Crunching the Cottle numbers

Under ideal circumstances, I'd have pieced this together Sunday. But travel issues made this less than ideal.

Anyway, it seemed only fair to offer a statistical coda to Dave Cottle's nine-year tenure as Maryland's lacrosse coach.  Fans don't seem to be sad to see Cottle go. Coaches elsewhere are flummoxed at Maryland's decision not to renew his contract.

It is delusional, given the increasingly competitive state of the game, to believe any team should have a place at the final four table every year, or even every other year. At the same time, some of the numbers you can come up with certainly don't do Cottle any favors.

I've tried to break this down as thoroughly as possible. Maryland's record in the last nine years was 99-45 --- or 11-5 on average, thanks to some nifty basic division.

Consider this the first of two parts. Later, look for a breakdown of some of the games that led to this point.

MONTH

February: 14-2 (.875)
March: 42-13 (.764)
April: 21-22 (.488)
May: 22-8 (.733)

REGULAR SEASON/ACC TOURNAMENT/NCAA TOURNAMENT

Regular season: 83-30 (.735)
ACC tournament: 6-7 (.462)
NCAA tournament: 10-8 (.556)

NCAA TOURNAMENT

Against higher seeds: 1-4
Against lower seeds/unseeded opponents: 9-4

Home: 6-1 (.857)
Road: 1-0 (1.000)
Neutral: 3-7 (.300)

OPPONENTS RANKING

Top-5 opponents: 14-23 (.378)
Top-10 opponents: 27-34 (.443)
Top-20 opponents: 57-43 (.570)
Unranked: 42-2 (.955) --- losses to Dartmouth (2005) and Bucknell (2006)

Vs. 6-10: 13-11 (.542)
Vs. 11-20: 30-9 (.769)

BY RANKING, MARYLAND

No. 1: 3-2 (.600)
No. 2: 7-1 (.875)
No. 3: 17-9 (.654)
No. 4: 19-9 (.679)
No. 5: 11-6 (.647)
No. 6: 12-7 (.632)
No. 7: 11-4 (.733)
No. 8: 2-2 (.500)
No. 9: 4-2 (.667)
No. 10: 9-0 (1.000)
No. 11: 0-1 (.000)
No. 12: ---
No. 13: 0-1 (.000)
No. 14: 4-1 (.800)

Interesting note with this one --- Maryland's median ranking going into a game over the last nine seasons was No. 5.

Also, Maryland's only time spent outside the top 10 was in the second half of the 2009 season.

RECORD BY OPPONENT

Duke: 7-7
Georgetown: 7-2
Johns Hopkins: 2-7
Navy: 4-5
North Carolina: 9-3
Princeton: 1-1
Syracuse: 0-1
Towson: 9-0
UMBC: 7-3
Virginia: 5-12

All others: 48-4 --- losses to Dartmouth (2005), Bucknell (2006), Massachusetts (2006) and Notre Dame (2010)

Opponents broken out separately chosen either because of a regular series with Maryland or, in the case of Princeton and Syracuse, because those are particularly notable names in the sport.

BY LEAGUE (2010 affiliation)

America East: 10-3 (.769)
ACC: 21-22 (.488)
Big East: 11-4 (.733)
CAA: 13-1 (.929)
ECAC: 10-0 (1.000)
Independent: 6-7 (.462)
Ivy: 13-2 (.867)
Metro Atlantic: 3-0 (1.000)
Patriot: 11-6 (.647)

Defunct programs: 2-0 (1.000)

Comments

[Sam]

Interesting to look at this. I think that fans are excited for new blood for a number of reasons. Look at Cottle's record against UVA and Hopkins, arguably our two biggest "rivals" in the sport.

Winning in the regular season is fine and dandy, but when you are 10-8 in the NCAA Tournament, folks will start lighting the torches to run you out of town. You just can't choke EVERY NCAA Tournament and expect that nobody will want you gone.