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Big East Looking Good: Ryan’s Rundown Week 7

This is the final week before being almost entirely a conference-only slate of games around all of DI Men’s lacrosse. The Big East had a huge week and was able to capitalize on the CAA’s poor week.

Scoreboard


Tuesday

Dartmouth 6 v Ohio State 12 (Ivy v Big Ten)

Boston U 10 v Harvard 13 (Patriot v Ivy)

St. John’s 17 v Fairfield 14 (Big East v CAA)

Saturday

Georgetown 14 v Lehigh 11 (Big East v Patriot)

Stony Brook 10 v Albany 12 (America East v America East)

Air Force 16 v Marquette 9 (ASUN v Big East)

Bellarmine 8 v North Carolina 15 (ASUN v ACC)

UMBC 8 v Binghamton 12 (America East v America East)

Bryant 14 v Hobart 11 (NEC v NEC)

Colgate 6 v Bucknell 14 (Patriot v Patriot)

Dartmouth 10 v Harvard 19 (Ivy v Ivy)

Delaware 13 v Villanova 18 (CAA v Big East)

Towson 9 v Denver 12 (CAA v Big East)

Detroit Mercy 8 v High Point 18 (ASUN v SoCon)

Drexel 14 v Robert Morris 15 (CAA v ASUN)

Richmond 20 v Hampton 5 (SoCon v SoCon)

Hofstra 9 v Providence 10 (CAA v Big East)

St. John’s 4 v Jacksonville 25 (Big East v SoCon)

Michigan 12 v Johns Hopkins 15 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Army 14 v Loyola 12 (Patriot v Patriot)

Manhattan 9 v St. Bonaventure 15 (MAAC v MAAC)

Siena 10 v Marist 11 (MAAC v MAAC)

Mercer 9 v Utah 23 (SoCon v ASUN)

UMass-Lowell 8 v NJIT 7 (America East v America East)

Cornell 11 v Penn 15 (Ivy v Ivy)

Princeton 12 v Yale 14 (Ivy v Ivy)

Canisius 6 v Vermont 15 (MAAC v America East)

VMI 10 v Cleveland State 22 (SoCon v ASUN)

UMass 10 v Brown 7 (CAA v Ivy)

Lafayette 11 v Boston U 21 (Patriot v Patriot)

Holy Cross 8 v Navy 14 (Patriot v Patriot)

Saint Joseph’s 12 v Wagner 6 (NEC v NEC)

Monmouth 9 v Quinnipiac 8 (MAAC v MAAC)

Merrimack 7 v LIU 16 (NEC v NEC)

Duke 10 v Syracuse 14 (ACC v ACC)

Mount St Marys 14 v Sacred Heart 13 (NEC v NEC)

Notre Dame 8 v Virginia 12 (ACC v ACC)

Sunday

Ohio State 7 v Rutgers 18 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Maryland 18 v Penn State 7 (Big Ten v Big Ten)

My Top 20

Since transparency is a good thing, here’s my Inside Lacrosse Media Poll ballot for this week:

  1. Maryland
  2. Georgetown
  3. Penn
  4. Virginia
  5. Yale
  6. Cornell
  7. Princeton
  8. Notre Dame
  9. UNC
  10. Rutgers
  11. Jacksonville
  12. Ohio State
  13. Harvard
  14. Army
  15. Denver
  16. Boston U
  17. High Point
  18. Utah
  19. Villanova
  20. Syracuse

Dropping from my Top 20 this week were Duke and Brown. To be honest the last 4 teams gave me the hardest time this week. I knew Brown was dropping, but as talented as Duke is, their losses cannot be ignored. The loss to Syracuse was bad on so many different levels for the Blue Devils. They were just outplayed in pretty much every phase of the game. I also had a hard time trying to decide on whether or not to reintroduce Syracuse, but when looking at the other options, they got the nod for now.

Conference Comparison

This is the section of the rundown to keep track of how conferences are doing against each other. This year we actually don’t have any teams playing as independents, which is a huge step forward. The big reason I keep track of this is it helps roughly gauge how many teams from each conference to expect in the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. Unless you’re in the top 3 of conferences, you’re probably only sending one team. There are some rare exceptions, but it does help to be aware of what’s going on once everyone switches to conference games and beat eachother up.

ConferenceRecord%This Week+/-SOS Rank
Ivy28-80.7781-2-0.0402
ACC24-110.6861-00.0091
Big Ten34-160.6801-00.0073
Patriot22-200.5240-2-0.0266
Big East26-250.5105-20.0334
CAA27-260.5091-5-0.0445
NEC22-250.4680-00.00010
SoCon20-260.4352-20.0069
ASUN19-300.3884-20.0397
MAAC15-300.3330-1-0.00811
America East12-320.2731-00.0178

As more and more teams head into their conference-only slates, the variability in this table week to week is definitely slowing down. Over half of the leagues plays just two out-of-conference games or less this week.

But a big new thing for this section this week comes from of all places and Instagram comment by Jimmy Kenny on our post last week. He just mentioned “Would be interesting to see the SOS adjusted results.”.

So, it’s not perfect, but what you see above takes the NCAA’s past game SOS for each team, average across each conference. It’s not perfect because it also included in-conference games, but it does get a good feel for if a conference is overperforming or underperforming relative to their given schedule. For example, the top three conferences are all doing a great job against strong competition. Whereas the Patriot League may be slightly inflated compared to the Big East and CAA.

Now, in terms  of what happened this week, Ivy had a weird below .500 week, but they’re far enough ahead that it didn’t affect their standing at all. The big mover was actually the Big East with a seven game week to pull them ahead of the CAA and their rough 1-5 showing.

This Week’s Games


Tuesday

Cornell 16 v Colgate 9 (Ivy v Patriot)

Lafayette 16 v Sacred Heart 8 (Patriot v NEC)

Lehigh 12 v Binghamton 10 (Patriot v America East)

Saturday

Georgetown @ Denver (Big East v Big East)

Albany @ UMass-Lowell (America East v America East)

Utah @ Air Force (ASUN v ASUN)

Cleveland State @ Bellarmine (ASUN v ASUN)

Binghamton @ NJIT (America East v America East)

LIU @ Bryant (NEC v NEC)

Army @ Bucknell (Patriot v Patriot)

Cornell @ Dartmouth (Ivy v Ivy)

Delaware @ UMass (CAA v CAA)

Robert Morris @ Detroit (ASUN v ASUN)

Towson @ Drexel (CAA v CAA)

Hobart @ Saint Joseph’s (NEC v NEC)

Hofstra @ Fairfield (CAA v CAA)

High Point @ Jacksonville (SoCon v SoCon)

Loyola @ Holy Cross (Patriot v Patriot)

Canisius @ Manhattan (MAAC v MAAC)

Marist @ Quinnipiac (MAAC v MAAC)

Providence @ Marquette (Big East v Big East)

Mercer @ VMI (SoCon v SoCon)

Penn @ Yale (Ivy v Ivy)

Princeton @ Brown (Ivy v Ivy)

Virginia @ Richmond (ACC v SoCon)

UMBC @ Vermont (America East v America East)

Villanova @ St. John’s (Big East v Big East)

Navy @ Boston U (Patriot v Patriot)

Maryland @ Michigan (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Penn State @ Ohio State (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Sacred Heart @ Wagner (NEC v NEC)

Lehigh @ Lafayette (Patriot v Patriot)

Siena @ Monmouth (MAAC v MAAC)

Mount St Marys @ Merrimack (NEC v NEC)

Colgate @ Harvard (Patriot v Ivy)

Syracuse @ Notre Dame (ACC v ACC)

Duke @ North Carolina (ACC v ACC)

Sunday

Johns Hopkins @ Rutgers (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Games to Look Out For

There are only a few non-conference games this weekend, but they’re not one that are expected to shakeup the rankings too much. Of course, if Richmond beats UVA, there would definitely be an impact! But as far as conference matchups go, below are a few of my favorite. The two headline games for me are the Penn & Yale game in the Ivy League and over in the Patriot with Bucknell and Army.

Sneaky Good Matchups

Delaware @ UMass (CAA v CAA)

Hobart @ Saint Joseph’s (NEC v NEC)

High Point @ Jacksonville (SoCon v SoCon)

Johns Hopkins @ Rutgers (Big Ten v Big Ten)

Not So Sneaky Matchups

Georgetown @ Denver (Big East v Big East)

Army @ Bucknell (Patriot v Patriot)

Penn @ Yale (Ivy v Ivy)

Princeton @ Brown (Ivy v Ivy)

Syracuse @ Notre Dame (ACC v ACC)

Duke @ North Carolina (ACC v ACC)