"Actually, comparing Duke to the entire lacrosse is not silly at all. In fact that is exactly what you are doing when you say they are not a Top 10 - 15 the past 5 seasons. With the exception of: Boston College, Maryland, North Carolin, Northwestern, Florida, Syracuse and possibly Virgina, Princeton and Notre Dame what programs are better? As for your statement "Their ranking is actually being lifted more by losing to good teams then beating them!!!" I will say at least Duke is playing the best teams.
There is no math being done, people are simply putting out actual results. Really it is the Duke haters who keep trying to come up wiith different ways to support their opinion but it simply does not work. The numbers are the numbers.
This has become very entertaining watching haters try to come up with way to negate reality."
Do you think their out of conference schedule this year is appropriate for a top 20 team? Do you think running up the score by over 20 goals against clearly over matched opponents who you selected to play is good sportsmanship. Its entertaining to watch the Duke fans do anything to avoid admitting the simple truth , your coaches schedule non competitive out of conference games because they know you have a good chance at losing to teams in the top 25 and not getting to .500 and missing the NCAA tournament again. You again try to say that UVA, Princeton,,ND have been possibly better than Duke the past 5 seasons when all have been better , take UVA for example who play a difficult out of conference schedule every year and have made the NCAA tournament each of the last 5 seasons while Duke has not .The ggod news is Duke will make the NCAA tournament this year and will not make it very deep again.
Below are the results if you average the final IWLCA rankings over the past 5 full seasons. For the ivies I also used 2015 as they all did not play last year. There are a few years were IWLCA had a top 25 and earlier years where it was a top 20. Where they also had teams as receiving votes I added them as the next ranked team such as #26 or #21. Several teams have a year where they were not ranked. I used a ranking of #30 as a plug. Interesting results. I can see some folks not liking certain teams being ranked ahead of Duke, but that is the data. Also, take Stanford that was 2-0 against Duke, USC that was 1-0 against Duke, PENN 3-1 against Duke. Anyway, don't let a short memory and slanted view take away from how these teams performed. My two cents, #19 is about right for Duke over that time period with an IWLCA ranking of #8, #21, N/R, N/R and #11. They also went 12-39 over that period against top 25 teams with no wins against a team ranked higher then #8.
Let's see how Duke handles their incredibly demanding schedule over the next two weeks with William & Mary, High Point, Wofford and East Carolina.
1. UNC 3.2 2. Maryland 3.4 3. BC 5.2 4. Stony Brook 6.8 5. Syracuse 7.8 6. Florida 8.2 7. Northwestern 8.2 8. Princeton 10.0 9. PENN 12.0 10. Virginia 12.4 11. James Madison 13.0 12. Notre Dame 13.0 13. Penn St. 16.8 14. Loyola 17.2 15. USC 17.8 16. Navy 19.8 17. Stanford 20.0 18. Denver 21.6 19. Duke 22.0 20. Johns Hopkins 22.2 21. Colorado 22.2 22. MASS 23.8 23. Louisville 26.0
I just do not understand the focus on Duke. Has there been a single post where someone has said that Duke should have been ranked higher or that they should have made the tournament in the years where they did not? I have seen several posts over the past year or two or even three that have listed the 10 "best" programs and I am pretty sure that they are the exact same programs that your analysis has identified. I agreed and believed that those 10 programs were the 10 best programs based on their "Final Ranking" over the years. However, this discussion has shed some light on results as apposed to just rankings. Based on performance and results Stony Brook has been highly over ranked. Their SOS does not compare with any of the Top 10 with the exception of possibly Penn and their results in no way justify a top 10 ranking. It appears that the focus on knocking Duke has exposed Stony Brook. Duke seems to be punished for a lackluster record while playing a very difficult schedule while Stony Brook seems to be rewarded for playing a week schedule and padding their record. I am a firm believer that teams should be rewarded for playing a difficult schedule (SOS matters) but at the same time you actually have to win some games against the best teams if you want to be considered a top team. Neither Duke or Stony Brook have done that but their treatment in the polls / rankings has been very different. Based on their SOS every year Duke could probably have been ranked a little higher but Stony Brook should be no where near # 4. USC, Loyola, Penn and Stanford also appear to benefit from a soft schedule but by far Stony Brook has been the most overrated.
A question was asked earlier asking to explain why Stony Brook is always ranked so high, I haven't seen an answer but the reason can not be based on their performance or results.
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