[quote=Anonymous]"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
Thanks for the leg work.
Since you still want to harp on Duke and only focus on their week out of conference schedule, please tell me how Stony Brook is at 4. They have done absolutely nothing and they play a weak schedule every year.
Made a revision and added a bit more info...
I am no fan of Stony Brook, but their numbers are not as bad as many on this forum state. Over the past five full seasons, they played 42 teams ranked in the top 25 of the IWLCA rankings. They went 27-15 against those teams. That is pretty good, but only 4 of those wins were against top 10 opponents and no one ranked higher than #8. Who they beat does not support a #4 ranking, but their schedule is not weak. As a point of reference, they played 42 top 25 teams and Duke played 51 going 12-39. So Duke played more top 25, more in the top 10 but their results were substantial worse than Stony Brook 12-39 vs. 27-15. I would put Stony Brook more in the #10 range.
Just looking over what actually took place over the Timeline that you went with, the last 5 full seasons of play I wold say Stony Brook should actually be more like 15 based on their performance and results. Your post caused me to look at a few things, your post and the fact that Stony Brook actually moved up in the poll after week 1 even though they did not play seemed a little weird to me.
2016 , 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 and YTD 2022 because the phenomenon is continuing.
Stony Brooks "Pre-season ranking", "end of regular season ranking" and "final season ranking" have not been justified in any way.
2016 Pre-season 8, regular season 7, final 8. 2017 Pre-season 6, regular season 4, final 4. 2018 Pre-season 2, regular season 1, final 5.. 2019 Pre-season 5, regular season 15 final 12. 2021 Pre-season 6, regular season 5, final 5. 2022 Pre-season 6, current ranking 4.
During that time Stony Brook played 4 games vs Top 5 Teams and they are 0 - 4. They are 3 - 8 vs Top 10 Teams with their best wins against #8 2x. They have never made the Final Four yet somehow they ended up at 4 in one of the final rankings.
At some point, don't you have to actually win a game against a Top 5 team in order to be considered a top 5 team or be ranked in the Top 5? One would think that in order to be considered Top 10 on a regular basis you would have to have a winning record vs Top 10 Teams.
Just looking at last year and this year, They are 0 - 4 vs Top 5 Teams. They had 1 win against a Top 20 team #14 Rutgers. 15 of their 19 games last year were against Teams outside the Top 20. I guess results do not matter
Make it make sense, please.
All very fair points. My reasoning for 10 was they did not really lose to teams ranked higher than that. 10-15 is fair, where they finished not so much.
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