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Dude, do you like fun? Really? Me too!
Dude, do you like fun lacrosse teams? Really? Awesome! Me too!
We should totally hang out more often. We'd have a really fun time watching really fun lacrosse teams. What, you want to hang out, like, now? But which really fun lacrosse teams are we going to watch? No, we're not watching Wagner. No, I don't care that your best friend growing up went there. Wagner stinks, bro.
No, I'm not doing it. Dude, I think we need to re-think our hanging out status.
Anyway, I've written about the "Fun Factor" before. The methodology is basically a way to gauge whether a lacrosse game (or team) will be fun to watch. It's a pretty useful tool when faced with the crisis of decision: You can watch either a huge ACC or Ivy League throwdown, but you can't watch both at the same time. Which do you choose?
To come up with the factor, I utilize the following metrics:
- COMPETITIVENESS. I use a form of the pythagorean expectation to make a determination as to whether teams are evenly or unevenly matched (or, at the individual level, whether a team is expected to win a bunch of games or not). I don't want to watch a garbage blowout or teams that will take it on the chin unless I absolutely have to. I'm selfish like that.
- PACE. I'd rather not watch Notre Dame or Princeton play a 50-possession game. Sorry, homeboys; my grass growin' needs watchin' and I'd rather do that than sit around waiting for something to happen on the field.
- SHOOTING. I want to watch guys can the bean, mostly because I'm selfish (duh) and like scoring. So, I give some value to each team's offensive effective shooting percentage. If your team want to embarass a goalie each and every game, we're going to get along just fine.
So, that's what we're working with. I make no claim that this is an unbiased approach to "fun." It's completely biased, and I don't really care that it is. If you want to watch defensive struggles then you and I shouldn't even consider being friends on something as detached as Facebook. For realies.
Here's the top-10 teams in terms of "fun." If a value is over five, that's a "fun" team. If a value is seven or above, you're working with a pretty high concentration of "fun." Around eight or nine? That's industrial-grade "fun," son.
TEAM | FUN FACTOR | RANK |
Duke | 9.0140 | 1 |
Virginia | 7.9630 | 2 |
Yale | 7.5871 | 3 |
Army | 7.2036 | 4 |
Cornell | 7.0773 | 5 |
Denver | 6.8391 | 6 |
Maryland | 6.0719 | 7 |
Hopkins | 5.9928 | 8 |
Ohio State | 5.9588 | 9 |
Hofstra | 5.7368 | 10 |
And, because the world needs ditch-diggers, too, here are the top-10 teams to avoid like the plague because their level of fun is somewhere around "Grandma died and you have to carry the casket":
TEAM | FUN FACTOR | RANK |
Hobart | 0.8460 | 52 |
Manhattan | 0.7712 | 53 |
Canisius | 0.4652 | 54 |
Providence | 0.3389 | 55 |
VMI | 0.1678 | 56 |
Presbyterian | 0.1476 | 57 |
Wagner | 0.1185 | 58 |
Holy Cross | 0.0606 | 59 |
St. Joseph's | 0.0544 | 60 |
Mercer | 0.0341 | 61 |
Alright, clowns. You've seen my top-10 "fun" teams. Who are yours? (If you say "Wagner," I'm banning your I.P.)