Comments on: Hot Pot: D3 Vs. MCLA Vs. D1 Rant

By: eternal

eternal — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 00:58:00 +0000

I pooled all inter-divisional games from 2002-2012 and fit a mixed Poisson model that includes the factors year, home/away/neutral, team division, opponent division, team offense, opponent defense, game pacing. My model suggests that if Salisbury had been D1 its average national ranking would have been about #15 during those years. In 2007 Salisbury ranked #7, in 2012 Salisbury ranked #1. This is a rare example where the best NCAA team may have been a D3 team. Unified top 20 for 2012: [code] rk | team | div | str | ofs | dfs | sos -----+---------------------+-----+-------+-------+-------+------- 1 | Salisbury | 3 | 2.113 | 1.560 | 0.738 | 0.828 2 | Massachusetts | 1 | 1.906 | 1.465 | 0.768 | 1.040 3 | Loyola Maryland | 1 | 1.892 | 1.395 | 0.737 | 1.063 4 | Princeton | 1 | 1.772 | 1.298 | 0.732 | 1.071 5 | Maryland | 1 | 1.671 | 1.257 | 0.752 | 1.104 6 | Notre Dame | 1 | 1.647 | 1.043 | 0.633 | 1.095 7 | Lehigh | 1 | 1.637 | 1.163 | 0.711 | 1.021 8 | Denver | 1 | 1.619 | 1.430 | 0.883 | 1.104 9 | Virginia | 1 | 1.599 | 1.394 | 0.872 | 1.098 10 | Johns Hopkins | 1 | 1.599 | 1.186 | 0.742 | 1.077 11 | Duke | 1 | 1.527 | 1.371 | 0.898 | 1.108 12 | Cornell | 1 | 1.521 | 1.370 | 0.901 | 1.076 13 | Colgate | 1 | 1.427 | 1.486 | 1.041 | 1.060 14 | Yale | 1 | 1.416 | 1.338 | 0.945 | 1.080 15 | North Carolina | 1 | 1.412 | 1.408 | 0.997 | 1.076 16 | Bucknell | 1 | 1.375 | 1.216 | 0.885 | 1.056 17 | Syracuse | 1 | 1.352 | 1.205 | 0.891 | 1.084 18 | Bryant | 1 | 1.333 | 1.142 | 0.857 | 0.933 19 | Drexel | 1 | 1.324 | 1.156 | 0.873 | 1.084 20 | SUNY Cortland | 3 | 1.322 | 1.042 | 0.788 | 0.856 [/code]

By: tmccartn

tmccartn — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 23:51:00 +0000

Time is definitely an issue

By: connorwilson

connorwilson — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 01:03:00 +0000

I don’t think he ruled the third option out, did he? It was more like like: Lacrosse & _________ pick one of the two. As you can see in my comment above, I don’t completely agree.

Thanks to both for your comments.

By: connorwilson

connorwilson — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 01:01:00 +0000

see that is exactly what I’m saying… for you a big D1 experience is attractive. For me it was not. It’s always different.

And I also think there are plenty of kids and parents out there who do make the decision based on academics. I simply believe that more should do the same.

As far as choosing two of three options, I believe you can be a good student, good lacrosse player and social person. if social life means going out and partying all the time, well, that doesn’t really leave much room of much else at all! In moderation, I still think a well-rounded kid can do all three. BUT, as you suggest, that is not always the case.

By: connorwilson

connorwilson — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:57:00 +0000

interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing, Denning.

By: connorwilson

connorwilson — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:56:00 +0000

Could there be an even cheaper option? like a local men’s club team? Or is time a major issue as well?

By: Spencer Hoge

Spencer Hoge — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 18:27:00 +0000

i was one of the guys who just wanted to play in the NCAA… That was the dream, but I was only recruited to play D2 and D3, mind you I was okay with that because I also wanted a small school. I got in, got recruited, didn’t get the money… It’s hard to sign away 40k in loans for four years of lax and a school… Ended up going to with the only affordable, and cheapest option; MCLA public school. Played MCLA D2 for a year, but that was hardly lax. It was a bunch of bros who liked to party with lacrosse sticks. Seriously, showed up and pre-gamed… before actual games. In the end what’s “best” for myself came down to what’s affordable and it was a lose, lose, lose situation. No lax, large public school, and I’m still paying too much…

By: Denning Crenshaw

Denning Crenshaw — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:44:00 +0000

I play lacrosse for a top d3 school and I could have gone d1 but the d1 teams that wanted me didn’t have the majors that I wanted. I still needed money for college and so I got money for academics. But the time commitment is very similar with d1 and d3 ball. The situation where you have to pick between academics lacrosse and social life is when someone is taking a really hard major. Then they have much more homework then the ones with the easier majors. I believe this to be true at the division one level as well by the stories I’ve heard from my friends.

By: notsureaboutthat

notsureaboutthat — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 19:49:00 +0000

“Something like, academics-lacrosse-social life- pick two.” I find it hard to believe that D1 lacrosse players don’t have a social life after some of the tv stories I’ve seen about lacrosse in recent years

By: bhsvideodad

bhsvideodad — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 17:05:00 +0000

I agree the situation is much more complex than just the difference between paying more for tuition or more for lacrosse fees. MCLA D1 vs NCAA D3 is an interesting discussion though. I think one of the attractions of Oregon’s MCLA team is that it resides at a huge BCS football school with all that goes with it. That is missing at D3 schools. In an ideal world, the choice would be made on where the student could get the best education. Oh yeah, that must be in some parallel universe.

In the NCAA, is there a huge difference in the time commitments between playing D1 and D3 lacrosse? From what I have read D1 at a major school it comes close to full time. Something like, academics-lacrosse-social life- pick two.