Yes, bracketology is back.
This time in lacrosse form.
And for now, it is utter guesswork.
That's because even an accurate replica of RPI and strength of schedule data is going to be severely flawed, since most teams are only eight or nine or 10 games into the season. The numbers are curious enough when the season is through; trusting them when the sample size is even smaller isn't entirely wise.
So there's a little bit of opinion rather than acquiescing strictly to the data. It's sort of like constructing a lacrosse bracket in early January. For lack of evidence, instincts are as good as anything to take into account.
But there are a couple things we do know. A team has to be .500 or better to warrant consideration; that means Johns Hopkins is off the board this week. Also, there are six automatic berths --- America East, Colonial, ECAC, Ivy, Metro Atlantic and Patriot. Those teams will be denoted in the bracket.
Anyway, geography remains a factor, like it does every year. And there are two quarterfinal sites for the eight first-round games played at home sites to be funneled into.
Ready? Here goes, just a tick over a month until the next Selection Sunday.
Princeton, N.J.
(1) Virginia vs. METRO ATLANTIC/Mount St. Mary's
(8) CAA/Drexel vs. Loyola
Princeton, N.J.
(4) Maryland vs. PATRIOT/Lafayette
(5) IVY/Princeton vs. Hofstra
Stony Brook, N.Y.
(3) Syracuse vs. AMERICA EAST/Stony Brook
(6) Duke vs. ECAC/Fairfield
Stony Brook, N.Y.
(2) North Carolina vs. Notre Dame
(7) Cornell vs. Massachusetts
Next up: Georgetown, Yale, Brown, Villanova
Like I said, it is waaaay early. And that's why I went with a computer-friendly team (Notre Dame) for one of the last spots and a common-sense friendly team (Massachusetts) for one of the other final spots.
Georgetown, which fell in the middle of both common sense and number crunching was left out. That can be rectified easily enough with a win Sunday against Notre Dame.
More importantly, there's a long, long way to go. This could have looked a lot different if Marist, Massachusetts and Loyola were given AQs instead of Mount St. Mary's, Drexel and Fairfield. Of course, there's on-field outcomes that will evntually dictate who gets in rather than using a flawed RPI metric as the tiebreaker.
Unfortunately, many of those games won't be played for weeks. Which is why this is the best guess I can create with five weekends of play remaining.
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