Under and Overrated teams?

[GeorgiaLacrosse]

From personal experience who are the most underrated and overrated teams in the uslia A division?

[benji]

Bias Alert!
Maybe not in the polls, but I think Texas Tech is underrated as far as LaxPower goes ... but I guess LaxPower is more of a mathematical ranking anyways.

[WaterBoy]

Hmmm... clearly a toughy.

There are four teams that (just looking at the numbers) distinctly stand out as being misplaced in the rankings after looking at Laxpower for a while.

The four teams:

Arizona
V Tech
Oakland
Lindenwood

Please make no mistake, I am in no way intending to bear the message that these teams have no place in the rankings- just a disclaimer

My case for each-

Arizona. Go to Laxpower.com. Then click access the poll for USLIA. Then scroll down. Then scroll down some more. Then scroll down a little bit more. There's Arizona. Ranked sixth in the poll here, and 15 on the computer rankings, which as far as I could see, was the largest differencial for any team between computer ranking and poll standing (9 spots for those without calculators). Now I'm not saying that the Laxpower ratings are any type of "poll bible" that everything should be based off of, but I will say that it has the benefit of taking into account (mathematically) who scored what against who. It puts together the big picture that is needed when looking at polls. Do I think Arizona should be in 15th? No. I think they've had a very strong season, and with the exception of a sound hammering from Michigan, have much to be proud of on the year. However; one must take into account the problems that they have had in their own league. With a close win over unranked, first year out of B division SDSU(7-9), a double overtime win against UCSD, and a one goal game against #20 Chapman, one begins to consider the weight of their early season upset of BYU. Overranked? In my opinion yes.
Keep in mind that "my opinion" = "hill of beans"


VTech- Another team that I think is overrated in the polls. Also a case where I think it's nothing more than a few spots. Ranked 8 in the polls here, and 10 on laxpower, there is not much disagreement between the voters and computer. On the flip side, when I look at their schedule, the only win they have against any top 25 team comes against Chapman, with a 10-8 win. Granted, one of their losses comes against Noma, where they put up a very respectable showing, but they also suffered a 7 goal loss to FSU, ranked five spots below them. I think they face the "end of season cliff," with a somewhat ambiguous season so far in terms of ranking placement, and no more ranked opponents in their schedule to prove themselves against. Facing four more unranked SELC teams may (in my opinion) might not be enough to justify clinging on to a rank at eighth.

Oakland- This is the only team that I will go so far as to say that they are vastly overrated. This statement, however, comes with the disclaimer that they, unlike VTech, have two matchups later in the season. One against Miami-OH (who seem themselves to be slipping down a bit in the rankings) at # 19, and # 5 Michigan. In short, in this teams entire season, they hit only three top 25 teams- 24, 19, and 5. They're ranked 9. They went to overtime against #24. Other than that, it has been all unranked opponents in their USLIA play. Granted that they are 7-1 (according to laxpower, which sometimes is a few days behind), but there has to be some accounting for "who" you play, not just what your W/L record is. I'm looking forward to seeing the responses I get to this statement, cause anyone who cruises the polls over the last several years will have noted that the Oakland fans and players on the forum can sometimes be... defensive. Oh, and speaking of teams that have a strong forum following...

Lindenwood- Yup. That can of worms. It's been beaten to death, I know. I'll try to keep it short. Let's put it this way. They play two teams all season that are ranked in the top 25. The highest ranked team is #19. They beat the #22 team by one goal at home. They beat an unranked team in overtime at home. Let's put it this way... looking at the rest of their season reminds me of Billy Madison playing dodgeball in kindergarten. Their strongest remaining opponent is Washington University- St. Louis, ranked 41. In their favor, Lindenwood did take down the powerhouse teams of Harding, Rhodes, Southwest Missouri State, Tulane, and Marquette. The only one of these schools that breaks a rating on Laxpower is Harding, which slides into #25. Of B Division. Yes, there is a reason they're ranked 75 for S.O.S. Also, be sure to keep a close eye on the results from the close matchups they're sure to have against Missouri (49), Illinois State (66), Kansas (81), and Kansas State (86). I mean, come on. Billy had his fun pegging six year olds. Don't give him a SnackPack for it.

Wow. I need to go open a dictionary and stare at the word brevity.

[Guest]

waterboy,

I wished you had your facts straight, I think you need to do a little more research. The highest team Lindenwood beat was #12 Duluth, (not 17)they played 4 teams in the top 25, (not 2) and beat all of them. Not bad for a team in ONLY its 3rd year of existence. The players don't make the schedule, they just play the games.

[cjwilhelmi]

Hmmm... clearly a toughy.

Lindenwood- Yup. That can of worms. It's been beaten to death, I know. I'll try to keep it short. Let's put it this way. They play two teams all season that are ranked in the top 25. The highest ranked team is #19. They beat the #22 team by one goal at home. They beat an unranked team in overtime at home. Let's put it this way... looking at the rest of their season reminds me of Billy Madison playing dodgeball in kindergarten. Their strongest remaining opponent is Washington University- St. Louis, ranked 41. In their favor, Lindenwood did take down the powerhouse teams of Harding, Rhodes, Southwest Missouri State, Tulane, and Marquette. The only one of these schools that breaks a rating on Laxpower is Harding, which slides into #25. Of B Division. Yes, there is a reason they're ranked 75 for S.O.S. Also, be sure to keep a close eye on the results from the close matchups they're sure to have against Missouri (49), Illinois State (66), Kansas (81), and Kansas State (86). I mean, come on. Billy had his fun pegging six year olds. Don't give him a SnackPack for it.

Wow. I need to go open a dictionary and stare at the word brevity.

Lindenwood scheduled very well, especially for a team that last year wasn't ranked. Look at their schedule against the preseason top 25:
Duluth #14
Miami (Oh) #18
Texas #20
Missouri #19
Texas Tech #23 (Poll #1)

You cant fault a team trying to get ranked opponents and then those opponents dropping out of the rankings. Top teams will not schedule teams unless they are ranked. Coach Hood did an excellent job putting together a schedule. Look for them to schedule tougher next year now that they have some national exposure.

And by the way, Harding is #12 Div B. Can you blame teams for scheduling tune ups at the beginning of the year? Yeah that was the first game of the year. Oh look Rhodes was the second game, another tune up. It is a great idea to get some tune up games, especially against good Div B teams that are looking for a great Div A team to play in order to get that experience.

If you want to start mocking teams for playing lower teams then how bout some comments on CSU playing Northern Colorado and Mines? Or perhaps you like BYU playing Fort Lewis?

[ISULAX22]

Lindenwood is a solid team. Coming from the GRLC they are the only team that has recieved any exposure from the conference so far. Like it was said before, its not that easy to get games with ranked teams. Ill give props to the LU guys for even getting to play teams who were preseason ranked. Any team can win on any given day.

[Cousin17]

As far as Oakland's strength of schedule, their schedule at the start of the season looked a lot stronger than it does now. It looked like Oakland would be playing 7 top 25 teams but, 4 have dropped out of the top 25 during the season and another is on its way out. This cannot be considered Oakland's fault for not playing enough ranked teams as we all know our schedules are set before the season begins.

[WaterBoy]

Good- I like that there is a lively topic going on here- I made my statement, those who think Lindenwood falls somewhere between Purple Koolaid and sliced bread picked it apart. Let's see what they had to say.

Let's start straight from the Lion's mouth...

From lulions:

I wished you had your facts straight, I think you need to do a little more research.

That's true. I wish I had my facts straight too... now if only there was something to back me up.... OH WAIT.

1. Colorado State (27 1st place votes) - 747 pts
2. Univ. of California, Santa Barbara (2 1st place votes) - 714 pts
3. Sonoma State (1 1st place vote) - 681 pts
4. Brigham Young University - 661 pts
5. Michigan - 641 pts
6. Arizona - 574 pts
7. Colorado - 564 pts
8. Virginia Tech - 506 pts
9. Oakland University - 490 pts
10. Boston College - 475 pts
11. Oregon - 391 pts
12. Univ. of California, San Diego - 382 pts
13. Florida State - 377 pts
14. Georgia Tech - 345 pts
15. Lindenwood University - 343 pts
16. Utah - 307 pts
17. Chico State - 278 pts
18. Cal Poly SLO - 221 pts
19. Miami University - 188 pts
20. Chapman University - 146 pts
21. New Hampshire - 143 pts
22. Minnesota-Duluth - 117 pts
23. Washington - 109 pts
24. (tie) Pittsburgh - 79 pts
24. (tie) Simon Fraser University - 79 pts

(this should save you the hassle of trying to figure out which poll is the most recent)

Then lulions continues

The highest team Lindenwood beat was #12 Duluth, (not 17)they played 4 teams in the top 25, (not 2) and beat all of them.

Well let's just scroll up to our handy-dandy pastework up above. Let's just look at the #12 spot and... OH NO! This poll has been tampered with! That's not Duluth! That's UCSD. You're right lulions, I digress. I should get my facts straight. Someone moved them from 12, where you said they were, to 22, where I said they were. I guess this means I need to check my copy and paster for flaws.

Ok. Since obviously we have trust issues here, lemme get Lindenwood's schedule, from a source "more credible" than the USLIA website, where copy and paste is apparently designed specifically to screw YOU.

Harding 6 Lindenwood 24
Lindenwood 26 Rhodes 2
Illinois 8 Lindenwood 9
Duluth 8 Lindenwood 9
Miami (OH) 3 Lindenwood 7
Lindenwood 13 Texas 7
Lindenwood 18 Texas State 8
Lindenwood 15 SMS 9
Tulane 3 Lindenwood 20
Texas Tech 7 Lindenwood 12
Moorehead 1 Lindenwood 25
Marquette 3 Lindenwood 20

That's from the GRLC website. Now let's take another look at that top 25 poll I put up a while ago. Let's look for those four top 25 teams.

CSU? No. UCSB? No. Noma? No. BYU? No. Michigan? No. Arizona? No. Colorado? No. VTech? No. Oakland? No. Boston College? No. Oregon? No. UCSD? No. Florida State? No. GTech? No. Utah? No. Chico? No. Cal Poly? No. Miami-OH? Yup. That's one. We broke the seal down at #19. Double check that figure too, that's a 19, not a 17.

Ok, so we're at #19 and they've played one. Shall we proceed? We shall. Chapman? No. UNH? No. Duluth? Yup. That'll make a nice round four. No wait, that makes two. Yeah, two. Thank goodness for you guys there's no math section in the poll rating system.

Just to make sure there weren't two teams that slipped under my radar...
Washington? No. Pittsburgh? No. Simon Fraser? No. Nice try lulions.

In the words of Jack Nicholson, "Go sell crazy somewhere else."


Not to be outdone, cjwilhelmi decided to go for a ride too.

Lindenwood scheduled very well, especially for a team that last year wasn't ranked. Look at their schedule against the preseason top 25:
Duluth #14
Miami (Oh) #18
Texas #20
Missouri #19
Texas Tech #23 (Poll #1)

You... gotta be kidding me. This argument just isn't going to hold water with me, nor should it with anyone else. If you use only the preseason rankings to determine how strong your schedule is, the polls would be DRASTICALLY different. There's a reason that EVERY SINGLE TEAM that Lindenwood scheduled dropped in the poll from preseason level. Of those five, three aren't ranked anymore. It's one of the risks that every team takes when scheduling out of conference. When the only OOC games scheduled are against one league, there is a risk of that league not having a good year. LSA. No more needs to be said. Take a look across the league at all of the teams that scheduled OOC against the LSA. I don't see any of them claiming their wins as season defining.

As a side note- scheduling OOC is somewhat like investing in a market- there is risk involved. Sometimes one of the teams won't turn out as good as they were expected to be, sometimes your whole road series may turn out to be just a fun spring break with some casual lacrosse thrown in. When the rating of your scheduled teams goes down, so does the value of your games against them. That's the way it works. Just like a market. You bought stocks preseason, they went down. You can still try to sell them, but no one's going to give you full price.

Make no mistake, just like I said in my previous post, I am in no way saying that Lindenwood didn't work hard to get to where they are. That is not my intention whatsoever. The issue was who we thought was overranked. I think Lindenwood is. As well as others. I was just responding to the thread.

I realize that I'm quite sarcastic in my post, and that is merely for fun- yours and (mostly) mine. Nothing I say is meant to be a personal attack, and please don't take it as one.

Unless you're lulions or cjwilhelmi. Then you can go straight to Hades. (j/k)

[benji]

wow, that was long. good points though..

[the lax]

Waterboy, when you say No after each team in your previous post. What do you mean by that? No they aren't overrated, perhaps?

I think we can presume Lindenwood will get an AQ and go to the determine. Will they draw CSU and lose 23-1 like they did last year at the end of the season that remains to be seen. However, they are certainly backing up their sweet gear with solid play thus the record.

I'm curious as to how good Boston College is. Their schedule is horrible compared to Lindenwood. Based on the strength of schedule argument, what makes them deserving of their ranking (10th)? To play devil's advocate, can we fault them for being the best team in the worst conference in the league?

[WaterBoy]

the "no's" were in reference to who Lindenwood had played. lulions said that they had played four top 25 teams, so I hit them one by one. That had nothing to do with ranking.

About BC- I looked at them a little bit last night, and I will have to look at them again to refresh myself before I say anything either way- I do recall however that they are just getting into their season (if I recall correctly).

I'll take a look at them again later today.

[Dan Wishengrad]

I'm curious as to how good Boston College is. Their schedule is horrible compared to Lindenwood. Based on the strength of schedule argument, what makes them deserving of their ranking (10th)? To play devil's advocate, can we fault them for being the best team in the worst conference in the league?

Maybe you forgot BC won at Chico State 12-7. I don't care what conference you play in, that score alone without contrary evidence (like a loss to somebody) demonstrates that BC deserves it ranking. Laxpower agrees.

[OAKS]

Lindenwood scheduled very well, especially for a team that last year wasn't ranked. Look at their schedule against the preseason top 25:
Duluth #14
Miami (Oh) #18
Texas #20
Missouri #19
Texas Tech #23 (Poll #1)

You... gotta be kidding me. This argument just isn't going to hold water with me, nor should it with anyone else. If you use only the preseason rankings to determine how strong your schedule is, the polls would be DRASTICALLY different. When the only OOC games scheduled are against one league, there is a risk of that league not having a good year. LSA.

I think he was just stating that Lindenwood scheduled aggressively for their ranking last year. They scheduled the top teams in 2 leagues (UMLL & LSA) and a solid team from the CCLA. Granted some teams will fall out of the rankings, but I doubt many people would have predicted that all five of those teams would have had a down year as compared to last.

[cjwilhelmi]

Lindenwood scheduled very well, especially for a team that last year wasn't ranked. Look at their schedule against the preseason top 25:
Duluth #14
Miami (Oh) #18
Texas #20
Missouri #19
Texas Tech #23 (Poll #1)

You... gotta be kidding me. This argument just isn't going to hold water with me, nor should it with anyone else. If you use only the preseason rankings to determine how strong your schedule is, the polls would be DRASTICALLY different. When the only OOC games scheduled are against one league, there is a risk of that league not having a good year. LSA.

I think he was just stating that Lindenwood scheduled aggressively for their ranking last year. They scheduled the top teams in 2 leagues (UMLL & LSA) and a solid team from the CCLA. Granted some teams will fall out of the rankings, but I doubt many people would have predicted that all five of those teams would have had a down year as compared to last.

Thanks Will, that was exactly my point. You can't fault a team for trying to schedule aggressively and their opponents having down years. LU will schedule aggressively next year again and this time be able to draw several games with teams probably between 7-15.

[Albert Man]

LU scheduled a great schedule for themselves and they've been taking care of business. You certainly can't fault them for that.

I think in the polls there are teams that are more firmly entrenched in their spot because they have proven themselves many times over the season over many ranked opponents. Teams that have less rigorous schedules, with zero or only one quality win would drop much more if they lost. For instance if Lindenwood or some other teams with easier schedules lost in their league playoffs to an unranked or lower ranked team, they would certainly drop more than those more proven teams (and probably out of the at large bids). But unless they slip, 30 well informed voters have collectively decided that's where they belong. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, maybe they have them underranked. All you can go by is the results of the season so far.