Marquette and High Point: What's Happening?

Have you listened to this week's QuintCast over on the four-letter network? If not, you should -- it's overflowing with new Division I lacrosse program goodness. Kessenich -- the keeper of the world's most glorious tie knot, hiding within it various treasures collected from throughout the globe -- talks with the head coaches at High Point, Boston University, Marquette and Furman. It's worth a listen, if only because it's a little weird to hear wired and perpetually demanding gym teachers speak so excitedly about their situations.

Despite the broad nature of the conversations, this made the melon in my skull pose a question: How do Division I's 2013 newcomers -- Marquette and High Point -- stack up against each other? The Golden Eagles currently sit at 2-5 on the season with a surprising victory over Air Force in Colorado; High Point holds a 3-8 record and has earned arguably the oddest victory of the season -- a 9-7 defeat of Towson in just their second effort at college lacrosse's highest level. Staring just at wins and losses doesn't get you very far, though, so I turned on the lacrosse computing machine and started digging through underlying performance metrics.

As it turns out, these teams are -- on a performance basis -- almost mirror images of each other, not unlike the similar records each team currently promotes. The teams have gone about their business differently, but at the end of the day, both Marquette and High Point stand shoulder-to-shoulder with each other relative to the rest of the country. It's actually kind of creepy how similar these teams are when looking at broad metrics: I'm not saying that the Golden Eagles and Panthers are the exact same team and that they've fooled all of college lacrosse into believing that they're different entities, but I've also not seen Marquette and High Point on the same field together during the 2013 season.

Here's the proof:

To-MAY-to, to-MAH-to. Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to. Bleeding-from-the-ears, Guy-Fieri's-existence.

So, how should this deadlock between the two schools be broken to determine which school is having the better season? Easy: Consider things that have nothing to do with college lacrosse and haphazardly pick a winner. The breakdown:

It's a tough call, but considering all the important factors in that table, I'm going with High Point because you can major in Best Week Ever. Congratulations, Panthers!