2008 Lax World MCLA Pre-Season Division 2 Poll (1/9/08)

by **Sonny** on Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:28 am

Enjoy....

http://www.collegelax.us/news/2008/01/09/2008-lax-world-mcla-division-2-preseason-top-25-poll/

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by **Pinball** on Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:31 am

No tally of first place votes??

by **Sonny** on Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:42 am

Pinball wrote:No tally of first place votes??

Nope.

Some coaches have expressed concerns about the validity of preseason polls and how the preseason polls ended up impacting the results of the regular season polls (and the tournament seeding). Therefore, we aren't going to relase the first place votes or point totals for either Preseason Poll (Div 1 or Div 2).

by **Brew26** on Wed Jan 09, 2008 12:25 pm

Sonny, have the polls always included every team that received votes or is it just that wide spread this year for Division 2? I think I read another 30 teams in the receiving votes part. If this is the case, then it should be a fun year for the people doing the polls.

by **laxfan25** on Wed Jan 09, 2008 12:40 pm

I'm not sure if this is their probationary year or not, but one team to watch for in CCLA "B" this year is Davenport University in Grand Rapids. The school appears to have made a major commitment to the sport, they've brought in a lot of players, and in fall ball were a very surprising team. They gave MSU and WMU all they could handle in the first halves of their round robins.

Calvin isn't on the list at all, not even on the receiving votes? Did they lose a lot of players, or is that fallout from last season?

by **LaxTV_Admin** on Wed Jan 09, 2008 12:44 pm

laxfan25 wrote: Calvin isn't on the list at all, not even on the receiving votes? Did they lose a lot of players, or is that fallout from last season?

Calvin and UC-Irvine are not eligible for the National Championships and thus are not eligible for the poll.

by **Gvlax** on Wed Jan 09, 2008 1:20 pm

laxfan25 wrote:I'm not sure if this is their probationary year or not, but one team to watch for in CCLA "B" this year is Davenport University in Grand Rapids. The school appears to have made a major commitment to the sport, they've brought in a lot of players, and in fall ball were a very surprising team. They gave MSU and WMU all they could handle in the first halves of their round robins.

Calvin isn't on the list at all, not even on the receiving votes? Did they lose a lot of players, or is that fallout from last season?

Davenport is a really good team but they are not in the MCLA or CCLA yet. So watch out for them next year. We went to overtime and beat them when we played them up at ferris this fall. I believe they beat UofM dearborn and Ferris by a lot too.

by **scooter** on Wed Jan 09, 2008 2:46 pm

I think its pretty good for an initial poll. I think i would shift the top 10 around a bit, and I would also have GVSU up a few spots...

by **Zeuslax** on Wed Jan 09, 2008 5:23 pm

I usually try not to comment on a team's position in the polls or voting. The polls last year were very accurate in my opinion. I had the chance to see all of the top 30 teams play and some on multiple occasions. It will shake out and the voters have been doing a great job. There's going to be a couple of holes and there are a few big ones in this poll. I just mearly point this out for the fact that past reputation and results speak volumes. We saw this last year with one DI team especially and a DII team that was on top of a historically strong conference, but the whole conference was way down last season.

We all need to encourage more DII OOC play and travel. Not just for the health and prosperity of the division, but for consistently improved poll results.

by **Dan Wishengrad** on Wed Jan 09, 2008 5:24 pm

I'm surprised that the team picked by RMLC coaches to win their conference's D2 title -- Utah Valley State -- is slotted as low as they are. Don't voters from other regions give weight to the rankings from those who see a team regularly and theoretically know them better than outsiders do -- or shouldn't they?

by **TheBearcatHimself** on Thu Jan 10, 2008 4:49 am

Zeuslax wrote:We all need to encourage more DII OOC play and travel. Not just for the health and prosperity of the division, but for consistently improved poll results.

AMEN!! I am sad to see my team (a continual bottom dweller in the PNCLL-2) making its second straight trip out of conference to California while other teams who are in contention for the league title have no OOC trips on their schedule. Frustrating for a Northwest honk like myself. Hopefully the tunnel can be lighted and more teams will travel down it.

I think that the many teams receiving votes is indicative of a few things, none bad. 1) It's early 2) Shakeup of teams moving to D1 3) Harder to disseminate info on D2 teams and rosters 4) More good players on more teams and more teams overall

The season will play out and the cream will rise. Not worried about it at all. Can't wait to get this baby going!

by **Rob Graff** on Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:55 am

TheBearcatHimself wrote:
I think that the many teams receiving votes is indicative of a few things, none bad. 1) It's early 2) Shakeup of teams moving to D1 3) Harder to disseminate info on D2 teams and rosters 4) More good players on more teams and more teams overall

As a voter - I am in agreement with points 1,3 and 4.

Rob

by **TheBearcatHimself** on Thu Jan 10, 2008 4:08 pm

Point 2 really only deals with PNCLL I guess, someone to fill the Montana power vacuum. I am so northwest centric sometimes

by **btriley01** on Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:45 pm

Zeuslax wrote:We all need to encourage more DII OOC play and travel. Not just for the health and prosperity of the division, but for consistently improved poll results.

It has been very difficult to schedule games like this. The big problem is the fact that D2 teams just can't afford it. Whats worse is no one is willing to step up and say, "Hey, lets raise dues so we can go from Arkansas to California." This will happen when people stop looking at MCLA D2 as club ball and look at it as a legitimate competitive division. Maybe that shouldn't happen. Maybe it would just stay the way it is, so things don't get so complicated. That choice is up to the people of each team in this league.

The other problem is travel. Most teams in this league don't want to go too far. We (harding) are going 12 hours to play dayton and UCM, but thats rare for east coast teams. The west is better on this subject. I know last year SJU traveled to california to play some top OOC games. D2 teams have to get out of their heads that 8 hours is not that bad; thats average.

On a side note, DePaul is very low ranked, which is common for new teams, i.e. westminster ranked 13 last year in the preseason. Watch out for these guys.

by **scooter** on Mon Jan 21, 2008 3:34 pm

btriley01 wrote:The other problem is travel. Most teams in this league don't want to go too far. We (harding) are going 12 hours to play dayton and UCM, but thats rare for east coast teams. The west is better on this subject. I know last year SJU traveled to california to play some top OOC games. D2 teams have to get out of their heads that 8 hours is not that bad; thats average.

On a side note, DePaul is very low ranked, which is common for new teams, i.e. westminster ranked 13 last year in the preseason. Watch out for these guys.

I could not agree more with these points. Many teams have to travel 8 hours just to play a conference non-division game, why not head 8 hours in the other direction to get some quality OOC opponents.

Also, Depaul looked very very good during the fall. In my opinion, without seeing Harding this season, they are the team to beat in the GRLC this season. Hopefully both teams will meet in St. Louis to settle it on the field