids will re-shape the plastic heads using heat or other methods. Changing the color of the plastic lacrosse stick "head" has been popular for years with many players. Using RIT dye, the same stuff used to tie dye T-shirts, we mix the hot water and dye in a soup pot on the stove or in a disposable aluminum turkey tray and dip the unstrung white plastic heads in there in all kinds of creative combinations. That’s what we are talking about here – head dying.

A splatter, for our audience’s sake, is a dye involving two colors, where one color, the lighter is applied to the plastic, then partially covered with hot glue, usually, before applying a second darker color. Once you remove the hot glue, you get a splatter effect in the first color and the original white plastic color once you remove the dried glue.

I always say the answer is another dip in HOT dye water. If the dye is just under boiling, each dip should make the blue richer. Working with blues is always tough and purple is the most common mistaken result. It usually means that you need more dips in the hot blue dye. Unfortunately, you will always be cutting the purple in half with each blue dip. It will always be half blue and half the last purple you ended up with after the last dip. Eventually, you’ll pull it from a dip and it will be rich blue. Have fun and always remember that dye is permanent and will ruin anything it touches so always ask your parents for permission and a place to work safely.

RIT dye is available at hardware and most drug and grocery stores. Other dyes are available but do not work as well on plastic.

Much more on stick dying and customization can be found in the Stick Tech section of E-Lacrosse.com. In fact, E-Lacrosse is just starting its 11th Annual Dye-Off Contest where you can show off your new talents.

Posted by John Weaver at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Calvert Hall is closed today for the funeral of Brother Rocco Andrew DiNoto, FSC, a long-serving and very popular educator at the school and member of the Calvert Hall Christian Brothers Community. Brother Andrew was in a retirement home for a time, so many of the younger Calvert Hall kids don't remember him, but at the game yesterday against St. Mary's, quite a few of the older Calvert Hall folks had plenty to say. The word "cool" came up in every conversation. People really liked him. More than one person called him the "face of Calvert Hall." Brother Andrew passed on April 5 and leaves a legacy that is obvious to this Calvert Hall outsider.

These two teams are a contrast in styles. St. Mary’s is long and tall and their players move faster than they look but they move the ball much slower than a team like Calvert Hall. The style is deliberate and thoughtful. Calvert Hall is rather small but frenetically paced. They look erratic, only because every kid’s using fakes on passes and they make quick change of direction moves to get away from larger defenders. I was reminded many times of Kevin Huntley, the great Calvert Hall attacker, now at Hopkins.

I had seen St. Mary's a couple times in Texas and they are obviously a good team. They are very big on offense and defense and play many seniors. The faceoff middies are huge and they are stay-on middies. Senior John Paul Dalton and sophomore Mark McNeill are so tall and long that they have deceptive speed and shots. Dalton is the brother of Will at Maryland. St. Mary’s senior attackman Matt Lamon will be in the running for area Player of the Year, but this was not his best game. Dalton led St. Mary's with three goals, and fellow senior Matt Bell added two goals and two assists

Calvert Hall's junior fogo (face off and get off) middie Ryan Gutowski dominated in the second half as you will see in the video. But the hottest part of the video is junior attackman Patrick Fanshaw putting on a behind-the-back show. I was impressed with Calvert Hall’s unsettled quickness too. They move the ball fast and keep the action unsettled until they find the crease with quick passes, and they often do. The attack seems to keep the defense on edge by presenting a constant threat in the settled offense, mixing that quick ball movement with solid one-on-one skills across the board. Junior Jason McFadden had three nice goals and fed on two. I also liked the midfield play of senior Sean Maguire and sophomore Tony Rossi.

Watch the entire highlight video on E-Lacrosse.

Note: Several of the Calvert Hall players' classes were incorrect in a previous version of this post. Thanks to the Calvert Hall parent for e-mailing in the corrections.

Posted by John Weaver at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Maryland vs. Hopkins is a great in-state rivalry with a rich tradition. But the matchup takes on a unique look this weekend as Hopkins needs the win badly after hitting a skid of historic proportions and Maryland has lost it's spark and leading scorer, Travis Reed, for the big game.

I feel bad for Reed. I won’t go into details but incidents involving scooters, drinking and lacrosse go back for decades in College Park, and they never end well. Coincidentally, the day before Reed’s late night, two-wheeled trip to "the Route," The Sun ran a story about him getting a lot of sleep during the day.

Maryland is clearly a different team without Reed’s game and attitude. They need him back, awake and on his feet instead of wheels. Without him this weekend, they are 50/50 against a Hopkins team who've looked for weeks like they are bound for ESPN Zone for some wings instead of ESPN come Memorial Day.

The Hopkins situation just proves that we need fairer scheduling. The Blue Jays play so many top teams every year that even while having one of their worst seasons they can, and likely will, get into the playoffs. They just need to go .500 and beat any top-ten team so that they can be wiggled into a reasonable playoff scenario. It’s not fair but the deed was done before a whistle was blown in 2008. Many of the top teams in Division I year-in and year-out protect their turf with a scheduling formula based on mostly playing only each other and schools they know they can beat to get to .500 in a bad year.

It’s pretty simple. Hopkins is 3-5 -- poor enough to doom most teams already. But the Hop, with all that tradition and stuff still has a chance (See Princeton, which lost to Albany 10-2 and are ranked above them). Hopkins plays Maryland, at Navy, Towson, Mount St. Mary's and at Loyola to close the season. They are cutting it close to be sure. They will have to beat Maryland or Navy, and finish the season with three easy wins against Towson, the Mount and Loyola.

That Loyola game will be exciting but Hopkins should beat Loyola if Siena did. That barometer should be good enough to tell you that if Hopkins and Loyola and Siena played more balanced and fairer schedules, the whole balance of lacrosse nature would shift. I have no idea how it would look but this is not human genetics here so I am not afraid of the result, come what may.

Two quick questions for you today.

1. How can Fairfield lose to Vermont by one and Georgetown by two?

2. Why don’t the teams at the bottom of the rankings with 0-11 and 0-10 rankings play each other sometime and ease the pain?

1

Duke* 11-1

2

Virginia* 10-1

3

Syracuse 8-1
North Carolina 7-3
Cornell 8-1

6

Maryland 7-3
Georgetown 6-2
Navy 8-2
Notre Dame 7-2
Johns Hopkins 3-5

11

UMBC 7-3
Bucknell 8-2

13

Ohio State 7-3
Drexel 9-2
Denver 7-4
Brown 7-2

17

Army 7-3
Loyola 5-4

19

Penn 5-3
Harvard 4-5
Albany 4-5

22

Stony Brook 5-4
Princeton 4-4
Hobart 5-4

25

Hofstra 4-4
Yale 2-6
Binghamton 2-5
Delaware 7-4

Check out the full rankings on E-Lacrosse.

* Duke players and a Virginia player were given extra eligibility by the NCAA, creating an unfair advantage over all other contending teams in 2008. When Duke plays Virginia next week, it will be a clash of the "super seniors" and maybe the best game of the year!

Posted by John Weaver at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)
        

Covering a D3 game recently, I was appalled by the behavior of about five or six of the home team players’ fathers toward the officials. It is not the first time this year I have encountered such conduct, and the identity of this particular school is not important. I took particular notice this time because it was so out of place in the otherwise perfect lacrosse environment. Unfortunately, I am constantly editing E-Lacrosse video to eliminate loud and nasty jeering by a parent or group of parents. I can tell it’s getting worse.

Various Googled, bookmarked and never-read studies seem to indicate that fan behavior is getting worse all over. YouTube is populated with various sideline arrests, fights and other parent-related sports incidents. Parental behavior has been a serious problem from youth leagues through high school for years. The issue of unruly parents, while isolated to dads (meaning men and not women, generally), is not isolated to D3 or even men’s lacrosse. I have personally witnessed many dads in DI women’s lacrosse behave atrociously.

While the abuse that I witnessed wasn’t the worst I’ve seen, it was perhaps the most illustrative. Each of these dads had their own theme or personal approach in the harassment of the officials. With every hit, out of bounds ball or close play, a cacophony of signature jeers would begin, interrupting the constant loud muttering which still lingered from the last. There was the astonished dad. His shouts always indicate surprise, like:

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT ONE! THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!”

He stood next to the aggrieved dad, who would yell things like:

“YOU ARE KILLING ME! JUST GIVE THEM THE GAME ON A FREAKING PLATTER, WHY DON'T YA?”

Nearby was the harbinger of doom dad, offering up his loudest advice:

“I”LL JUST CALL THE AMBULANCE NOW!”

The sarcastic dad threw me. For a moment, I thought he was supporting the refs against all the other dads. He shouted something like:

“THAT’S A GOOD ONE!”

A bit later, during a flurry of haranguing, he yelled again:

“THAT’S A GOOD NO-CALL! THAT’S A GOOD NO-CALL!” but followed it up with “OH YEAH, GREAT NO-CALL! JUST GREAT!” and I was deflated. He was one of them.

The naive dad kept yelling “WARD! WARD!” over and over every time the other team had the ball. There were times when it was obvious he had no idea what a ward -- interfering with a defender’s stick with your off-hand -- was.

The accusatory dad piped in with “HOW MUCH DID THEY PAY YOU?” just as the humorist hit the official with some cataract surgery reference or maybe “YOU’RE MISSING A REALLY GOOD GAME!”

Grand conspiracy theorist dad belts out “WHAT? DID YOU COME ON THE BUS WITH THEM?”

One guy would follow the action, literally moving with the game along the sideline just deriding the official closest to him. Another kept bringing God into it, yelling “OH MY GOD” and “HOLY JESUS!”

The abuse started early too. After the second play of the game, an eruption of critical shouts were highlighted by the singular bellowed follow-up of “OH, ITS GONNA BE ONE OF THOSE?” which not only forewarned those in attendance of the behavior to come, but indicated to me that these guys had been here before. This was ongoing behavior. These were serial offenders.

By game’s end, it was obvious that this team’s games had become a participation event for those dads as much as for the kids. At one point, a dad ran the sideline alongside the ref, with his head in his hands in terrible grief, all the while, hurling invectives. His buddies pointed at him and laughed. This group of dads looked like they had a system. They split up, covering both ends of the field with their abuse in two little packs. They stood as close to the sideline as they could.

One of these bullies actually carried a camera around with him so he could stand closest to the field. I never once saw the camera lift to his eye, but his mouth just moved for the entire length of the game. He cursed, insulted the ref some 20 times, commented on EVERY hit of the game and engaged the referees directly.

This man was easily the worst of the bunch because while he had a kid on the field, he had two on the sideline with him, who would look at each other and smile whenever he acted up. They admired it. By game's end, one of the young men harassed a ref himself in one of the ugliest tirades I have ever seen while his dad stood next to him, arms folded in disgust -- AT THE REF!

The opposing team was physical. The game was hard-fought. You could audibly hear most of the checks from both teams. The play was fair for the most part, and fouls were called when it wasn’t. A few calls were missed on both sides like every game I have ever seen. I do not know these refs personally, though I know quite a few all over the world. I have, however, seen them officiate many times without thinking any were less than competent or fair, which is to say they are excellent refs. I film many games and watch every game I film at least three times in the production process, so I do not miss much. I know who the bad refs are, and there are far fewer than many fans think.

Refs are human though, and at the end of this game, I might have seen a call or non-call go the way of the complaining parents, whose team had long been out of contention. Any person who interprets that as a good reason to continue this behavior should stay away from lacrosse fields altogether. This is a gentleman’s game, and spectators should behave accordingly.

Other than offering the appropriate spirited encouragement, fans attempting to influence the game in any way, are cheating. Frankly, at the college level, parents who take their offspring’s sporting events too seriously and cannot control their poor sportsmanship, are pathetic. I played on a team with a really terrible dad once, and the son was so embarrassed and horrified by the parent’s behavior at games that it affected his play and even his life off the field.

At a major college game, there is an announcement before the start that requests the fans not to use foul language, be racist or sexist in any way or show unsportsmanlike behavior. It also forewarns that such behavior will be met with more than just disapproval. The offenders will be removed from the game premises physically. I have not seen too many removals over the years, but I have seen some.

At the smaller college games where less than 100 parents converge with less than 60 girlfriends and frat brothers to watch a game, sometimes at a venue that is not even on campus, there is no security. Why should there be? The kids in the stands are well-behaved, and the rest of the audience pays tuition. Where there are no public announcement systems, there are no public announcements and no sportsmanship warning.

Policing the sportsmanship at these games will become a problem that requires addressing if we can’t just get the few dads to act responsibly. But that’s harder than it seems. In this game, there were more harassers than there were refs, so if the refs had confronted the group, they might have been assaulted. Maybe not. But I would not say anything to them, due to their numbers, and I am not bashful about such things.

So how does a kid stop his father from behaving that way? How do a few of the offended moms or perhaps opposing team's parents approach or confront the ever-growing issue of terrible dads, much less the actual dads themselves? They can’t. If the “dad community” doesn’t get a handle on the issue, behind the scenes, at the tailgates, over a beer at the hotel, it will escalate and hurt the game. That is your challenge, Lax Dads, before it’s too late.

That fan behavior policy which is read at the big games, and the security that would enforce it are really just an extension or embodiment of an NCAA's strategic plan related to sportsmanship, a portion of which includes fan behavior. It is policy. Most schools have a much harder time adhering to the policy when it comes to small sports, off-site games when schools don’t have their own venues and neutral site games, like when teams travel for spring break. In lacrosse, this includes teams in every division. This is NOT just a D3 issue in lacrosse. Right now, schools are getting away with not ensuring that fan behavior is appropriate at all small-sport venues because there is no objection about the fans.

Complaints from fans or refs about the type of behavior I witnessed yesterday, and more often lately, will draw the ire and reaction of the NCAA lawyers who crafted the pre-game statement for a good reason. They mitigate liability for a living. The notes from a 2006 D3 NCAA Management Council Meeting state that there was a sentiment that sportsmanship behavior had slipped since a 2003 Fan Behavior Summit held to address already falling levels of fan behavior. They are on this issue. The squeaky wheels will get the grease.

A mandatory public announcement policy and a fan behavior enforcement requirement would increase the cost of hosting a lacrosse team at some schools beyond their abilities. Many colleges would just stop playing a sport that draws only 100 people a game when the fans are so obnoxious that they have to secure the place like a 10,000-seat arena. Think about it.

You know that “one bad apple” adage our parents used to use? Well, it applies now to the parents on lacrosse fields. A few of our bad apple dads are ruining the college lacrosse experience for some others and might hurt the game just as badly if they continue. So for the rest of us, for the real fans, and for the game, I say this to only the dads who need to hear it: Dad, shut up and sit down.

Posted by John Weaver at 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)
        

Before the season began, I was speaking at length with some folks very close to the Syracuse program. They were pretty down about the 2008 prospects for the Orange – far more than I. These folks were about as close as you could get to the picture and the picture was bleak, on the field and off. These particular friends of mine are seldom wrong and never when it comes to Syracuse. They are part of the very small percentage of people around the game that really know lacrosse talent relative to all the personnel in Division I. This is not a very good Syracuse team, relatively.

I only bring this up because, while Syracuse (7-1) was ranked No. 1 in both the Nike/Inside Lacrosse media poll and the USILA coaches poll Monday, I don’t think Syracuse is even close to a No. 1 team in 2008 (Note: The Sun has Syracuse No. 5 in its latest poll).
Duke, stacked with super seniors, is far and away the better club. Anything can happen in a lacrosse game and I can certainly envision a Syracuse win over Duke just like I can see a Virginia win over Duke or a Georgetown win over Duke, but I think that seven or eight times out of 10, Duke would pound each of these squads.

I know that Georgetown already beat Duke. Like I said, losses happen. It was an upset. That’s why we call them upsets, because the unlikely happens. It does not make the repeat any more likely and Duke is still a far better team than even the Hoyas (I really like the Hoyas, too).

By this point in every season, anomalous games exist that present contradictions in any form of rankings or polls. How the season is interpreted, or more specifically, which games are judged to be uncharacteristic or inconsistent, help to determine the entire outcome of the season in college lacrosse. Which is the bigger upset or inconsistency: Hofstra over Johns Hopkins, 8-7; UMass over Hofstra, 8-4; Loyola over UMass, 15-1; Siena over Loyola, 5-4; or No. 46 St. Joe’s (Lax Power rankings) over Siena, 8-7? The answer to this and a few similar quandaries are paramount to the discussion.

I used the word “inconsistent” to describe these anomalous games to make a point. In a few weeks, the NCAA selection committee, made up of college coaches, will be forced to answer the question above, ranking the upsets if you will, by relevance and consistency. Their decisions might be consistent with current and pertinent data, like the conundrum of upsets above. Or, they might be consistent with tradition and with long-established teams, which is natural and predictable, even understandable, albeit wrong and contemptible.

The committee won’t be so biased toward the traditional champions on purpose, we trust. The predisposition is built into the tools they use in their process. They are armed with the polls, voted on by the media and their fellow college coaches, which are flawed by two major shortcomings. First, every poll result, all season long, is pinned to the speculation of the preseason guessfest where the traditional power teams always start in the pole position. Secondly, even now, weeks into the season, most of the voters in the polls have never seen Hofstra or UMass play, much less Siena or St. Joe’s and every one of the 30 or so teams in between.

This phenomenon, for lack of a better word, is instrumental in the rise of the 2008 Syracuse squad, just for example. More importantly, it is a principle reason, along with an unfair scheduling regime, for the annual ascendance of the same exact teams to the top ten and ultimately, the tournament. It stifles the growth of our game as a fan sport, which it is soooooo not. On an average day, the Orioles’ crowd crushes the combined attendance of Baltimore college lacrosse attendance on the hottest showcase day of the spring. And you can throw in the city’s defunct MLL and NLL teams. Even more current high school and youth lacrosse players will be sitting in Camden Yards than at Homewood, Unitas, etc.

Lacrosse’s inaccessibility is the biggest reason, though not the only reason, I hypothesize, for the dearth of non-playing lacrosse fans and paying fans in general. Another factor is the notion, let alone the fact, that even in the most exciting years the best we can hope for in lacrosse is a Virginia-Hopkins-Syracuse-Princeton final (pick two). In 2000 I predicted the outcome of the 2050 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship -- Syracuse 9, Princeton 8. Almost a decade later, I’ll stand by that pick. Can you argue against it, other than to inject something about that 2049 Hopkins or Virginia recruiting class? In what other sport could this be possible?

I mean, think about it. For the last few years, our great hope to finally get some diversity at the top spot after 30+ years of this incestuous celebration are teams like Duke or Cornell? How much more accessible does the game seem if Duke breaks the Lax Ceiling? In Philadelphia, that’s worth 50 bucks, Winthorpe.

This has been going on for some time, too. In 1981, the all-powerful sports franchise, the University of North Carolina was our Cinderella in lacrosse. Growth of the game was the talk of the day. We thought every pretty good team would start taking turns and the sport was on its way! A decade later, Princeton rode in on a plaid horse and rescued the sport from obscurity, blasting all those elitist impressions.

There is a chance that a Duke, Cornell, Maryland or maybe even a Navy or Army might break through soon. But, in fact, all these teams have actually won championships, before the NCAA era, and would not expand the sport very much at all, by the numbers. As of 2008 there have been only four champions in the last 17 years, five in the last 29 years adding UNC. If Cornell won this year, we’d have six champions in the last 31 years and if Maryland won we’d have seven in the last 36. If Army or Navy were to win it all in 2008, we’d be dominated by nine schools over the past 55 seasons. Rensselaer shared the 1952 championship with Virginia and those 10 schools own the last 76 years. Only six others -- St. John’s, Lehigh, Swarthmore, Stevens Tech, Harvard and Yale -- have worn the crown since 1881. The sport has serious barriers to entry.

So how does the Syracuse ascent to No. 1 in the polls this week denote, forecast, even precipitate the annual late-season shift toward traditional powers moving up the polls and creating the "same old same old" that’s just too old?

Syracuse has done better than any of us thought in that preseason conversation. We were wrong about how they would fare, but at 7-1, they have not, in my opinion, earned a top four spot yet. They topped Army (7-2 and the 11th-ranked team on Lax Power) by a score of 8-7 and Georgetown (5-2, No. 9 on LP), 9-8, in two overtimes. They needed overtime again to beat Johns Hopkins (3-4, No. 14 on LP), 14-13, at Homewood and topped Loyola (4-4, No. 15 on LP), 13-8. They crushed Binghamton (2-4, No. 35 on LP), 16-2, Hobart (4-4, No. 17 on LP), 13-5, and Villanova (2-7 and No. 42 on LP), 21-6. These are all good wins, but none against teams currently ranked over No. 9 on Lax Power.

Syracuse’s only loss is to Virginia, 14-13 in overtime in Baltimore to open the season at the Face-Off Classic. Virginia is 9-1 and Lax Power’s fifth-ranked team, while they rank Syracuse No. 4. Lax Power is a statistical ranking done by computers so that can happen. But we humans can see that since Virginia beat Syracuse and has only lost to Maryland.The RRRR rankings on E-Lacrosse have never ranked Syracuse over Virginia this year.

Even the Lax Power numbers, the fairest in the game, are pegged to some existing power structure. What would be ultimately fair would be to employ some wiz kid like the guy on the popular television show “Numbers,” who is unlikely to know the first thing about lacrosse. After the season was completed, our genius would take the data that consists of the full "bodies of work" of each of the teams into consideration. The data, analyzed logically in a vacuum with no pre-existing notions would tell us who was truly the best and the second and on down or would decide if that separation didn't actually exist. Of course, what would really be fair would be to let that same wiz kid design the next year’s schedule based on equity and discovering a true hierarchy through the games played. Because, even the wiz kid would be caught up on our anomalies!

I wish I had the full solution to the problem. Maybe you have some ideas. I’d like to hear them. I think the solution lies somewhere between the practical and the radical. Letting the naive wiz kid do the tournament seeding is as impractical as moving to a best of three series format in the playoffs to derive a real champion in our upset-friendly game. Many games could be added to the season as another possible path toward better and fairer ranking data, but this is also not viable. I have heard the last two discussed for years.

I favor the following two ideas, although each would have its detractors. The NCAA is the host, facilitator and arbitrator of college lacrosse’s first-class postseason tournament. As such, they should be involved in the assurance of the fairness of that tournament from the beginning of each season, playing a role in fair and equitable scheduling. Each team of the 57 in Div. I lacrosse should have the opportunity to play a schedule that could, in the best-case scenario, result in postseason play.

Expanding the NCAA tournament field to 32 teams would at once provide equity to the ever large and muddled group of bubble teams that cannot and are not evaluated well enough for fair exclusion. Every year when we seed 16 teams, we acknowledge that three or four bubble teams get the shaft, and live with it. If I am correct in my thinking, perhaps 10 or more teams, every year, are left out of a field they have earned the right to join.

Like any discussion of procedural changes in legislative government, these are the hardest things to get started. The very people who have to get involved and make change are the ones entrenched or at least accustomed to the old and ineffective ways. In this case it’s the fairness of the gentleman’s game at stake so we should expect reasonable consideration of change.

Send us your thoughts and ideas and maybe we’ll stir up the conversation.

Posted by John Weaver at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)