Hopkins Lacrosse-overrated (warning: rant ahead)

[80mins]

Someone, please, break it down for me.

Speak slowly. Use small words, and repeat yourself if need be.

Somehow, someway, can you PLEASE make me understand…

HOW IN THE WORLD IS A 5-5 JHU LACROSSE TEAM THE #6 TEAM IN THE COUNTRY?!

Or more specifically, how, in the past three weeks of being 3-5, 4-5, and now 5-5, has this team been ranked 15, 10, and now 6, repsectively?

And don’t look to the coaches to set things straight. The coaches poll has viewed them even more favorably.

Understand that this is not a personal vendetta (although I am a little bitter that they just leapfrogged my alma mater). I’ve got nothing against Hopkins. But forget Notre Dame football or Duke basketball, THIS is the biggest case of ratings inflation I’ve ever seen.

What has caused this? True enough, the Blue Jays are the defending national champion. They’ve got the #1 schedule in the nation. But herein lies the rub. When scheduling the nation’s best, an additional charge is put before you: To win. And yet five times – against Hofstra, Syracuse, UVA, Carolina, and Duke (all ranked, granted) – the Jays failed to accomplish that task. Hopkins does have some quality wins tooâ€â€over Princeton, Maryland, Navy, and my own UMBC Retrievers. I can’t say, at this stage of the game (and only in this last week) I’d object to them being ranked. but #6, to me, is ridiculous.

For those who are statheads and/or good at this type of thing, please, if there is such an example, point me to another team that, after 8 games, has a losing record and is still ranked.

[Velcro]

is there a such thing as a stat-head for lacrosse?  do people actually watch college lacrosse?  I know we have a club team (a pretty decent one).

I'm sure JHU gets the benefit of the doubt since they are analogous to college hoop's Duke or UNC... who gets ranked no matter what and takes a monumental losing streak to even sniff going outside the top 25.

[80mins]

is there a such thing as a stat-head for lacrosse?  do people actually watch college lacrosse?  I know we have a club team (a pretty decent one).

I'm sure JHU gets the benefit of the doubt since they are analogous to college hoop's Duke or UNC... who gets ranked no matter what and takes a monumental losing streak to even sniff going outside the top 25.

Well what I meant was that a stat-head may be able to point to something similar in perhaps football or basketball. As far as watching college lacrosse, I absolutely do--it's my spring sport of choice. As far as folks watching, I think people watch college lacrosse in places where people watch/care about lacrosse in general. Having grown up in Delaware and gone to school in Maryland (at a school who is also currently ranked in the top 10), I spend my Saturdays in front of lacrosse with similar devotion as I do with football on Saturdays during the fall.

And as far as a monumental losing streak, I would think that dropping 5 in a row in a 13 game season would have been just that streak, and yet the worst position they ever saw was 15.

[Velcro]

Is the rest of the league that bad?  It might just be a factor of the competition blowing rather than JH being good or overrated... but regardless, it doesn't sound right to lose half your games and be ranked.

[80mins]

IT would seem that the pollsters--and the coaches, who have them in the same spot--believe that most of the rest of the league is worse than a 5-loss Hopkins. I don't agree. I think that while they are perennially one of the elites, there's some **** good lacrosse being played this year, and it's not being played by the Blue Jays.