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Going into this past weekend, there were three teams left in Division I men's lacrosse that had yet to register a victory of any kind: Holy Cross, St. Joseph's, and Wagner.
Don't bother to check a scoreboard. They all lost. Again.
The Seahawks were the most unimpressive of the bunch on the weekend, losing by 14 (!) to Sacred Heart (!!). Sure, the Crusaders and Hawks were bad (each lost by seven), but at least their competition was pretty good (Bucknell and Massachusetts, respectively). So, Wagner wins "Worst of the Week of the Year of the Worst" with its winless compatriots -- the tired, the poor, the summarily beaten -- lining up just behind them.
At this point, it's a pretty safe assumption that both Wagner and St. Joseph's are going to end the year without victory beers. Holy Cross should still grab a victory against Mercer in two weeks. Rather than run down potential victories remaining on the clubs' schedule like we have the last two weeks, let's try and diagnose some of the symptoms of each team's ineptitude and provide a prescription.
HOLY CROSS
Symptom: Shootin' blanks.
Prescription: Schedule worse opposing defenses. Holy Cross' offensive effective shooting percentage is the worst in the country at 17.93%. That stinks something fierce. What isn't helping is that the Crusaders have played the ninth most-difficult schedule in the country in terms of opposing defenses faced.
When you don't have anyone that can bury the bean, you're not going to fair too well against teams that don't let anyone score anyway. This, in and of itself, is why Holy Cross is dead last in adjusted offensive efficiency (16.76). Fun fact: Cornell, from an efficiency perspective, will just about score more in a half than Holy Cross will score in a game. Exciting!
ST. JOSEPH'S
Symptom: Ungratefulness.
Prescription: Fix the man-up. Only one team -- Marist -- is playing with the extra attacker more than St. Joseph's this season. What have the Hawks done with this good fortune? Nothing. The team is second-to-last nationally in extra-man conversion rate. This probably has something to do with St. Joseph's not having a reasonable rifleman, but I think it's more to do with the fact that the Hawks love to look a gift horse in the mouth. Selfish brats.
WAGNER
Symptom: They're Wagner.
Prescription: Change the name on the uniforms. It feels like the only thing that could possibly help the squad.