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Hardest Top 20 Poll myles jones theory
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Hardest Top 20 Poll Voting Week EVER!

This past week was the hardest top 20 poll voting week I’ve ever experienced and I liked it… A LOT! Usually I’m asking if this lacrosse poll is serious, but at this point, almost anything could be serious and I might buy it.

Photo Credit: Craig Chase

D1 men’s lacrosse has seen an insane start to 2016, with little rhyme or reason behind many of the wins and losses. Now I need to create a viable top 20, and submit it for the media poll. Once again I will be employing a “results only” approach, which values what’s been done in 2016, and nothing else. It’s a 2016 poll, that only seems fair.

May the Creator have mercy on my soul.

Last week’s poll is OUT, and I won’t even reference it in terms of this week’s selections, but I WILL go about my new found love for Tier systems just a little bit better… I think. Let’s get to it!

4 Tiers of teams will be created, teams will be ranked within each tier, and then we’ll have a Top 20 poll.

Tier 1A – Undefeated teams are in Tier 1A, as long as they have a “good win”, which means a win over a pretty obvious Top 20 team.

Tier 1B – Teams with one loss to a Tier 1A team, a couple “good wins”, and no other blemishes on their record. Teams from Tier 1A and Tier 1B will be ranked in the same overall Tier 1 group. I made this change because Notre Dame is my #2, and I need to able to justify that, so now it spreads to everyone else, and opens Tier 1 back up a bit.

Tier 2 – Teams with one loss to a “good team” and at least one win over a “good team”. More wins over “good teams” equals a higher ranking.

Tier 3 – Teams with a loss to a “lower” team, and Teams with more than one loss, but with wins over Tier 2 or 3 teams.

Tier 4 – Impressive records, but little to talk about. Maybe you’re 4-1 but haven’t played anyone great? You could be ranked here!

Hardest Top 20 Poll Votes

Tier 1A Teams – Denver, Brown, Syracuse, Yale and Tier 1B Teams – Notre Dame, Albany

1) Denver – Undefeated, plenty of big wins, and an easy choice for the number 1 spot this week!
2) Notre Dame – One loss to everyone’s best team in OT and a perfect record otherwise. Someone had to lose that game, and it doesn’t make them an automatic #3 or lower.
3) Syracuse – Undefeated, some good wins, and you can have Cuse in your Top 3 easily.
4) Brown – Undefeated, and gets the nod above Yale because they are a liberal scoring machine, and I like scoring. And liberal stuff. If you put Yale up here instead because you like conservatism and defense, I’d be cool with that too.
5) Yale – Conservative, aggressive, and just might be the best team in the country this year. They could be your number 1 team and I actually wouldn’t really argue with you.
6) Albany – Albany, by only losing to Cuse, and by beating some solid programs, fills this bottom spot. I almost put them in Tier 2, but for now their wins look solid. My most questionable selection so far.

Tier 2 Teams – Villanova, Stony Brook, Rutgers, Towson

7) Villanova – Nova has a different approach to the game, runs a wacky offense, and can give anyone fits. I could see them drop or climb on different weeks, but they seem to be for real.
8) Stony Brook – putting SBU outside your top 10 shows some sort of bias, doesn’t it? They have a 16-14 loss to Brown (in everyone’s top 5), and 4 wins. If the Sea Wolves top Hofstra this Tuesday, will the other voters start believing in Stony Brook?
9) Towson – Yes, they just lost a game, and it wasn’t pretty, but they are 5-1, own good wins, and their only loss is to a top 20 team. Dropping Towson any lower now makes little sense even though they have lost to a team ranked lower them. At this point in the poll, so has almost everyone else! Head to head match ups are not my main indicator.
10) Rutgers – Ok, so Rutgers hasn’t lost a game to a lower ranked opponent (just Stony Brook), but that’s why they are still in Tier 2 and my top 10. This is a tenuous spot for Rutgers right now, but the results say they’re still highly regarded, even if the loss way large.

Tier 3 Teams – Army, Duke, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UMass, Penn State, UNC, Loyola, Hofstra

11) Johns Hopkins – Hop has some wins, and some losses, and I have no idea what to think so I’ll rank them 11th? Here’s the problem. I no longer know what to think in general, so using my tier criteria only helps so much. Hop has more solid wins than most.
12) Loyola – They do have two solid wins, but their 1-2 record over the last 3 games is not helping them trend upwards right now.
13) Army – Speaking of trending upwards, Army is rising in my eyes, and their body of work continues to improve. They have only lost to teams I have ranked above them (Rutgers and Cuse) and 5 solid wins. I’ll buy that.
14) Harvard – Six games this year, and four have gone to OT. Harvard is 3-1 in those games, but has losses to Bryant and Penn State (both this week) following a win over Duke. Body of work keeps them high for now.
15) Duke – They are who we thought they are… a totally unpredictable team in March. They qualify for Tier 3 and could be anywhere from 11 to 18 in my poll, so 15 seemed fair.
16) UNC – The Heels are like the new Duke, and I’m intrigued. You don’t know what you’re getting in March, but what happens in April and May? Can UNC pull a Duke and become consistent later on? How did I rank UNC over UMASS and Hofstra? Well, UNC has a win over Hopkins (whom I ranked 11th), and UMass and Hofstra don’t have a quality win like that, except over UNC. When everyone has some wins and losses, I look for a marquee win, and Hop is as close as this group gets. Imagine if UNC had beaten Denver in OT… what would the polls look like now?!?!?! Exactly. This is basically impossible.
17) UMass – How can I justify ranking 3-4 UMass? Well, they have 2 losses to Tier 1 teams (Brown and Albany), a loss to Harvard and one to Army, but I have both of these teams at #14 or higher. So they have no “bad losses”, and wins over OSU and UNC, so they earn a spot.
18) Hofstra – Like UMass, Hofstra has two big wins so far, over OSU and UNC. Their loss to Georgetown is worse, at least for me, than UMass’ four losses to ranked teams. Weird? Maybe.

Tier 4 Teams – Maryland, Cornell, Bucknell, Navy, Colgate, Lehigh, Air Force, Boston University, Penn, Marquette, Bryant, Richmond, Ohio State, High Point – this is hugely subjective, but I considered all 14 of these teams for the last two spots.

19) Maryland – Ok, I am not going to lie here… I was NOT going to rank Maryland yet again, but LaxPower changed my mind a little bit. Their three wins are over teams with a combined record of 7-10, and they lost to two top 10 teams in lower scoring affairs. Maybe hanging 17 on Princeton was enough for me to give them the benefit of the doubt. Their 12 goal win is the biggest margin of loss for Princeton so far, and now I’m using comparative scoring. GREAT.
20) Ohio State – Their only losses are to Tier 3 teams (Hofstra and UMass), and they have 5 decent wins so far, so I went with them. Easily could have gone with Richmond, AFA, BU, or Bucknell here, but for now the Buckeyes got my vote.

I actually feel solid about my Top 13 and then I lose all faith in my rankings, or anyone else’s rankings for that matter. Army is a great program and they could do some things. Loyola and Hop both seem like top 12 teams, and pretty much everyone above that (except maybe Albany) is a clear cut Top 10 program in my eyes… THIS WEEK. It can all chance next week, and probably will, but for now I think I got it.

Beyond Army at #13, my picks were really hard to make. I tried to focus less on this last week’s results, and more on a team’s overall body of work. That led to some weird looking numbers going next to recent losers’ names, but that doesn’t make the poll complete bunk. It just means that it is an educated guess, and not much more.

I can’t wait to hear the “media” criticize the Media Poll again this week… and then I can’t wait for everyone to be wrong about everything (including myself) AGAIN. You come out and say something online, or in a podcast, or on TV, and the next day your new favorite team loses to a 2-5 program. It’s happened a lot so far, and I don’t really see it stopping any time soon. Hopefully I’m not wrong about that too. I love parity!