ACC Is Top Dog In Early Season Conference Success: NCAA Conference Comparison, 2020 – Week 2

We’re taking a look at where conferences stand after Week 2 of the NCAA season! We’re still in that fun part of the year where everyone is in the non-conference part of their schedule.

Note: Records below are listed through Wednesday of this past week.

NCAA Lacrosse Conference Comparison (Men’s DI): 2020 – Week 2

Overview

The Patriot League is still the leader in terms of games as they tend to focus on getting the bulk of its non-conference games out of the way first, and then keep it all in-house from that point on. Conversely, you have the Ivy League that starts later than everyone else and just has begun playing its first games. It also means that a few good or bad games can have a large impact on the conference’s winning percentage as a whole, which definitely came into play this week. Now, onto the numbers!

The NCAA Lacrosse Conference Supremacy Battle Through Week 2

Observations

With so few games played, things seem a little more volatile than they are, but that isn’t to say there aren’t some pretty notable things happening. Most notably is the swing in the ACC – Big Ten battle. The Big Ten had a rough, rough week going 3-5 after being undefeated for the first stretch of the schedule. The only team that did not lose was No. 1 Penn State. What’s not encouraging is who the teams lost to as well. The Hopkins loss to Loyola was OK, as was Rutgers’ loss to Army, but Ohio State’s loss to UMass, Maryland’s to Villanova, and Michigan to Hofstra (see game photos here) were not.

In case you need to catch up on some of these storylines with this weekend of college lacrosse looming, click here to get caught up through last weekend and check out some of the top plays.

In the midst of these losses, the ACC went undefeated for the week, headlined by Duke’s win over Denver and UVA taking the “W” over Lehigh. The Syracuse, Notre Dame, and UNC wins were squarely in the “expected” column.

The biggest rise mathematically was, of course, the Ivy League, who played its first games. They were the true embodiment of being at the bottom and “having no way to go but up.” Jokes aside, they still vaulted up to the second spot after strong showings across the board. The conference’s lone loss was Penn’s loss to Maryland, and Princeton has rocketed out to a 2-0 start as one of the highest-scoring teams in the country led by Michael Sowers. This next week is a huge test for the league, though. Harvard has its opener against UMass, the first game under new head coach Gerry Byrne, while Penn faces Duke, Princeton has Virginia, and Yale sees Penn State.

The biggest drop of the week was definitely the NEC. It had a strong start, but a 3-12 week sunk them towards the bottom of the table. It doesn’t help that Merrimack and LIU are still looking for their first wins, but Wagner is also winless at 0-1. The biggest shocker so far is Hobart, who leads the conference at 2-0. The other, more notable area where Hobart leads the conference besides its record is statistically. They’re currently the top team in the country in scoring margin, points per game and scoring offense. They are also third in the country in shooting percentage, buoyed by Jason Knox, who is second in the country with 76.9 percent. Its scoring margin is also due to goalie Sam Lucchesi keeping a 66.7 percent save percentage, good for fifth in the country.

As always, the tables for the past few years are here for reference:

Prior Years’ Records

2019:

2018:

2017: