With just three weeks of gameplay left before we will be sitting on our couches looking to see the bracket revealed, teams are making their final moves to boost their resumes before conference tournaments kick off. The Ivy League, ACC, and Big Ten are without a doubt the best conferences in the country in terms of RPI. Right now, it’s all about qualifying for your tournament, playing your best lacrosse, and boosting your at-large resume. So who’s doing the best at that?
Scoreboard
Monday
Cornell 16 v Syracuse 15 (Ivy v ACC)
Tuesday
NJIT 11 v Marist 12 (America East v MAAC)
Notre Dame 18 v Marquette 8 (ACC v Big East)
Thursday
Virginia 8 v Duke 17 (ACC v ACC)
Friday
High Point 25 v Hampton 8 (SoCon v SoCon)
Saturday
Marquette 10 v Georgetown 20 (Big East v Big East)
Vermont 14 v Albany 6 (America East v America East)
Cleveland State 8 v Air Force 12 (ASUN v ASUN)
Detroit 8 v Bellarmine 13 (ASUN v ASUN)
Stony Brook 7 v Binghamton 3 (America East v America East)
Sacred Heart 10 v Bryant 22 (NEC v NEC)
Dartmouth 10 v Princeton 12 (Ivy v Ivy)
Towson 10 v Delaware 11 (CAA v CAA)
St. John’s 4 v Denver 18 (Big East v Big East)
Drexel 10 v Hofstra 7 (CAA v CAA)
Hobart 12 v Merrimack 11 (NEC v NEC)
Jacksonville 25 v VMI 6 (SoCon v SoCon)
Penn State 10 v Johns Hopkins 13 (Big Ten v Big Ten)
Boston U 14 v Loyola 9 (Patriot v Patriot)
Marist 13 v Manhattan 12 (MAAC v MAAC)
Mercer 9 v Richmond 22 (SoCon v SoCon)
Harvard 8 v Penn 11 (Ivy v Ivy)
Providence 13 v Villanova 18 (Big East v Big East)
Fairfield 16 v UMass 13 (CAA v CAA)
Rutgers 13 v Michigan 12 (Big Ten v Big Ten)
Army 17 v Cornell 10 (Patriot v Ivy)
Robert Morris 8 v Utah 18 (ASUN v ASUN)
Navy 9 v Lafayette 5 (Patriot v Patriot)
Yale 13 v Brown 20 (Ivy v Ivy)
St. Bonaventure 11 v Siena 14 (MAAC v MAAC)
Mount St. Mary’s 9 v Wagner 5 (NEC v NEC)
Quinnipiac 9 v Virginia 21 (MAAC v ACC)
UMBC 11 v UMass-Lowell 7 (America East v America East)
Ohio State 12 v Maryland 19 (Big Ten v Big Ten)
Syracuse 13 v North Carolina 14 (ACC v ACC)
Saint Joseph’s 14 v LIU 10 (NEC v NEC)
Canisius 4 v Monmouth 6 (MAAC v MAAC)
Lehigh 8 v Colgate 9 (Patriot v Patriot)
Sunday
Holy Cross 7 v Bucknell 23 (Patriot v Patriot)
Jacksonville 26 v Hampton 3 (SoCon v SoCon)
My Top 20
Since transparency is a good thing, here’s my Inside Lacrosse Media Poll ballot for this week:
- Maryland
- Georgetown
- Princeton
- Notre Dame
- Rutgers
- Jacksonville
- Yale
- Penn
- Army
- Virginia
- Cornell
- Duke
- Ohio State
- Brown
- Harvard
- Denver
- UNC
- Boston U
- Utah
- High Point
While I know others (possibly you) will definitely debate where I have different teams, I do feel pretty confident at this point about who I have in the top 20 field. This past week, only Yale, UVA, Cornell, Ohio State, and Harvard lost a game. Of those, UVA and Cornell also won a game in their double header week. The impressive thing though is that only Yale lost to a team (Brown) that was outside of my Top 20 last week. UVA lost to Duke, Cornell lost to Army, Harvard lost to Penn, and Ohio State lost to Maryland. So while Villanova did win, they were the team I dropped to make room for Brown entering the list this week.
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.
| Conference | Record | % | This Week | +/- | SOS |
| Ivy | 34-10 | 0.773 | 1-1 | -0.013 | 1 |
| Big Ten | 34-16 | 0.680 | 0-0 | 0.000 | 3 |
| ACC | 26-14 | 0.650 | 2-1 | 0.001 | 2 |
| Patriot | 25-24 | 0.510 | 1-0 | 0.010 | 6 |
| CAA | 27-26 | 0.509 | 0-0 | 0.000 | 5 |
| Big East | 26-26 | 0.500 | 0-1 | -0.010 | 4 |
| NEC | 22-26 | 0.458 | 0-0 | 0.000 | 10 |
| SoCon | 21-26 | 0.447 | 0-0 | 0.000 | 7 |
| ASUN | 19-30 | 0.388 | 0-0 | 0.000 | 8 |
| MAAC | 16-32 | 0.333 | 1-1 | 0.007 | 11 |
| America East | 14-34 | 0.292 | 0-1 | -0.006 | 9 |
With only a few out of conference games this week, there wasn’t much happening to shake up these standings. You can also assume that the Ivy League is officially the best league in the country this year as there really isn’t a way for the Big Ten or ACC to catch them. Underscoring this is that even with the ACC going 2-1 and being just .03 points behind the Big ten, even if they had gone a full 3-0, they still wouldn’t have caught up to the Big Ten. Also, while factoring in the strength of schedule, it’s important to note that these values do include conference games.
This Week’s Games
Tuesday
Loyola 7 v Georgetown 14 (Patriot v Big East)
Binghamton 18 v NJIT 8 (America East v America East)
Wednesday
Holy Cross @ UMass-Lowell (Patriot v America East)
Thursday
North Carolina @ Notre Dame (ACC v ACC)
Friday
Albany @ NJIT (America East v America East)
Lafayette @ Bucknell (Patriot v Patriot)
Manhattan @ Monmouth (MAAC v MAAC)
Saturday
St. John’s @ Georgetown (Big East v Big East)
Air Force @ Robert Morris (ASUN v ASUN)
Utah @ Bellarmine (ASUN v ASUN)
Bryant @ Mount St Marys (NEC v NEC)
Penn @ Dartmouth (Ivy v Ivy)
Delaware @ Drexel (CAA v CAA)
Denver @ Providence (Big East v Big East)
Cleveland State @ Detroit (ASUN v ASUN)
Hampton @ VMI (SoCon v SoCon)
LIU @ Hobart (NEC v NEC)
UMass @ Hofstra (CAA v CAA)
Mercer @ Jacksonville (SoCon v SoCon)
Maryland @ Johns Hopkins (Big Ten v Big Ten)
Loyola @ Colgate (Patriot v Patriot)
Marist @ Canisius (MAAC v MAAC)
Villanova @ Marquette (Big East v Big East)
Princeton @ Harvard (Ivy v Ivy)
Richmond @ High Point (SoCon v SoCon)
Towson @ Fairfield (CAA v CAA)
Binghamton @ Vermont (America East v America East)
Penn State @ Rutgers (Big Ten v Big Ten)
Boston U @ Lehigh (Patriot v Patriot)
Navy @ Army (Patriot v Patriot)
Brown @ Cornell (Ivy v Ivy)
St. Bonaventure @ Quinnipiac (MAAC v MAAC)
Merrimack @ Wagner (NEC v NEC)
Siena @ Holy Cross (MAAC v Patriot)
Virginia @ Syracuse (ACC v ACC)
Sacred Heart @ Saint Joseph’s (NEC v NEC)
Stony Brook @ UMBC (America East v America East)
Sunday
Albany @ Yale (America East v Ivy)
Michigan @ Ohio State (Big Ten v Big Ten)
Games to Look Out For
IT’S RIVALRY WEEK! While the non-conference slate is pretty small and mostly full of Patriot League matches, the headliner games are some intriguing conference battles, but importantly: rivalries! This week has some major rivalry games that historically are when you can throw records out the window. That may not be the case for all of these this season, but that doesn’t mean these games are lacking some incredible potential. Namely we have: Maryland and Hopkins, Virginia and Syracuse, Michigan and Ohio State and most notably Army versus Navy!
Non-Conference Games
Tuesday: Loyola 7 v Georgetown 14 (Patriot v Big East)
Wednesday: Holy Cross @ UMass-Lowell (Patriot v America East)
Saturday: Siena @ Holy Cross (MAAC v Patriot)
Sunday: Albany @ Yale (America East v Ivy)
Sneaky Good Matchups
Delaware @ Drexel (CAA v CAA)
Virginia @ Syracuse (ACC v ACC)
Michigan @ Ohio State (Big Ten v Big Ten)
Not So Sneaky Matchups
North Carolina @ Notre Dame (ACC v ACC)
Brown @ Cornell (Ivy v Ivy)
Navy @ Army (Patriot v Patriot)
Richmond @ High Point (SoCon v SoCon)
Princeton @ Harvard (Ivy v Ivy)
Maryland @ Johns Hopkins (Big Ten v Big Ten)