Is Syracuse really No. 1 or have we hit the Lax Ceiling?
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.
Comments
The situation is not as bleak, in terms of fan interest given the few championship teams, as you suggest. The reason for this is that the sport is expanding across the country at the high school (and pre-HS) level. These relatively new teams are relatively not as concerned with the NCAA championship situation, simply because they are newer. They are rightfully excited about this new sport, and are not nearly as sophisticated about lacrosse history and tradition than the traditional areas of Maryland and New York. And given the pyramid that exists concerning recruiting high school players into the college level, high school players from the newer programs are simply delighted to get spots on college teams - regardless of who those teams are (including non-NCAA teams like U. Michigan). The situation, in this regard, is very hopeful indeed, and I think the situation in 2050 will be very, very different.
Posted by: asgaard | April 4, 2008 12:27 PM
2 ideas come to mind:
1. College Ice Hockey uses a system call PairWise Ranking (PWR) to determine the 16 teams in it's tournament. Every team with a .500 or better winning percentage is considered a "Team Under Consideration" (TUC). TUCs are compared one-by-one to each other based on RPI,head-to-head record, record vc common opponents, and record vs all other TUCs. At the end of the exercise, the team that beats out the most other teams is the #1 team and the progression of 2 -16 is easy to follow. College hockey has used this system for a while, and it seems to me to be very fair wrt which teams get into the tourney. Of course, AQs factor in as well. which leads me to my other idea...
2. More AQs. Again, college hockey shows that conferences can be customized to fit the need of the sport. Thus we have the WCHA and the CCHA, both of which have teams from Big 10 schools as well as other teams. Also the ECACHL which has the Ivy League and some other teams from the NE, which might not even be in the ECAC for other sports. HockeyEast is yet another example with teams like UNH,BC, BU and Maine which do not share a common conference in other sports. Why not organize the 57 teams in to +/-8 conferences where teams play one another on a regular basis and then have meaningful tournaments with an AQ on the line (unlike, say, the ACC Lax tourney)? A mix of teams (traditional powers v newer teams) will ensure that the young programs will get the benefit of playing top teams on a regular basis. Also, the old guard will still get to fill in as at-large bids in case of upsets in the conference tourneys.
Posted by: Doug Piper | April 4, 2008 1:58 PM
Wow. Can we get any more bias down in the Baltimore Area towards Central New York?
Posted by: Joe | April 4, 2008 3:52 PM
Your bias towards Syracuse is evident and disappointing. Yes, no team has yet earned a top four seed in the NCAA tourney, including Syracuse; however, their schedule should not be questioned as they have the 5th toughest schedule in this week's laxpower poll, with a home game tomorrow vs Princeton and a road game Tuesday at Cornell.
All of your rubbish geared towards generating debate is irrelevent as it is only Apri 4, with many, many bigs games still to play be all teams. The last time I checked the only polls that matter are the ones released at 5 PM on Memorial Day!
Posted by: Eric Hall | April 4, 2008 4:38 PM
SU has Princeton Sat., Cornell, Albany, and U Mass left on the schedule. These are the games that will decide if SU is a #1 team, during the season.
Having grown up in the Syracuse area and played against John Desko, Kevin Donahue, and coached Lelan Rodgers in LaCrosse and Wrestling, I know how dedicated they are to the game. The switch to Lelan for the defensive side and the weight training regime SU has implemented, has managed to improve the game of marginal players to put SU in the position its in. If SU can make a return to the tournament, that will determine if SU is a #1 team for the year. We must not forget the OT lose to UVA, was on a nuetral field. Then SU played 2 games in a row after that in OT and won, making a total of 3 in a row in OT. Quite a confidence builder for a young hungry team.
To say that the condition of college LaCrosse is "The same old same old" is off track. The growth of LaCrosse is going well. Georgetown, Notre Dame, Penn State, Denver, just to name a few, indicates that. I for one am happy to see the different teams in the rankings.
Last year for SU was not a good year and an eye opener for the coaching staff, as to the elevation of other teams in the NCAA.
Hopefully with the eminent formation of the Big East LaCrosse conference it will only improve the growth of college LaCrosse.
Maybe it will even help the BE football conference, by bringing in Notre Dame, and hopefully USNA, and USMA, and 1 more team (PSU).
Posted by: martyb52 | April 4, 2008 6:03 PM
one big problem that should be solved is the removal of home-field advantage during the early rounds. all tournament games should be played on truly neutral fields. of course, this will never happen because it's not logistically practical and you'd hardly draw any crowds for those rounds (e.g. how many fans in NJ would come out to see UVA play UMBC in a 1st round game held at Rutgers?), but it would allow the 2nd and 3rd tier seeds a better chance at going deep in the tournament. i would also endorse expanding the tournament to 32 teams.
Posted by: GC | April 5, 2008 9:02 PM
Yes it is true that Duke and Virginia are better teams than Syracuse, but there is no other team in the country besides those two than Syracuse. And if you really look at it, Syracuse is only a hair behind both of those teams. What the Orange do have is the best face-off specialist in the country, an offense just as good as Duke or Virginia, and more motivation than any team playing. Both Duke and Virginia do not have to deal with the burden of tarnishing the NCAA tournament streak that this Syracuse team has. When you listen to the players this year, the memory of the 5-8 season of last year still motivates them. They have yet to look past any team this year. Syracuse could have easily looked past a Loyola or Princeton today, but they continue to put up top effort against all opponents. It is absolutely ridiculous to watch this team and not think they are one of the four best teams in the country. When Danny Brennan is winning face-offs and getting the ball in the hands of Mike Leveille and Kenny Nims, this Orange team becomes almost unstoppable. The defense this year has yet to be a weakness except for the Virginia game. And the way both teams play, it would be near to impossible for one team to hold the other to lower than 10 points. Just continue to watch the Orange this season, watch as the second line of Perritt, Miller and Hardy continue to jell together, watch as John Galloway proves he is the best freshman goaltender in the country, and as Seniors Steven Brooks and Mike Leveille make up for not making the tournament last spring.
Posted by: mike smeltz | April 5, 2008 10:26 PM
In my opinion, the greatest problem facing college lacrosse today is the failure of the sport to expand at the division I level, despite the tremendous growth in the game at the youth level.
The main reason for this, I believe, is Title IX, the federal regulation that requires gender equity from any institution receiving federal funds; in a nutshell, it forces colleges to provide as many varsity positions for women as for men.
Why does Title IX discourage new lax programs? Well, consider that football is a strictly male sport, so D-1 football schools have to field an awful lot of womens' sports teams to offset those all-male football rosters. Adding mens' lax means having to add womens' lax or another female sport, which pretty much doubles the cost of adding mens' lax - even though there are a lot more boys, than girls, clamoring to play collegiate lax, and higher revenue prospects with the men's version of the sport - with apologies of course to supporters of the womens' game!
Certainly when it was passed in the 1970's, Title IX forced an enormous culture change in the male-dominated world of division I sports; it led to a surge in womens' opportunities in and out of sports. I have no doubt that is a good thing.
Today we live in a different world, partly because of Title IX. And yet Title IX itself is still applied the same way to the NCAA, acting now as a brake on any growth in mens' sports programs, especially mens' lax, at the D-1 level.
Among other things, the stagnation of the sport means there are more and more high school players competing for proportionally fewer college varsity positions. This leads to a rise in average player quality and a smaller gap between teams (and more of those exciting upsets that wreck the form charts). But it also means more boys who want to play college lax, can't, and that's definitely a shame.
And for better or worse, it preserves the existing power structure. You can't expect a rolling boil when there's no heat under the pot.
I don't know that the persistence of elite programs across decades is necessarily a bad thing. Still, imagine the excitement, drama, and increase in fan base if leagues such as the SEC and Pac-10 began using their muscle to build programs that could challenge the traditional powerhouses!
Opening a lot more varsity positions for the flood of capable, hungry high schoolers would also take the government out of the business of penalizing boys for being male. In the case of lax at least, I would argue that in a real sense, Title IX has turned gender bias on its head.
The single most important contribution to the future of college lacrosse would be a reform of the way Title IX is applied to NCAA sports - a reform that would free D-1 schools to start sports programs at their own discretion.
This reform would allow the sport to grow naturally, rather than to be frozen in amber, as it is now.
In sum, solve Title IX and you give college lacrosse back its future.
Posted by: Bluejay1981 | April 6, 2008 2:20 AM
If Johns Hopkins or Maryland were ranked #1 having played the exact same schedule and had the exact same results as Syracuse does right now you would have NEVER wrote this article. Never.
And under your logic we should just cancel the rest of the season and the NCAA's because Duke is obvioulsly the best team and we should just give them the championship. You're basically saying upsets don't count and don't really matter and even if Duke got 'upset' in the NCAA finals they should still be crowned the Champions.
Clearly Mr. Weaver you've obviously never heard the phrase "That's why they play the games".
Posted by: Mike | April 6, 2008 2:16 PM
You picked apart the Syracuse schedule so lets see who Duke has on their schedule.Bucknell,Vermont,Lehigh,
Presbyterian (who?),Colgate,Harvard,
Dartmouth,and St.Johns.This is besides
the ACC schools.None of those schools are traditional lacrosse powerhouses.SU
would love to have a bunch of 5th year
seniors on their team but they don't.I don't think you'll see North Carolina on
SU's schedule anytime soon because we use to always beat them in overtime.We play Viriginia every year.Love to see Duke on the schedule,next year would be great.I honestly don't know why Maryland is not on the schedule more often.Johns Hopkins and Princeton are on the schedule every year too.
It really doesn't matter if you go into overtime or don't put up huge numbers in beating somebody.I like Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders philosophy....Just Win Baby.
Posted by: Nick DeSocio | April 6, 2008 3:48 PM
Interesting points about barriers to entry at the D1 level. Do you think Title IX impacted the sport's growth at that level? For example, three ACC schools, NC State, Boston College and Virginia Tech used to all have men's teams, I think, but now do not.Why? Was men's lacrosse axed to make space under Title IX? To add a program, a school now would have to add an equivalent women's sport, thus adding to the athletic cost of any expansion. Also, I would expect the small available pool of D1 talent to limit growth until the high school level expands to create a larger talent supply. I think that is happening but it takes time. But isn't lacrosse growth in D3 much broader? This would make sense because the talent required to compete is lower and the available supply can meet demand easier at that level.
Posted by: a sander | April 6, 2008 4:02 PM
Lots of interesting comments above, and the partisanship is fine too.
But this was the most thought-provoking column on lacrosse I have read in a very long time.
Thanks, John !
Posted by: Stuart | April 6, 2008 4:20 PM
Are you kidding? To question the talent on the SU team is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Your "friends" who are all knowing when it comes to evaluating lacrosse talent can't be any smarter than those who evaluate college hoops or football. They're always wrong! We know for sure that any kind of an evaluation is wrought with peril and simply a guessing game.
Case in point, Sid Smith was a great unknown coming from Six Nations in Ontario. How could your omnipotent friends possibly know the kind of impact he would make. Joel White has demonstrated to be as good a LSM as any in the country and came out of highschool as a offesive middy. Danny Brennans accension is not an anomoly. I could go on and on. Suffice it to say that your Mid Atlantic lacrosse bias is showing.
Posted by: Bill Fleischman | April 6, 2008 5:31 PM
The biggest money drain in Division I is football. The simple numbers to see are the 84 scholarships vs 12 for lacrosse, the cost of the coaches, the cost of travel, and the rest of the football costs. Television and ticket revenue go right back to football costs. Football won't allow lacrosse to grow in Division I.
Posted by: Robin Hiscock | April 6, 2008 6:20 PM
I am a big Syd Smith fan. I have been watching him for years. E-Lacrosse often covers box lacrosse at Six Nations and the Nations Cup (the all-aboriginal tournament) so we have seen Sid play with the big boys since he was quite young. And we saw the Bucktooths before him, and Roger Vyse and the Bomberry's and so on and so on since I was very young myself.
The last I saw Sid, he was leading the Iroquis National team losing the World Indoor Championship by a goal in the best game of the decade, so I know how good he is. He may be the fastest man in college lacrosse. That said, most of the syracuse talent is subpar with many previous years and that's just being fair to all those guys who were on those 'Cuse teams, right?
I am surrounded, as I write this, by Syracuse team posters which honor Native Americans. The posters, works of art, were created by Jim Santiago and Roy Simmons, Jr. Santiago's daughter, Alex is a friend of mine and the posters were a gift from Roy Simmons, Jr., my first interview at E-Lacrosse.
And Mike, I think you misunderstand me. Playing the games is the only important thing. Discussion and deconstruction of the polls and the process is in the best interests of teams who would win the actual games if they got to play them.
And I wasn't picking on Syracuse. They were just a good example. I don't root for lacrosse teams.
Posted by: John Weaver | April 6, 2008 6:28 PM
John-
Now I know you cannot say that I do not know the game of lacrosse, I think my honors speak to my knowlegde. SO with that being said, all that counts is who wins the last game on Memorial Day Weekend. I have 2 Nat'l Championship rings and each of those years we went in ranked #3. Heck, I hope SU drops from #1 and comes in #3!!!!!!
Posted by: Ric Beardsley | April 6, 2008 10:42 PM
Great hearing from you Rick!
Posted by: John Weaver | April 7, 2008 8:07 AM
I did this on Inside Lacrosse...
Since you wanted to pick apart Syracuse's numbers...Let's look at Dukes!....
SU opponents records...
Nova 2-7 W
Army 7-3 W
Uva 10-1 L
Gt 7-2 W
JHU 3-5 W
Bing 2-7 W
Hob 5-4 W
Loy 5-4 W
Prin 4-4 W
--------------------------------------------
(Through 9 Games) 45-37
------------------------------------------
Cor 8-1
Rut 4-5
Alb 3-5
Umas 4-5
Col 5-5
---------------------------------------------
(Remaining Games) 24-21
---------------------------------------------
(total if season ended now) 69-58
Duke....
Bucknell 8-2
Verm 3-8
Mary 7-3
Leigh 6-7
Loy 5-4
Presb 0-11
UNC 7-3
Col 5-5
Gt 7-2 L
Harv 4-5
Dart 3-5
JHU 3-5
----------------------------------------------------
(Through 12 games) 58-60
----------------------------------------------------
Uva 10-1
Army 7-3
StJ 0-9
-----------------------------------------------------
remaing games 17-13
-----------------------------------------------------
Season ended now 75-73
-----------------------------------------------------
Duke has played 12 games you might say...Let's add SU next 3 games...at worst, 45-40 through 12 games. At best 48-37!
SU through 9 Games 45-37 +8
Duke through 12 games 58-60 -2
Teams Below .500 (played)
SU 3
Duke 4 (1 of those is 0-11!)
If the season ended today.
14 Games SU 69-58 +11
15 Games Duke 75-73 +2
Posted by: Ray | April 7, 2008 1:25 PM
Sir, If you are thinking that Syracuse is as good as Duke this year, you're just not facing reality. That said, anything can happen in a game and if Syracuse were to play a game with Duke, they COULD win, just like Georgetown won against Duke. That's lacrosse. But more likely 'Cuse would get roughed up. Even Inside Lacrosse, whom you referenced for whatever reason, came to their senses this week on Duke and put them back at number 1.
Posted by: John Weaver | April 7, 2008 1:49 PM