You remember the America East, right? The only league in the country last season that didn't have at least one -- one! -- member finish the year with at least a .500 overall record? Good, then we're up to speed. Also: The hell was your problem last season, America East?
Anyway, America East coaches got together and cast ballots to determine which teams would be the preseason favorites in the league. ("Everyone," unfortunately, was not the correct answer.) At the end of the day, Albany was narrowly named the league's favorite, followed by Stony Brook and UMBC (tied for the second position). To the press release!
Four-time America East champion University at Albany is the conference’s men’s lacrosse preseason favorite as decided in a vote by the conference’s head coaches who were not allowed to vote for their own team. The poll, which was announced Thursday afternoon, features three schools that received first-place votes in Albany, UMBC and reigning league champion Stony Brook.
The Great Danes, who reached the conference’s championship game for the ninth time in 11 years last season, received three first-place votes and 22 points to earn favorite status. Stony Brook (two first-place votes) and UMBC (one first-place vote) are tied for second with 20 points apiece. University of Hartford is fourth (13 points), followed by Binghamton University (10) and University of Vermont (5).
Yee-haw! 'Merica! East!
Once again, it's interesting to see the tiering that the coaches consciously adopted in the league for this upcoming season: Albany, Stony Brook, and UMBC are close and relatively interchangeable, which feels right given the issues surrounding those three teams; Hartford and Binghamton occupy the next tier, but that is attributable to the nature of voting -- the Bearcats took the totality of fifth-place votes, but a coach (or coaches) moved Hartford around the board; and Vermont is sulking in their Birkenstocks in the rear.
So, that's that. For more on the America East in 2013, check out this radical preview that was written on this Internet computing page.
What do you knuckleheads think? Like what the coaches did in the conference?