Does ND beating up on central Michigan really help Them become a better team or are they just padding stats a la Stony Brook?
Not really a fair comparison. Stony Brook dose a very good job scheduling strong programs for their OOC games.ND has had to lighten their OOC schedule a bit in order to ensure at least a .500 record so they can be considered for an at large bid to the Tournament. In any event, this is not youth lacrosse, as long as the stronger team clears their bench “early “ it’s okay. You have to let the players play, they can’t run around playing keep away. That said, It would be nice to see more assisted goals.
My guess is that if Stony Brook were an ACC team they would have to lighten their out of conference schedule a little as well. The reality is, most ACC and Big 10 teams have to be careful who they play OOC.
Duke's out of conference schedule is awful. So far they outscored Gardner-Webb and Elon by a combined 47-8. Look at the rest of their non-conference and there is only one remotely competitive game with Penn.
Gardner-Webb 22-3 Elon 25-5 William & Mary High Point Wofford East Carolina Penn Davidson Liberty
Hard to compare ACC teams to Stony Brook. ACC schedules are very difficult while Stony Brook plays a very soft schedule each year.
Stony Brook has used this to their advantage and it has obviously benefited them. Stony Brook pads their record every year which gets them ranked exceedingly high but their high ranking has always been based upon hype and not performance. It is what it is and it is not the fault of SBU that their conference is not super competitive but at the end of the day it has help them in the rankings but possibly left them unprepared for the NCAA Tournament.
Actually, it is fairly easy to compare. You are giving Duke a pass simply because they are in the ACC and discounting Stony Brook because they are not. Here is a comparison of of their schedules as it relates to current top 25 teams (obviously those rankings can change). Their top 25 team schedules are very comparable and I would argue that Stony Brook has a more competitive non-top 25 schedule.
DUKE Top 25- Syracuse, UNC, BC, Virginia, Notre Dame and Penn Duke Other- Virginia Tech, Louisville, Pitt, Gardner-Webb, William & Mary, High Point, Wofford, East Carolina, Davidson, Liberty
Stony Brook Top 25- Syracuse, Northwestern, Florida, Princeton and Johns Hopkins Stony Brook Other- Dartmouth, Arizona State, Yale, Brown, Hofstra, Albany, Binghamton, Vermont, UMBC, UMASS-Lowell, New Hampshire, Vermont
Duke and to some degree Notre Dame have had to schedule less competitive programs for their non conference games because they need to make sure that they are at least .500 so they can be considered for the NCAA tournament. Stony Brook tries to schedule tough non conference games against competitive programs however there is no guarantee that the programs will be Top 10 or even top 20 in a given year. The result is that Stony Brook plays nowhere near as competitive a schedule as the majority of programs that are considered to be the strongest programs. It is not close and as the post that you are responding to states the relatively weak schedule benefits Stony Brook. Over the years if Stony Brook played a similar schedule to what Maryland, UNC, Syracuse, Northwestern, Virginia, Boston College, Penn State, Notre Dame, Princeton, Florida and Duke the perception of Stony Brook would be much different than it is because the record would be nowhere as impressive as it has been and they would never be ranked as high as they have been. Stony Brooks actual performance vs high caliber teams has not been very good but their overall record is usually outstanding. They just do not play many games against top tier teams the way other highly regarded programs do. Lets see how they do this year, they have a hand full of strong programs on the schedule but at this point we have no idea how those teams will perform. Syracuse has a new coach and injury issues, Northwestern is without a top T award contender, Florida lost a lot to graduation, Princeton has not played a real game in 2 years, same goes for Dartmouth who is usually pretty good but not up there with the top teams and although Hopkins is competitive program they are usually in that 17 - 25 range not top 10 range. Hofstra may take a little step back this year, Albany is competitive every now and then, Arizona State is up and coming but I do not see any of those teams beating Stony Brook and I don't think the rest of the teams on their schedule have much of a chance. Just my opinion, I think it will come down to how they do against Syracuse, Northwestern, Florida and Princeton (and we do not know how those teams will be). If those teams are Top 10 I think SBU will need to beat two of them if they are not top 10 they might have to beat more than that, it is just the way it works out because of the CAA's punitive actions.
I realize RPI was a little off last year, but average RPI of SBU’s 6 conf opponents and Duke’s first 6 opponents is almost identical. It’s one thing to schedule teams that you should beat because ACC is a tough conference, and then there is what Duke did. Embarrassed for them, esp considering they have so many seniors and 5th years. I have no allegiance to SBU and agree they are sometimes ranked a higher than they should be, but come on with defending Duke’s OOC schedule which is within their control. I hope none of you who love to point out how a small group of top ranked academic/lax programs including Duke get all the top players are not the same ones defending this schedule.
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